Part-time study

I'm Leese and I'm studying speech and language therapy here at BCU and I'm about halfway through my course I'm in my third year and it's six all together for me. Part-time study really fits in around my other commitments, I'm a parent of three children and I commute in from Staffordshire so I have quite a long commute and it really helps work around so I'm still there at home three days a week for my kids for the school runs and all the other activities and things. The reason I chose a part-time degree was that a full-time degree was really going to stretch me personally from my brain levels returning back as a mature student and also and for my family. They're used to me, I've always worked around the children they're used to me being there and I wanted them to still feel like mum was there so the advantage for me being part-time was that I could have that. So at the moment it's Tuesday and Thursdays are mum's University days and the kids know that mum's out early in the morning back late they also know that if they come home and I'm on the computer with my headphones on the chances are I'm in an online meeting or I'm trying to get some work done and so they've learned that you know I will often get like little taps on the shoulder and a hug or something but it's still that they can see that I'm working and they've got used to that.

Studying part-time worked for my family being able to work with my be with my family at home and also have the chance to study a degree and but there's a mixture of us on our part-time course and a lot of us are parents, a lot of us do have children and have found that the part-time route works well and but then some of us are they've got jobs they're working part-time or they've got other commitments or they've got a long commute and again that's where the part times worked for them because it's been able for them to get that balance between their work and study and a commute as well and it's worked out a bit better for them that way.

Technically with my course it's two and a half days: two days on campus, half day independent study and my children are all at school so I try and use like a school day's worth to get sort of pre-work done post reading assignments that sort of thing and so for me I managed to fit in well within those school hours when I started this term it was that all of us together so the full-timers and the part-timers were studying together and so I think there's only a maximum of about 60 on our course, so sometimes we have whole lectures of all 60 other times we might be split into say three groups. At the moment the full-timers have gone on their placement and so just the part-timers are together so we've just had a class today and now there's just three part-timers so it's very it's actually really nice. I was a bit worried about what it would feel like just the three of us but it works really well and you can really interact a lot more. We still do everything that full-timers do so we both do the same amount of days it's just organized in a different way.

I think that's it's quite important to feel that you're part of the community, I think BCU is one of the more welcoming universities that I've visited and they do try hard to make you feel part of the community. I like the way that as part-time as we've spent a lot of time with the full-timers so I've got friends in the full-timers we've stayed in touch and that's probably that something that will carry on even though their path is shorter than ours or the kind of the support services are still there accessible to me even though I'm only in part-time on my course in particular there's like a well-being session that's run every couple of months that's open to all the different levels full-time as well as part-timers and you don't feel like you're treated any differently as a part-timer. Even before I came to BCU I had to ask for support from the Financial advice whilst I was working out like what do you get as a part-time finance forms of student loan and that sort of thing what things do I need to make sure that I've done?

I'm sure some people must think she's got three children why she's taking on the university course as well but actually it's the part-time bit that makes it feasible for me and that makes it work for my family as well as for me as a student.