By Leanne Goodall
If you haven’t received them already then your OU delivery is likely to be imminent. All week long I’ve been reading about excited and nervous students who have been receiving their module materials for the new academic year and I have just received mine: A207, From Enlightenment to Romanticism.
Excited or Nervous?
Among the students I have been in touch with I’ve noticed both types of emotions. I’d say that most are excited now. Are you? If I’m really honest then I’d have to say that I’m in the nervous category…again. I keep getting over all of these nerves and I keep telling everyone else that it’s OK and there is nothing to worry about yet I find myself feeling nervous all over again.
Why am I feeling nervous?
I’m not sure but I think it has something to do with understanding the effort that was required by me last year. I gave everything to my last module and it’s only now that I realise just how much I was trying to do at once. Eventually, over the summer months, I’ve wound down and remembered life without study and so now on the eve of the new October modules starting, I’m anxious about going back in.
It’s not the first time. I’ve been in this position before. I’ve had nerves about modules, nerves about tutorials and nerves about TMAs – every TMA to be clear. Luckily for me, I do know that it’s a case of taking just one little step at a time. At a time where everyone was opening their module materials for the first time, I was hiding mine away. I didn’t open it for three whole days, which surprised me. I opened them today, under duress. It was my husband who suggested that I open the box.
“Just open the box. You don’t have to look at the books, just undo the box and lift the lid”.
Of course, as soon as I had done that, I lifted out the contents and had a little glance. I checked that the contents were all correct and I chatted a little about which of the books looked like they might contain something familiar or not. I instantly felt a little better about it and it reminded me that this has always been the way of my degree. Be it one module at a time, one book, one paragraph or one sentence, I have always broken it down into baby steps and started making my way through.
So if you’re about to start a module (be that your first or last) and you’re feeling excited then enjoy it, embrace it and don’t forget to go one step at a time so that you don’t miss valuable parts. But if you’re a bit anxious or nervous like me, that’s OK too. One little step at a time will still get you there and every time you take that step, you’ll feel a little better.
Good luck everyone!
Leanne is half way through a BA (Hons) in History with the Open University and enjoys writing as a freelancer as well as on her blog. Find out more here. You can catch up on all of Leanne’s excellent contributions on STOU here.
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