What's the course and why am I doing it?

The course is initially a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Networking with the Open University. This consists of 4 modules studied over two years and basically embeds the Cisco CCNP curriculum. After that I can do a dissertation in order to achieve an MSc in Advanced Networking.

I have just completed the Cisco CCNA Exploration course which I studied in an evening class at Coleg Llandrillo where I work as an IT tutor. I teach networking on a Foundation Degree in IT Support and on OCR course called Procomm so thought that the CCNA course would be a good way to formalise my previously self taught networking knowledge. Well, it certainly did that! It was a lot more detailed than I expected and gave me a lot more confidence in teaching the subject.

As I was nearing the end of the CCNA course, I started wondering "what next?".

 Several years ago, I had started a Masters Degree at Chester University but had not found it very satisfactory and withdrew after a few weeks. Leaving aside the quality of the teaching(...) another big issue was the travel time to get to classes.

I still had the idea of studying for a Masters in a Computing subject. My first degree is in European Business Administration which comes in remarkably useful but isn't a computing degree. I have gathered a few vendor certifications but nothing at HE level.

I did look at distance learning (to avoid the travel issues) but it always seemed very expensive. For some reason, the one provider that I had not considered was the Open University. I can't remember how I stumbled across them this time but it may have been while browsing for CCNP courses (the next stage after CCNA) which I would not have been looking for on the previous occasions.

Anyway, compared to other providers, the OU cost seemed quite reasonable and I decided to go for it. At this stage, I hadn't even considered approaching my employer for support which was a bit daft really... Anyway after having registered for the first module, I mentioned it to my line manager who immediately suggested that I talk to staff development. To cut a long story short (too late...) they were very helpful and able to provide financial support which is really pleasing.

So, I find myself at the start of a 3 year (minimum) journey towards an MSc. It's the first time since I completed my PGCE that I have studied a proper academic course with written assignments and, to be honest, it's a bit of a shock to the system! But more of that in another post...