Becoming a Mature Student

There are many reasons why adults choose to become mature students. For some it is a path to changing their career or to improve their promotion prospects, and for others it is for the pleasure of studying a subject they love.

In your teens, you may not have the self-motivation and drive to succeed with study or the ability to recognise the importance of long-term goals. Nor might you have been able to take advantage of the range of options now available, such as studying from home, in colleges or community centres, or even taking summer courses overseas. Your study can be full-time, part-time, occasional or online.

There are different levels of education. Vocational qualifications are applied to a specific career or industry sector and range from GCSEs to NVQs and Higher National Certificates and Diplomas. University degrees may be much less focused on employment skills.

There are also courses at art and agricultural colleges and more than 170 further education colleges.

To study at a particular university (as opposed to a further education college), you will need to satisfy its own ‘General University Requirement’; this means that in some cases you might need some existing qualifications, but even at universities many courses have no qualification requirement at all.

And even when some institutions have basic qualification standards, in many cases these can be waived when a mature student is equipped with life experience and work skills. If you have your heart set on a particular place of study but don’t have the basic qualifications, don’t give up and automatically think you are inelligible - make sure to ask if there can be a waiver because of your background.

Study as a mature student often brings lifestyle complications. You may not be confident that you will ‘fit in’ or have the necessary skills to study; you might have to juggle childcare arrangements, and fit your arrangements round deadlines for essays and other written work. And there could be financial concerns.

While most courses are free, there are possible sources of financial support for higher education through student loans, grants, tax credits and benefits. Your own Local Education Authority will make an assessment of your income and your household income to decide if you are eligible for financial help.

A good place to start finding out about further education is to visit the website of Learn Direct (http://www.learndirect-advice.co.uk/) which provides high quality learning for people with qualifications.

Most of its courses are available to internet users as it runs a network of more than 2,000 online learning centres in England , Wales and Northern Ireland. These offer courses of all types, including full time, part time, evening classes, weekend studies, and day release.

Find out more information about univeristy courses or take a look for a new job today.