Open University Top 10 Courses

[Guest The Pom Queen]

FLEXIBLE hours and the desire to shape young minds has made teaching the most sought after job for people making a New Year career change.

 

 

Statistics based on the preferences of 62,000 online university students has revealed the Bachelor of Education in both early childhood and primary education is the most popular degree among over-30s looking to escape their dead-end jobs.

 

 

Psychology, business and the Bachelor of Arts degree are also high on the list, data from Open Universities Australia shows.

 

 

Open Universities Australia CEO Paul Wappett said teaching - which pays an average of $67,600 a year - is becoming more popular.

 

 

"There are a number of people with family responsibilities who thought the flexibility of teaching would suit their family life," he said.

 

 

"More than anything else, a lot of people see the importance of education in the lives of children and want to be involved in that because of the rewards they get out a career in teaching."

 

 

Family commitments and not being able to afford to make a career change are the biggest barriers holding people back from getting their dream job, a PureProfile survey of 2000 Australians shows.

 

 

Less than a third of people said they love their job, meaning about 7.4 million of Australia's 11.5 million workers are either indifferent or unhappy in their current job.

 

 

NRL career transition coach and employment expert Jane Lowder said as our working lives get longer and the number of casual jobs increases, career changes become more frequent.

 

 

With an expected one million people to change jobs this year, Ms Lowder said for most people career goals are becoming more important than financial ones.

 

 

"A lot of people have stayed in a job that they really would've preferred not to but because there were other things on their priority list - like kids and a mortgage - they stuck it out," she said.

 

 

"As soon as they can, however, they are exiting stage left for a career that they have an interest in. I'm not surprised that people are heading towards the Bachelor of Education.

 

 

"The older we get and the more experience we have, the more we tend to gravitate toward jobs that we believe are meaningful.

 

 

"A lot of people in their 30s and 40s are doing an evaluation and thinking 'it's not the money that drives me now, it the personal as opposed to financial reward'."

 

 

Sydney mother-of-two Sylvia Taylor from West Pennant Hills was willing to take a 30 per cent pay cut from her job as a superannuation consultant to realise her dream of becoming a primary school teacher.

 

 

On Monday the 47-year-old will return to her job teaching Year 4 students at the Maronite College of the Holy Family in Parramatta, in NSW.

 

 

"I didn't want to have any regrets of not completing something even though I thought I may have been too old to start," she said.

 

 

"I'm lucky that I have a supportive family as well. I feel that I'm finally doing something that I am good at.

 

 

"Once you are doing a job that you actually want to do, your quality of life improves so much. It transforms your life.

 

 

"I feel that I'm setting a good example to my children in that learning is life long and that it's never too late to start."

 

 

Top 10 trending courses in 2014

 

 

Bachelor of Education (Primary)

 

 

Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood)

 

 

Bachelor of Behavioural Studies (Psychology)

 

 

Bachelor of Arts

 

 

Bachelor of Business

 

 

Bachelor of Accounting

 

 

Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art and Visual Culture)

 

 

Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice

 

 

Bachelor of Communication

 

 

Bachelor of Arts (Librarianship and Corporate Information Management)

 

 

Source: Open Universities Australia

[MARYROSE02]

I've been toying with the idea of doing a degree, but it was such hard work doing my BA at UNSW in the 80's and 90's, I've not been able to 'push' myself to do it again.

[abz123]

Comes back to the old expression, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

 

My father (a teacher) added to it "and those who can't do or can't teach become lecturers."

 

I think the long holidays are part of the attraction though.

[Petals]

Notice no science in the list, wonder why, maybe its because of calculators being used in schools and not learning the basics of mathmatics. Sad, sad.

[VERYSTORMY]

Agree with Petals. Such a shame there is no science in the list.

[Eera]

I was just thinking that too. While I was doing my PhD I had a job with the University ringing up students asking where they went (in the UK the government required each university to keep tabs on the students to see where they end up, for each % under 80 that they can't account for, government funding was cut. Don't know if they still do it, but if you get a "first destination" or "graduate" survey, fill the thing in and return it).

