Time taken to do the OCA degree

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Belatedly, this table shows the total time taken to do the OCA Painting degree: 5 years and 8 months from receiving the first course to finishing the last one, excluding assessment. I saved almost two years by doing two courses concurrently in level 1 and level 2. The letter with the final result arrived in the post on April 12, 2011, exactly six years to the day after starting.

Related posts: 

http://mary-adam.blogspot.com/2009/09/time-taken-to-do-oca-courses.html
http://mary-adam.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-figures-stats.html
http://mary-adam.blogspot.com/2010/12/landmark.html

Time taken to do OCA courses

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The table shows how long it took to do the OCA courses that I've been busy with for the last few years. The start date is when I received the course materials and the end date is when I sent the last assignment to my tutor. The time taken to select, mount and pack work for the final assessment in each course is not included, but it took about a month of intensive work for each course.

I did two courses at a time most of the way through and at one point I was doing three (June-August 2006). I can't predict yet how long the current course will take, it will be at least another six to eight months.

The whole BA Honours degree requires seven courses. It's also possible to exit with an ordinary BA after doing one level 3 course. This is where I am now. I've finished and passed Painting 3 YOE and could claim the ordinary BA, and I've seriously considered that. The main reason I've decided to continue is that I'm learning so much with the Advanced course.

Note: there were a couple of errors in the first table, these are corrected in the present version.

 P.S.: See also: Time taken to do the OCA degree 

Endings and beginnings

Ghost print of a monoprint, letter-size paper, oil-based inks

Last night I finished essay No. 2 of 2 for this course, on "Illusion and paint handling". It feels great to have it out of the way. I've been researching it for months and writing it for weeks, including paring it down to fit into the word count. In these painting courses I'm better able to predict when an essay will be done than a painting. Does this mean I'm in the wrong field? I still have a lot of logbook stuff to put into a coherent form but the essentials are in the notebook. So, nose to the grindstone, the end of this tunnel is in sight. And I'm so looking forward to getting onto the advanced painting course, which I've already signed up for and which is really exciting, and also the printmaking course which I've also signed up for and which is even more exciting. Last week I sneaked in a couple of rank beginner monoprints and was transported. Such possibilities! 

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