The degree I have is great for nursing, but I felt that I needed to be challenged because I spent all my time with my son. I fill my time with things for my son, so this is where I get to do things for myself … my son has so many needs it was easy to lose myself in his needs. That’s why I started studying at The Open University, because I felt I was beginning to lose my sense of identity. I felt that I was so involved in caring for my son, that I no longer had time for me. I no longer had time to stretch myself, even just to do something for myself. The psychology degree really interests me because it is making me think about what makes people tick and, for me especially, it helps me to understand how my son thinks. I understand my son so much better and myself so much better. I suffer from clinical depression and the psychology course has been really cathartic. The thought I had when I first started was that it felt a bit selfish to be doing this, but that’s gone now, and I really found that this is purely for me – this course that I’m doing – and it’s really good. And one thing I enjoy is going to our local coffee shop with my books and having a hot chocolate and studying there for an hour. It gives me the energy then to cope with caring because I’ve managed to do something that’s totally away from that. I’ve developed skills through persevering through caring … As much as my son has developed social skills and such like I think I have learned skills as well, like coping skills and perseverence. Because I’ve become resilient, even when the course became hard and I felt like, ‘I can’t do it’, I actually managed to keep going with it.
I’m a person who can’t go out a lot. I don’t have the chance to attend colleges or universities and I don’t have a social life. I have lots of health problems. Sometimes I get depressed. So The Open University is the best thing for me. I like to be busy inside the house, trying to overcome the depression, to overcome the sadness and all the things that happened to me, so I work … I do housework in the morning as much as I can and look after Dad and my sister. And then after 8 o’clock I start working on my Open University assignments. My way of thinking is completely different than it was before. I feel I can think deeper, understand things easier. These things make me happy because I feel I’m improving myself. I’m improving my brain, doing something for my brain. I can do everything at home. I can use the computer, I can communicate with my tutors, I can explore things easily and things are very useful with the Open University. Very rewarding … for a person like me very rewarding.
Everyone needs a break from their emotions, you know just to kind of sit and have a laugh and a chat with someone, get it all out, you know.
SCQF level | SQA National Units, Courses and Group Awards | Higher education in the university sector | Higher education in the Scottish Colleges | Scottish Vocational Qualifications |
12 | Doctorates | |||
11 | Masters | SVQ 5 | ||
10 | Honours degree Graduate diploma | |||
9 | Ordinary degree Graduate certificate | |||
8 | Diploma in Higher Education | Higher National Diploma (HND) | SVQ 4 | |
7 | Advanced Higher | Higher National Certificate (HNC) | ||
6 | Higher | SVQ 3 | ||
5 | Intermediate 2 Credit Standard Grade | SVQ 2 |