Week 0 - a blast of reality.

Overall

After my craziness last week (150 points? What a great idea!) I had a heavy week in terms of work and other commitments and did far less that I planned. And (even more upsetting) I did no T306. I suck. Ah well.

M359

Still getting through Block one, although I'm a bit struggling a bit more than I would have expected with the theory. In the week, I did all of B1S2 and started B1S3, more of which I did today.

I found using pbwiki for my notes (even through it's not so much wiki as nice-centralised-place-with-wysisyg-editor) has been really handy, particularly as I move from machine to machine, and location to location. I'm probably overnoting a bit, but rather too much than too little

T306

Let's gloss over this, shall we?

This week I need to

• Finish M359 B3 and B4
  
• Start the TMA again.
  
• reread T214 last block
  
• Read the first bit of T306 - still really have to decide how I'm going to break up T306
  

This week I'd like to

• Move all my TMA appointments into my mac calendar
  

*shugging* very little real news here ....

Week -1 - a bit of preparation

Not a bad start, if I do say so myself.

Overall

Crazy as this may seem, I'm rethinking my original "90 points" theory, so long as I can do 150 this points and, yes siree, finish the degree. I've written to the OU to see whether I can do that. I know it seems mad, but I really believe that I'm a "as much as you give me" kind of girl - that I'll be as stress about 150 points as I was about 90.

Anyway, I have another few weeks - up to 23rd Jan to register. I'm sure I'll rethink it all again.

M359

The rest of my course materials arrived during the week and I was into them within the day. I spent a few hours reviewing them last week. Today I got a few hours studying in, even kept some notes going on pbwiki! Finished B1S1! Woohoo! and more exclamations! 

I'm still waiting for my calendar. I'm vaguely hoping to finish up to Block 1 this week. If not, I'd like to get ahead enough to be finished Blocks 1 and 2 by end of Feb.

T306

I did significantly less on T306 this week - read through the course notes and the project note again. But I'm hoping to get a bit more excited next week ...

This week I need to

• do M359 B1 S2-S3
  
• start T306 B1 - 10 pages
  
• take the T214 notes off my work laptop and match them up with my home laptop notes
• Reread the last block of T214

This week I'd like to

• do M359 B1 S4-S5
  
• start T306 B1 - another 10 pages
  

And so it begins...

This blog is the sister to my livejournal account - this is just to let me vent/think/understand my OU study process.

I'm also using it to track some of the blogs that I read on Blogger...

the story so far ...

I went to university for about 4 years fulltime (Engineering, followed by Theoretical Physics), but spent rather too much time partying, (passed 1st year Eng and 1st year TP, failed 2nd year TP and barely tried 2nd year TP the second time). Eventually real life intervened, and off I went into the real world. 

A few years later, I went back to college by evening to do Computer science. I passed 1st and 2nd year CS and started 3rd year, but between one thing and another, it all got away from me.

Third time lucky? Perhaps. I'm back at open university studying Computing and Systems. Due to my regular previous studies, I have an exemption for 90 points (360 needed for a degree). Last year (Sept 2007) I did the following

• T175 - 20 points - passed 
  
• M257 - 30 points - passed with distinction
  
• M253 - 10 points - passed
  
• T214 - 60 points - passed with distinction.
  

I learnt a few things - some of which shouldn't be too surprising

1. 120 points (the equivalent of a full-time degree) is too many to do alongside a fairly punishing fulltime job.
   
2. I breeze through the technical things, but struggle with the "softer skill" courses.
   
3. I need to work on my study timetable, so I don't always feel miles behind.
   
4. I need to prepare better for holidays, so I don't come back to a huge pile of work.
   
5. you can come back from a position of "no idea what's happening" to doing ok on a TMA (Tutor Marked Assignment).
   
6. I need to keep notes on both my coursework AND on my reading.
   
7. T214 was really difficult for me - I'm still shocked that I passed. My notes are ungood, and haven't exactly set me up well for T306
   

From January, I'm starting on another two courses

• M359 (Databases) (30 points)
  
• T306 (Systems complexity) (60 points)
  

After these, it's only 60 points to my shiny degree :)

Anyway, I'm kind of itching to get started, but at the same time, I'm dreading starting it all over again... 

This week I need to...

• sort out how I'm going to keep my notes for the two courses - will I use a similar mechanism on them both? For T306, I think I'm going to use (a) a blog for my learning journal and my project journal (b) mindmaps for my notes. I haven't decided about the database stuff ...
• put my OU schedule into Google calander - Done, for T306
  
• start to get my mind around the T306 material, which arrived last month - read the course guide and the project introduction, need to read a bit more 
  

This week I could also...

• review my T214 notes 
  
• sort out my T214 filing.
  
• update Google calander with other things I'm doing during the year

Woohoo.