During a period of naiviety back in 2005 I attempted to sign up for Oxford's Distance Learning. I thought I'd quite simply pick the closest place to me and though Oxford may not have been the best how far off the top could they be I thought. How wrong I was to be so complacent! Oxford made everything so much harder and I'm just talking about applying for the course. When I went down to visit them they had the usual "we're Oxford and we're doing YOU a big favour" air about themselves. Upon phoning them to join the course I was asked whether I had sent in the application form which I didn't realise you had to do and when I finally got hold of one it had quite of number of pages
The information they wanted was excessive to say the least and coupled with other factors I gave up with them. I also looked inot AFT distance learning and they were also very polite, helpful, and genuinely had a course they wanted to teach rather impose themselves like Oxford. On each occassion the chaps over at Coventry's AFT were on the ball but they lacked just one thing a portable form of revision i.e. a CD-ROM (so that I can revise last night's study whilst at work the next day so the boss doesn't realise
). I recently contacted BGS and what I got was "we need an address and credit card number", wow
What a breath of fresh air, when I contacted them again with regards to some technical support regarding their CD-ROM they were on the case from the start and got me on my way.
So yes I can say I've spoken to some providers and though it still comes down to personal preference and also circumstance I feel Bristol reflect the way a growing number of students feel. By this I mean a more practical, less patronising and understanding of their students' needs type of approach. Aviation in the UK has an unrealistic tendency to parallel the military "money no object" attitude but in reality many students have real concerns regarding time, resource, money and the expectation to attain their qualifications.
Whoops! Looks like my rant went on a bit too long