Oh, there you are.

I was wondering when you would turn to this page. The fact that you have read this far would suggest that you are, at the very least, interested in doing something constructive with your time while in prison. To be honest, and how many of us have been in the past, this is the sole reason that I looked at the possibilities of studying with The Open University (OU) back in 2014. I left school with a few qualifications, worked in various jobs, then everything went wrong and I found myself looking at a lengthy prison sentence. But enough of that!

The OU opened up new horizons. I had always liked reading and when I first looked through the OU prospectus for study in secure environments, I was taken by the Humanities courses (that's the academic name for the study of literature, philosophy and the arts). The modules looked varied, interesting and something that I believed I would enjoy. The key word here is ‘enjoy’. It's no use starting on a course that you think might be OK only to find that by your second TMA (tutor-marked assignment) – it's not only the Prison Service that exists in acronyms! – you are not enjoying the challenge. You already know about challenges after all. Prison is a challenge, and if you want to make constructive use of your time, read on.

I chose a module which I thought would give me a good introduction into the academic world, hoping that if everything went well, I could maybe move forward to further modules. There was no thought at that point that I would try to achieve a degree but as the modules came and went, I realised that I could really do this, and the added bonus was that the days and weeks seemed to be passing with alarming frequency.

I remember opening my first module material with a sense of apprehension, thinking that maybe I had been a bit too ambitious. There seemed, at first glance, to be an overwhelming amount of detail to take in, but on looking through the material, it became clear that this was part of the challenge of studying – organising TMA dates, making sure that I had an achievable study plan and that I had confidence in the support of the prison Education Department and the OU.