Hi - I did do one of these courses last year... positives were the dicipline of working to schedules and timed modules, but able to do the work at any time of the day - or night - during that process. The course was well structured and printed material very helpful... well linked in with the online facilities.

Negatives were the fact that most of the group seemed to drop out very early on... there wasn't very much feed back or interaction with others in the tutorial group although this was encouraged... that's not the fault of the course, but simply the luck of the draw as to the comittment of those on it and, at the end of the day, it's up to the individual.

Linking to a tutor was a bit tricky.

On the whole, I think this 3 months was a great kick start with some useful information thrown in. It made me think in a few different ways and got me started ... but really, it was an affirmation of what I wanted to do and if you want to write, just write ... read as much great literature as you can, research the areas you want to explore and enjoy the process.

If you want one to one mentoring, this isn't really the way to go.

I'm really puzzled by your post, Sarah, since it sounds as if you're talking about a different course altogether! I've done an OCA course, and while it was about 4 years ago I read their recent brochure and it didn't sound as if the method of working had changed.

You do get an individual tutor who gives one-to-one tuition by letter/email on assignments you send in. We were told we could be put in touch with other students if others were interested, but there was no online component, and interaction with other students was not actually part of the course. Could you clarify?

Deb

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You're not talking about an Open University writing course, are you?

Oh I'm sorry - I wasn't clear at all - the course I did was all online, and with the OU - apologies for the confusion. The course was also called Start Writing. I think it cost about £350.