Students
A diverse range of students from all walks of life are attracted to the OU; for most modules there are no entry requirements other than the ability to study at an appropriate level, though most postgraduate modules require evidence of previous study or equivalent life experience. This fundamental open admissions policy makes undergraduate university study accessible to all.
In the 2009–10 academic year over 70% of students were in full-time or part-time employment, often working towards a first (or additional) degree or qualification to progress or change their career. Over 50,000 students are being sponsored by their employer (three out of four FTSE 100 companies have sponsored staff to take OU courses). The University is also popular with those who cannot physically attend a traditional (on-campus) university study course because they have health limitations, are working or resident overseas, in prison, serving in the armed forces, caring for family members, or are otherwise unable to attend or commit to traditional full-time or on-campus university study. Students are represented by the University's students' union, known as the Open University Students Association, usually abbreviated to OUSA.
In the 2009–2010 academic year, there were 253,075 enrolled students, plus an additional 2,273 customers who bought course materials but did not enrol on a course to receive academic credits. The majority of students in the 2009–10 academic year were aged between 25 and 44 years old, with the median age of new undergraduates being 31. Most students were from England (166,936), while 15,744 were from Scotland, 8,443 from Wales, 4,225 from Northern Ireland, and 12,127 from elsewhere in the European Union, plus others elsewhere. 61% of undergraduates were female, with even numbers among those taking postgraduate modules.
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Famous quotes containing the word students:
“We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Separatism of any kind promotes marginalization of those unwilling to grapple with the whole body of knowledge and creative works available to others. This is true of black students who do not want to read works by white writers, of female students of any race who do not want to read books by men, and of white students who only want to read works by white writers.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)
“It is, all in all, a historic error to believe that the master makes the school; the students make it!”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)