Hi Rosa,
I'm happy to share my personal experience with you, hopefully it helps you in balancing your best options.

I have an HR Management marster degree and I've worked for over 3 years as a L&D project manager before moving abroad. My predominant experience is therefore planning training, evaluating and budgeting, however I never got a proper qualification recognizing my experience, so it was quite hard to find a good offer and to be visible enough by prospect employers, mainly because of the completly different L&D perception I come from. Since I had to pay the bills and survive, to put it this way, far from my home country, I accepted a completly different job, which I'm still working on.

In the meantime, I've saved enough budget to get a proper course and develop uptodate skills (I've worked as an L&D with no guidance whatsoever and my plans were 100% successful and approved). As I was looking for a self starting and flexible solution, I opted for an online course, and I chose Avado after reviewing their partnership in CIPD. I've started back in March and so far so good: I can access their systems on my phone on the bus when I'm back home from work, I can do my researches and build my knowledge source. My peers are so supportive: we have a Whatsapp group of our own where we share our thoughts, knowledge and concerns as well. I won't hide you that this is a huge commitment and some people feel unconfortable in self starting. Time management is definetively the key here, especially if you come from traditional learning or whether your last academic experience is since long time. You'll be given assessments with deadlines to meet, so you'll want to make sure that your work is in a good standing and ready to submit a few days earlier, so you can have time to have a final review beforehand. It is like University: you have a program, an assessment for each unit, and lessons - live or offline, up to you - all of them are planned in advance.

Distance learning requires a bit of open mindfullness and flexibility, in my modest opinion. If you believe that you can learn and draw on your own researches relativelly on your own, distance learning is your thing. Should you prefer more tailored formal guidance on your learning progession, I would probably suggest considering a traditional training provider instead.

Again, this is just an opinion of mine. Feel free to evaluate your best options for your own convenience. I'm happy to help with anything else if you need.

Take care,

Eloise

Welcome to the Community, Rosa... and of course you too, Eloise.

Hi Rosa
Give me a call and I will run through the best qualification for you and how we offer the programme. You can find me on LinkedIn

In reply to Eloise:

Thank you Eloise. That's really insightful. I would prefer a tailored more formal approach to learning but I don't live in an area that provides too much of that so I'm keeping my options open as to what is going to fit in with my home life best.

I hope the studying continues to go well for you.

Rosa

In reply to Steve Bridger:

Thanks Steve.

In reply to Maureen Scholefield:

Thank you for getting in touch Maureen. I have messaged you on linked In.

Hi Rosa,

Since 2000 I have done many Open University modules for my own professional development, then when they became too expensive for this I started with the OpenLearn and FutureLearn MOOC's - which I'd thoroughly recommend (both being overseen by the OU).

I left school with a handful of O-levels, and didn't really touch learning again (apart from learning through work) until I went to university when I was 38 ... and I loved every single moment of it. I've now got an MBA on top of my BA(Hons) and have just signed up for the Level 5 CIPD certificate. You're never to old - or baby-brain-dead - to start learning :)

I would strongly suggest that first you look at the OpenLearn and FutureLearn courses, some of them are only a few hours long but they will give you a free taste of the experience of online learning. I have to admit that opening either of them is, for me, like opening a box of chocolates - which do I go for first (my favourite to date was the 'Discover Dentistry' from FutureLearn).

Whatever you do, the single most important piece of advice I'd give you is to make yourself do 10mins work ever single day, no if's and but's, just do it. At the end of the 10mins you can stop with a clear conscience, but you'll find that most of the time having started you get into it and want to carry on. If you don't do this it's so easy to think 'I'll catch up tomorrow', then before you know it you're two weeks behind and it's very difficult then to catch up.

Good luck!

In reply to Teresa:

Hi Teresa,

Thank you for coming back to me. Your advice is very useful indeed. Plus I admire your gusto for learning! I wish I felt to excited about it! However, I'm hoping that once I've booked something and have made a start, that I too will feel the same, as I loved school when i was there. I appreciate that things have changed alot since then however! I still need to decide on a provider but I definitely think I'm aiming at the right level of study now, which is something!

Thank you again.

Rosa