I’m a full time History and Art History student at The Open University (OU). Today I wanted to talk about my experience of studying A111: Discovering the Arts and Humanities. This is the first module that most students in the Humanities stream of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) will find themselves taking.

As with any organisation, the OU has many acronyms. I’ll try to write them out when I first use them, but drop me a comment if anything is unclear! I’m also happy to answer any questions which you have.

The OU provides useful info on what to expect on each module of a degree path here.

Featured Image: Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

A bit of history…

I left school when I was 16 and worked in (and studied) accountancy for many years. I found myself in a role managing risk and compliance on international healthcare projects for a charity a few years back. After funding got cut from one of our key projects, I found myself working part time. I was bored and ready for a new challenge.

I don’t regret not going to university when I was younger – I wasn’t really in the right place to focus on studies and know what I wanted. Having said that, uni had begun to feel like an itch that I wanted to scratch.The OU’s flexible approach to part time study seemed like a great fit as I was still working at the time. You can choose to study up to 120 credits in a year, which adds up to one ‘level’ of study. Most modules are 60 credits, but some are 30 credits. This means you can study for a bachelors in 3 years, as you would at a brick university, or you can take longer if you need to – the time limit is 16 years.

I began looking at courses which sounded interesting, slowly narrowing them down to Arts and Humanities, and finally settled on History and Art History. Another nice thing about the Open University is that there aren’t any educational entry requirements, so I didn’t need to worry about whether my C grade History GCSE was going to cut the mustard. Phew!

How OU study works

Study takes place via books and an online learning environment. I found the online study planner, which shows you what to study each week clear. I’ll click around and explore, looking for information – not everyone has the same approach, so some people find it harder to navigate. There are regular study skills exercises to help you learn things like developing your academic writing style and how to reference correctly.

Alongside solo study, there are group tutorials in the run up to each assignment – these are usually online but last year were sometimes in the form of a ‘day school’, where you go to a regional hub for a day of lectures about all of the TMA options. They seem to have changed the format of these day schools this year, and they are much less accessible. None of these tutorials are compulsory, but they are useful, either for direct support on an upcoming TMA, or for learning more around the subject. They’re never as specific to the subject of the TMA as I expect.

You get graded based on the following. These differ for each module, but you can see how the modules are graded before signing up for them:

• TMA – assignments which from experience are due around every six weeks. For A111: Discovering the Arts and Humanities these have taken the form of essays and forum posts. We’ve had a choice of questions, each based on one or two of the units studied in that block. You receive a score and tutor feedback to help improve moving forwards.
• Interactive Computer Marked Assignments (iCMA) – an online multiple choice test. For A111: Discovering the Arts and Humanities there is one, and you can retake this as many times as you need.
• EMA or eTMA – end of year assignments which are marked by your tutor and one other tutor. I’ve done one of each – they’ve been a more intense version of a TMA, but I approached them in the same way. For an EMA, you receive a short summary of feedback from the other tutor. Feedback on an eTMA is from your normal tutor, and is in the same level of detail as usual. For A111: Discovering the Arts and Humanities, it was an eTMA.
• Exams – these are taken remotely and appear to be open book exams. The OU appear to be phasing these out, and there are no exams on A111: Discovering the Arts and Humanities. I will report back after taking my exam on another module in a few months! You can download free past papers from the OU student shop.

In order to pass the module, you need an overall score of 40% (each TMA has a different weighting). Level One module scores with Open University do not count towards your final degree classification – you only need to pass.

What is A111: Discovering the Arts and Humanities?

The first module for a broad range of disciplines, it does what it says on the tin. Discovering the Arts and Humanities provides an introduction to Art History, Classical Studies, Creative Writing, English Literature, History, Music, Philosophy and Religious Studies. The module is designed to support you in discovering the subjects, and the next module you take will then focus on four of the disciplines.

My thoughts on some of the units studied

While I had gone into my degree planning to study History and Art History, I was looking forward to trying other disciplines and I was also open to changing my mind about where to focus in future years. As it turned out, I enjoyed History and Art History the most.

• Art History: The three Art History units were on Van Gogh, gothic revival architecture, and the art of Benin, and I chose to write TMAs on all three. The gothic revival was my favourite unit of the year. It was interesting to learn about key architects and their principles, as well as the work they produced. I’ve been comparatively disappointed with the architecture units of my level 2 Art History module (A226). Art of Benin was a joint Art History and History unit, and I found some of the study materials as well as the assignment for this one challenging. There was so much ground to cover – their production, their display in both Bini and European settings, how they were taken by the British. It was also my first attempt at writing an assignment about something I had a really strong opinion about without moving away from the question. I got my second highest score of the year on this assignment, which I was really pleased with.
• Classical Studies: I was surprised by how much I enjoyed these units. I mentioned in my Canterbury post that I struggle to engage with anything older than the Middle Ages. I particularly liked the Greek and Roman Sculpture week, because of the obvious Art History links – I would have chosen this for a TMA topic, but it was in the same block as my favourite assignment this year… Creative Writing!
• Creative Writing: There was only one Creative Writing unit this year, and it was incredibly useful in terms of explaining how to build stories and characters. I enjoyed the story I started while working on this unit so I decided to choose this for my TMA. I figured that I shouldn’t turn down the only opportunity I’ll get during my degree to have feedback on my fiction writing, and I was really happy with my score! I briefly considered changing my specialism, but while I enjoyed the writing, I didn’t enjoy analysing other texts.
• English Literature: I love to read, but it turns out I don’t love to read analytically! I chose to write a TMA on A Christmas Carol, but only because my other options were Philosophy and Music. The Island, a South African play about a prison performance of Antigone during Apartheid, interested me, but more from a historical perspective.
• History: The Tudors are my thing, so I really enjoyed learning about the reputations of Elizabeth I. I also really enjoyed the unit on Irish nationalism, but I decided I had too strong an opinion to produce a balanced TMA. It was nice that my early assumptions about what I wanted to continue studying were accurate.
• Music: As with the English Literature units, I’ve learnt that I enjoy listening to music, but not analysing it. I appreciated the section on Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, in the Mozart unit, and wish that he had been the main focus… Oh well, I’ll watch the film instead…
• Philosophy: Difficult – it’s a completely different way of thinking and writing, and I found it very hard to get to grips with. I just can’t get past the feeling that philosophical arguments oversimplify things too much, and must be missing some variables. Evidence that I can’t do philosophy… Having said that, I enjoyed the unit on Mary Wollstonecraft, who is a fascinating historical figure even outside of her philosophical work.
• Religious Studies: This is another discipline where I enjoyed the historical links. I wrote one of my first TMAs on Mary, the mother of Jesus, and it was really interesting to learn more about her from an Islamic perspective as well. I also enjoyed the unit on Christianity and its Material Culture, which linked nicely with my other module’s focus on the Reformation.

Pros and cons of studying A111: Discovering the Arts and Humanities with the Open University

Up for some study (Arts and Humanities or otherwise)?

So what do you think? Is this something you’d ever consider? Any questions you’d like me to answer?

I’ll be following this post up with some more study related content soon.