to be irritated by being asked by my FIL

[LadyGlencoraPalliser]

whether my OU degree will count the same as one from a real university.
It is a real university FFS.
Am tired of patiently explaining this to patronising twunts who clearly do not believe that the OU is not some sort of dodgy degrees by post option.

It's too broad brush just to look at things institutionally. If you are doing at an Arts degree, go to Oxbridge or one of the high up Russell Group ones, such as London, and that will serve you well.

For Sciences, it depends exactly what your interests are but again, anything in the Russell Group will be highly regarded. The Oxbridge premium does not necessarily apply here - places like Imperial and UCL are extremely high status as well.

If you are doing something 'applied' and highly career orientated like Engineering, Medicine, Education, Criminology etc etc you need to ask some very pointed questions about where their graduates typically go on to. For example lots of Cambridge graduates leave Engineering for general management. Employers of specialised graduates like these are very clued up indeed about the relative merits of different courses and universities so you need to do careful homework.

The devil is in the detail.

I guess the thing is Hulababy that he asked in a patronising way. And I have explained before. And I have already got a degree from a prestigious university so am reasonably well-qualified to know what is what.
And anyway the freezing temperatures, total lack of edible food alcohol and conversation drove me into a frenzy of irritation that I was wasting my precious Christmas break on having this pointless discussion in the first place.
So OK, IWBU, but there were extenuating circumstances surely?

Anyone who spends 3 days under the same roof as their MIL and FIL should be awarded a golden badge of reasonableness.

Of course OU is a real university. and even if it wasn't and you were at the University of Mickey Mouse, there is no need for him to make remarks.

Best not to be drawn into it though.

Sounds grim LGP. Staying with my father in law is also painful, but this year he said he was too frail to cope with a two hour drive to stay at SIL, where we were going to stay during a short trip over from Canada. dh was very upset (esp. given that it was a +10 hour plane trip for us, costing $5k, so a very big deal) and we decided we'd stay out here. Some people are just not good hosts I think.