Admission to University: Narratives of Finnish Open University Students

This paper, which studies the phenomenon of the path to becoming a university degree student through the Open University gateway in Finland, focuses on the stories told by students who started their studies in the Open University and gained admission to the university as degree students. The research data include the narrative interviews of seventeen (17) students. The narrative analysis generated new interpretations and findings for three research questions: 1) how students describe their studying at the Open University, 2) what experiences the students have in their transition from Open University to degree studies, and 3) what are the typical traits or narratives of students taking the Open University gateway? The paper pays attention to those factors leading to motivation and success in university studies, and thus contributes to the discussion regarding the chances of and conditions for lifelong learning from an academic perspective.