The end is nigh people!
After 8 seemingly never ending months of tears, tantrums, excitement and overwhelming confusion DD101 is almost over. As you might have guessed by the fact that my procrastination has stretched to posting a blog update (not to mention cleaning the oven and chronologically ordering every bank statement from the last 7 years) I have an assignment due. Or to be specific I have my End of Module Assignment due on Monday. Oh dear.
It's actually the most interesting assignment of the whole module and I finished the reading for it in August but for some reason I just cant seem to get my head down and get it over with. I've actually managed to reasonably well on my other assignments so all I need to do is pass this and I've passed the course, the pass mark is relatively low its not a horrendously difficult essay but this actually seems to be working against me. I definitely work better under pressure, if something's due in 2 hours I could sit down and write the essay in one go but know I've got a few days left always seems to make me complacent.
This isn't helped by the fact that my student finance application for next year has finally been approved and my new module material should be arriving next week. I think now that I'm almost at the end I've already mentally started moving on to the next module. The fact that the next module looks like it's going to be an insanely huge leap in difficulty coupled with the move up to full time study this year makes it hard to keep focus. That being said there would be nothing more devastating than to work so hard and fall at the last hurdle so once this post (and my Facebook checking, forum reading and possibly another cup of tea) get out of the way it's definitely time to crack on and get this done.
Obviously my schedule being what it is the weekend I would have ideally used to write the essay is currently about to be taken up by the small matter of watching my daughter complete her first ever sponsored run for charity followed by a run of my own in the not-as-easy-as-it-looks Great North Run. I absolutely love running and this time last year was sat cramming pasta in and reading tips to try and knock a few seconds off each mile for a better time. Needless to say studying, working and trying to cram in a decent amount of overtime for my pre-Christmas paydays has meant running falling to one side followed by a swift drop off the end of a cliff. I literally haven't ran for over 2 months, to say I'm unprepared and terrified at this point would be an understatement!
Its been a slightly manic few months and although I've mostly enjoyed DD101 I'm at the point now where I absolutely cannot wait to see the back of it.
Bring on next month and W100: Introduction to Law.!
Thursday, 12 September 2013
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Common Sense v SFE: The Rematch
Firstly, I feel obliged to point out that yes, it is quite clearly TMA week. We are officially in the one week of the month where I literally need to scrub the floors/repaint the window sills/look for flights online/write a new blog post. Not to be immodest but my ability to procrastinate is, I feel, worthy of its own special award, a Procrastination FA(hons) with Distinction. At this rate it may possibly be my first and only (hons). In keeping with the blogging about blogging vortex for a minute I'd also like to point that after a very nervous email from me the lovely editors at OU Platform have decided to add this blog onto the list on their Blogs homepage which I'm genuinely chuffed and excited about. I feel like a real official person now. I'm on the grid.
Outside of OU work (and actual work) we've had a pretty terrible week all round in our house, lots of bad news and a pretty scary injury have made May my new least favourite month. At this point I'd be quite happy to crawl back into my quilt and wait until June (maybe even July), but sadly life goes on and while we've made time to stop and think about the what's happening the sad reality is that the mundane chores in life still need done. The washing up and the hovering don't care if you've had some bad news and the food shop doesn't care how stressed you are, life's minor inconveniences go on no matter what and unfortunately the dreaded Student Finance application is another one of those things that needs to be done whether its appropriate or not.
I think after last years trauma of being told my NI number was wrong (my disproportionate overtime tax payments would imply it wasn't) and the absolute hassle of having to send in a massive form and 2 separate lots of supporting evidence I was something dangerously close to excited when I realised that as a continuing student (scary thought), all I had to do was log on and apply. Simples.
Obviously me being me and SFE being well..... something I feel may be inappropriate for a blog it wasn't even nearly as clear as I thought it would be. After spending an hour earlier in the week clicking between the OU site and the Direct Gov site which had somehow locked me in a continuous loop of simply referring between in each other I eventually gave up and decided to give them a call on my day off today. A full 40 minutes later (about 25 of it on hold) an incredibly nice and helpful but fairly confused sounding guy on the phone had eventually managed to explain that full time OU courses aren't funded by a Full Time Tuition Fee Loan but that given the relatively low cost of OU study a Part Time Tuition Fee Loan would pay enough to cover 120 credits in a year. Now while I fully appreciate a fee loan is a fee loan and that it's the same money any way you dress it up there's something about this I feel vaguely offended by.
