Ultraversity Graduation 2008

I am as pleased as punch to have attended the graduation ceremony for the BA learning technology research degree run by Anglia Ruskin University. Not least because it is now three years old, and I was one of the team that helped devise the pathway and create the opportunity. However, it is more significant than that for me… this particular cohort included my brother who graduated with a first class honours degree.

The degree pathway allows you to stay in regular employment throughout the course. You actually study your work in a research sense and engage in a number of practical and innovative projects designed to help you get better at what you already do.

Codenamed ‘Ultraversity’ from inception, the degree was one of the first work based learning solutions in the UK that is designed to keep you in your job. Others may encourage you to study and seek promotion elsewhere after graduating, or take an extraordinarily long time to complete, but Ultraversity is designed to be completed in just three years, operates entirely online and doesn’t require any face to face sessions at all.

It might just be worth your while contacting Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford to find out more – it is a full quality British degree and remains one of the most innovative approaches to degree studies I have yet seen.

But it was the pride with which I watched my brother graduate that I shall remember, more than anything else. More than the speech about how good ARU is as a university, more than the procession of academics, more than the dank and cold weather…