I left school with no A Levels and very poor GCSEs, now, with three OU qualifications under my belt, I'm a new man!

A religiously-focused education in a closed community left David keen to expand his horizons. Now, with three OU qualifications under his belt, he's a new man. He shares his story.

"I left school with no A Levels and very poor GCSEs. I attended a fundamentalist evangelical Christian church school which offered the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. The education was religiously focused, not reality focused. There were only 60 students in the whole year and it was very much a closed community with no socialisation. We worked out of workbooks with a focus on memorisation and every person worked in their own little cubicle.

"Getting the teacher's attention was hard — if you needed help, you had flags that you had to put on your cubicle to signal whether you needed a teacher or a teaching assistant. We could only do certain subjects — for example, you couldn't do home economics if you were male and we couldn't study biology because it covered evolution. Plus, it wasn't a gay-friendly environment and it turned out I was gay.

"After school, I had no career and got involved in some youth training schemes. It was a bit like being an apprentice but there were no prospects.

"I ended up working for the NHS as a sexual health outreach worker from 1999-2001, working with the LGBQT community in Hertfordshire, and working with schools. In around 2000, I fell into software engineering, because we had a great website.

"In 2001, after six months with pneumonia, I was diagnosed with a genetic immune condition known as Common Variable Immune Deficiency. This means I don't produce antibodies so I have an infusion in hospital every three weeks and, at the time, I was fatigued by the chronic illness. This hindered my ability to work, but what I was able to do was work on building websites.

"In 2003, I decided I'd like to do some further study and signed up for a Software and Computing degree with the OU. I later switched to Life Sciences because I'd become interested in this due to my illness. When I did my Post-graduate Diploma in Science and Society, I chose this because I wanted to explore why some schools — like mine — were teaching non-science.

"I freelanced until 2005 when I got a full-time job, and I've been employed ever since. When I was working in the tech team at the British Library, I wanted to progress and formalise my knowledge so I signed up for an MSc in Tech Management with the OU. I paid for the first module but then managed to convince my employer how much my studies would benefit them, and they paid for the rest. At that time, I was spending a lot of time on trains each day — it would have been dead time but I studied.

"My upbringing wasn't ideal at all, but it did mean that when I joined the OU, I was already used to self-learning. I could do OU study from wherever I was which was ideal when I was stuck at home poorly initially and when I was working later. It fitted in with my life and the flexibility was absolutely vital. It meant I could dial the time spent studying up and down depending on my commitments.

"The open entry policy was also very important to me. I really wanted to do something that would give me more options in life, and going with the OU felt like a no brainer. So although I definitely wanted to study to open up more career opportunities, it was also because I felt so let down by my education that I wanted to prove to myself that it wasn't me who was the failure here. I was inspired partly by spite, too. I needed to prove to others that I could do it. I'm now — thanks to my prior OU studies — doing a PhD at Canterbury Christ Church University. So, if I were ever to go to a school reunion, I could say 'actually, it's Doctor David Crowe'.

"OU study has definitely benefited me. I look at problems and issues differently now to when I started. I see the bigger picture. The best thing about OU study is when you absolutely don't understand something, then you go through the process and then the penny drops — it's so satisfying! It's changed me as a person, I believe that learning does. It's meant I'm able to see the world on my own terms, which I wasn't able to before due to my upbringing. I can also talk confidently and competently on topics that I couldn't talk about before. Thanks to the OU, I've recreated myself in a way that's closer to who I want to be.

"The most challenging element of study was when I had a relationship breakdown while I was doing my dissertation. I couldn't progress with it, which is why it ended up being a Post-Graduate Diploma instead of a Masters. It was also hard when I first started studying as I was quite poorly and fatigued, but I could sit and read and do my assignments, so my studies gave me a real sense of achievement that I wasn't getting otherwise. It helped me out of a challenging situation.

"These days I'm still in software engineering. I also do some voluntary work on the Agile Methods Specialist Group of the British Computer Society, which is the professional body for people who work in IT. Now, I'm doing a PhD on agile ways of working.

"One day, I'd love to be a lecturer too — it's great having the OU lecturers as role models. They don't come with the answers, they come with the conversations.

"If you're thinking of signing up to study with the OU, I'd say to go for it, be enthusiastic and enjoy the opportunity to expand your horizons. But strap in and prepare for the challenges too! It won't be easy, but the pay offs are worth it."