It really happened and I really loved it.

You may know that I was invited to visit the OU campus this week. (If not then you can read about it in the blog post: An Invitation to the OU Campus ) I’ve now been and can say that I’m prouder than ever before to say that I am an OU student and part of the OU community. Campus was awesome, inspirational and kind of humbling. I’m so glad that I went and now I want to tell you all about it.

There’s going to be way too much to put into one blog post so I will do a mini series and break it all down. The campus deserves far more than for me to rush it into one little blog post so please bare with me.

I’ll try to give you a brief synopsis of what we did and how I felt – feelings are important here.

0730 – We were up and almost ready to leave. We had a long journey ahead of us and I was dreading getting lost in Milton Keynes – I had heard stories about everything looking the same!

0930 – We stopped VERY QUICKLY to grab a ‘healthy breakfast’ on the way. It’s important to set yourself up for a big day.

1015 – We realised that time was running out. Although we had kept moving most of the way, we did have fairly heavy traffic for most of our journey. Our sat nav was now estimating that we would arrive at 10.59 yet we were due to start at 11 – I nervously tweeted OU Students to apologise! This is what I got back, phew they were clearly a friendly bunch!

1110 – We arrived! (and we didn’t get lost at all). I was so excited that I made Steve stop in the middle of the road so that I could take pictures of the signs.

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Then as we drove into the car park we began to wonder where we needed to go / what we should do. Again, there was no need to worry. This sign was right in front of us!

1115 – We walked into a room and were greeted by the lovely smiley faces of Jess and Heather from the OU Students Association and the friendly David from Surviving The OU. There was tea, coffee and cake and I immediately knew that everything was going to be OK.

** Now my timings may be a bit off from here on. It was a busy and fun day and keeping track of time was not at the forefront of my mind **

1140 – It was raining hard outside and our trip to the Observatory had been cancelled. Inside, we were given the power to takeover the OU Students social media accounts! David took the reigns on Facebook while I took over Twitter and Instagram – it was a lot of fun!

1145 – We were taken to a very special place, a research lab (I’ve never been in one of those before) which I think was part of the physical science department but definitely dealt with some seriously cool space missions! The entrance to the lobby had a superb model of Rosetta.

The OU team had created some of the complex components which helped Rosetta to collect data. We got to see it all. Ben Dryer is a researcher there and kindly gave up some of his precious time to show us around and talk us through more of the things that he is working on. So when you next hear that one of these things has landed on a planet, comet or something else in space then I’m pretty sure that the OU will have been part of it. We got to see where all that happens and that is pretty cool! Ben was kind enough to let David and I grab a picture with him before we left.

1200 – We stopped for 5 minutes to catch up with our social media and tell the students what we had just done. Heather and Jess thought this was the perfect time to surprise us. David and I suddenly found ourselves on Periscope with an iPhone and a selfie stick. It was a kind of live TV channel which was filming us and tweeting links out so that students could watch! This was scary but so much fun. I’m not sure how professional we looked but it seemed to be a hit by the comments we were reading. Thank you to everyone who watched and sent us comments or hearts!

1215 – We arrived at the OU Library. This was a huge building which housed all of the module books and more. We spent some time sneaking about looking at potential course books and absolutely loved spotting the collection of old module materials which were sent to the very first OU students many moons ago. Did you know that biology students were sent a fish tank and asked to purchase a Siamese Fighting Fish? We had a real laugh with this and captured some of it live on Periscope too. One person watching the live footage happened to be in charge of the library. The next thing we knew she had come down and offered us a behind the scenes tour – thank you Selina!

1300 – We had a bit more of a tour around the grounds. We saw different buildings for different purposes, we saw the lovely grounds and flower beds (all kept to a very high standard). Dotted about were lots of sculptures which are generally by local artists. It’s a really nice touch to the feel of the place. Eventually we came across Walton Hall – where it all began. I’m going to blog more about this one another day as it deserves its own spot but here’s a snap that we tweeted out on the day:

1330 – Lunch! What a lovely café the OU staff have. There is so much choice in there and all of it was lovely stuff. I went straight to the healthy ‘clean eating’ section and was really impressed with the selection of brown rice pots, fresh salads and vegetables and smoothie cups with the fresh ingredients in ready to be blended for you. It was rather impressive but the array of soups, fresh sandwiches, homemade bread and cooked food was all too tempting! We were all treated to lunch and had more time to catch up on general chatter about the OU and our social media ‘student takeover’.

1400 – We asked to do more live streaming on Periscope. I wanted David to talk about his graduation in the hope of inspiring other students. Jess said that if we wanted to do that then we could pop round to the Legacy Garden, somewhere that I don’t think was on the original plan. This place was beautiful and again I want to give it its own blog post. Keep your eyes peeled, it’s a special place and I’m glad that we got to go there.

1500 – We walked back from the Legacy Garden as the sun shined and I really realised how beautiful campus is. It’s such a lovely place!

We were then invited into the OUSA office and greeted with more tea and cake. These guys know how to treat their guests! There was a really happy and relaxed feel in the office and I could tell that it was a great place to work. After a bit more tweeting to the students and taking pictures we sat in a cosy room to chat about future projects that are going on. Will also did a bit of recording and were given goodie bags from OUSA! It was in this room that I really understood that the OU Students Association is there FOR STUDENTS. Our opinions and ideas mattered and the staff there really wanted to do a great job for all of us. Again this is a subject that I’d love to blog more about so I’ll save it for now.

1640 – It was time to leave. I didn’t want to leave. I could’ve chatted for hours more yet and I knew that once I went it may be a very long time before I ever went back. In many ways the day had been a total whirlwind with so much to see, do and take in yet I didn’t want it to end. It was time to begin the long journey home and start digesting a very special day.

Thank you OU Students (Heather and Jess especially) for inviting us and making us feel so welcome.

That’s not the end, I have so much more that I want to say and indeed I plan to do so. More blog posts on this are coming soon. If you have something specific that you’d like to ask me about the day then I’d love to know. Please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer.