Phoenix

Apr 27, 2021

Only study with Open Colleges if you want to become depressed.

The Pro's - Assessors/tutors seem nice. - Nice Layout to the website. The Cons - So much information is incorrect or out of date, with much of the information at least 5 years old. - Many of the external links, including extra-curricular material they tell you to read, no longer work - Some extra curricular material they ask you to read does not seem appropriate to this level of course, but more suitable to a degree (that is a personal view). - Many grammatical and spelling errors throughout the course, including assignments, which are also worded poorly and can be hard to understand. Some assignment questions do not seem appropriate to the case study in question which makes answering them very confusing. - The way the learning material is laid out does not flow and is confusing to follow along with. - There is no proper forum in which to touch base with other students, which I was told there was when I signed up. - Their admin team is poor. Multiple mistakes throughout my time with them including: telling me my course was ending a year before it should have due to them listing me as doing a different course; I fell very ill during my course and they made me go back to my doctor repeatedly because they were not happy with the doctors certificate - in the end my doctor had to call them to sort it out! and; I was also repeatedly told I could not extend my course when I in fact could which caused me intense mental anguish, as trying to fix their errors is incredibly difficult. - Due to Covid limitations I've been having difficulty securing a work placement for the past year (I'm in Melbourne) and getting Open Colleges to help is really hard, they just throw barriers at you. They need you to provide proof of the places you have approached for work placement before they will help you, but its hard to provide proof when everything has been done over the phone! Basically, if you can't get a work placement for yourself you fail. A couple of potential work placements I contacted seemed to reject me after I told them I was studying with Open Colleges, and I don't understand why. I've almost ran out of extensions and have been told I can't apply for anymore. - When I signed up I was told it was virtually impossible to fail this course and that they would do everything they could to help you. That is not true. - This course has caused me to become incredibly depressed, which is insane as I did this course to HELP people with mental health issues (Mental Health Cert 4) - I tried to give them 2 stars but I just can't. The pretty website and nice assessors just arn't enough, sorry.