 

Anyway, graduates of the courses we loathed calling, and put off as much as we could, were invariably arts. I remember getting abuse from the mother of a graduate in fine art who couldn't get a job, same with things like criminology and psychology; invariably diatribes against the University would ensue as the poor dears suddenly found themselves not being professional criminologists or something.

 

From memory the best performing courses in terms of relevant employment were things like electronic engineering.

[Paul1Perth]

I was just thinking that too. While I was doing my PhD I had a job with the University ringing up students asking where they went (in the UK the government required each university to keep tabs on the students to see where they end up, for each % under 80 that they can't account for, government funding was cut. Don't know if they still do it, but if you get a "first destination" or "graduate" survey, fill the thing in and return it).

 

Anyway, graduates of the courses we loathed calling, and put off as much as we could, were invariably arts. I remember getting abuse from the mother of a graduate in fine art who couldn't get a job, same with things like criminology and psychology; invariably diatribes against the University would ensue as the poor dears suddenly found themselves not being professional criminologists or something.

 

From memory the best performing courses in terms of relevant employment were things like electronic engineering.

 

I did a Systems Engineering degree. Covered Electronics design, systems integration, programming. We started with 40 in the class in the first year. Second year we were down to 20, 15 failed and went on to other courses 5 just quit and did other courses 'cos they said it was "too hard". I shared a house with other 4 other guys. 2 accountants, one ecnomist and one law. I was the only one who had to go into uni every day. The guy doing law used to go in to catch up on the notes about every other week. The guys doing accountancy and economics used to go in maybe bits of the day for 3 days.

 

We used to go out every Tuesday to the students night with cheap drinks at one of the nightclubs. Good night it was but I had to go in for a software lecture every Wednesday morning, knowing that if I missed it I would really struggle to catch up. The other guys just had the opinion that I was nuts going in.

[Eera]

Did you find the accountants freaky neat? I shared a house with an accountancy student and his course folders were the neatest things I had ever seen. Half my notes were lost mid way through the semester.

 

My work desk is pretty much the same state.

[Paul1Perth]

Did you find the accountants freaky neat? I shared a house with an accountancy student and his course folders were the neatest things I had ever seen. Half my notes were lost mid way through the semester.

 

My work desk is pretty much the same state.

 

No, unfortunately not, we were all guys. There were some female art students living 3 doors down who we got friendly with. Their house was tidy and clean, nice bedspreads, hoovered the place, kitchen was clean.

 

Our place was a tip. 3 of the guys were spending 10 quid a day on dope, it was really easy to get in Sparkhill, the whole house stunk of it. We used to just have a slow cooker on the front room floor, constantly on. Just used to add stuff to it when it was getting a bit low. Throw a chopped up chicken in there in the morning with a few veggies and a bit of curry powder or something, always tasted great when we got in from the pub about 11. The top it up with a tin of beans and some other meat before going to bed. It never got washed I reckon it used to add to the flavour:wink:. I'm surprised none of us got sick.

 

My kitchen was mostly used for doing hot knives over the stove. My girlfriend came down one weekend and cleaned the kitchen for us, it lasted about 3 days and it was back to normal. Not because of me I might add, the 3 dopies were all pigs. Me and the economist played in the Uni squash team so we used to go for a game every night and then spend the rest of the evening in the pub, we just didn't want to go back and sit in a dope smoke smelling pit.

 

Funny, the druggies were all from well to do families from down South. I guess that's why they could afford the 10 quid a day and have nice clothes, they were certainly spending a lot more than their grant. Me and the economist were from working class backgrounds me from Derbyshire him from Manchester and somehow managed to get through on the grant.

 

We used to go out to social events with the other 3 guys sometimes and they would also spend heaps on booze. Pretty good though in that they thought we were poor and would buy us a couple of pints and give us some of whatever they were taking. We never bought any ourselves.:cool:

 

I couldn't wait to finish Uni and get out of Sparkhill and Birmingham. Hated the place, didn't even go back for the graduation ceremony, just got them to send the certificate through the post. My parents were a bit disappointed.