While I'm 100% sure SFE rules are not made up solely to offend people and that there is clearly some kind of rationale behind this the feeling I got from it is that even if you are studying at full time pace, doing 120 credits a year at a university level because you are doing the study at home you're somehow considered to not be working as hard. I completely understand this is not the reason, I understand the reasoning will have been based purely on financial statistics and that really, in the grand scheme of things, there are far bigger problems in the world but for some reason this has really bugged me.
I live in Newcastle, 8 months of the year we cannot move for students from 2 massive universities and while I'm sure there are a percentage of them who work incredibly hard towards achieving their goals a good 75% of them are there to get lashed and have 10% off Topshop. So quite frankly the fact that they are deemed to be somehow studying harder or more intensely than OU student absolutely infuriates me. From the OUSA Forums, Facebook groups and Platform groups I've spoke to some amazing people, people who both work and study full time, people who study full time despite serious debilitating illnesses and young people who study full time with OU because it fits in around their commitments to care for family members. I know that either way its the same money we all get but I just feel like for those people it would be a nice confirmation of their achievements if they could log on to the SFE website and see 'Full Time Loan' , that it would probably confirm what they already know: that we work at least as hard as brick uni students and we deserve at least the same recognition.
Rant aside I've finally got my application in so it's now a case of keeping my fingers crossed and hoping it all goes through smoothly this year. And with that out of my system I'm off to finally crack on with TMA 04. Or to have some wine. Either or.
Outside of OU work (and actual work) we've had a pretty terrible week all round in our house, lots of bad news and a pretty scary injury have made May my new least favourite month. At this point I'd be quite happy to crawl back into my quilt and wait until June (maybe even July), but sadly life goes on and while we've made time to stop and think about the what's happening the sad reality is that the mundane chores in life still need done. The washing up and the hovering don't care if you've had some bad news and the food shop doesn't care how stressed you are, life's minor inconveniences go on no matter what and unfortunately the dreaded Student Finance application is another one of those things that needs to be done whether its appropriate or not.
I think after last years trauma of being told my NI number was wrong (my disproportionate overtime tax payments would imply it wasn't) and the absolute hassle of having to send in a massive form and 2 separate lots of supporting evidence I was something dangerously close to excited when I realised that as a continuing student (scary thought), all I had to do was log on and apply. Simples.
Obviously me being me and SFE being well..... something I feel may be inappropriate for a blog it wasn't even nearly as clear as I thought it would be. After spending an hour earlier in the week clicking between the OU site and the Direct Gov site which had somehow locked me in a continuous loop of simply referring between in each other I eventually gave up and decided to give them a call on my day off today. A full 40 minutes later (about 25 of it on hold) an incredibly nice and helpful but fairly confused sounding guy on the phone had eventually managed to explain that full time OU courses aren't funded by a Full Time Tuition Fee Loan but that given the relatively low cost of OU study a Part Time Tuition Fee Loan would pay enough to cover 120 credits in a year. Now while I fully appreciate a fee loan is a fee loan and that it's the same money any way you dress it up there's something about this I feel vaguely offended by.
While I'm 100% sure SFE rules are not made up solely to offend people and that there is clearly some kind of rationale behind this the feeling I got from it is that even if you are studying at full time pace, doing 120 credits a year at a university level because you are doing the study at home you're somehow considered to not be working as hard. I completely understand this is not the reason, I understand the reasoning will have been based purely on financial statistics and that really, in the grand scheme of things, there are far bigger problems in the world but for some reason this has really bugged me.
I live in Newcastle, 8 months of the year we cannot move for students from 2 massive universities and while I'm sure there are a percentage of them who work incredibly hard towards achieving their goals a good 75% of them are there to get lashed and have 10% off Topshop. So quite frankly the fact that they are deemed to be somehow studying harder or more intensely than OU student absolutely infuriates me. From the OUSA Forums, Facebook groups and Platform groups I've spoke to some amazing people, people who both work and study full time, people who study full time despite serious debilitating illnesses and young people who study full time with OU because it fits in around their commitments to care for family members. I know that either way its the same money we all get but I just feel like for those people it would be a nice confirmation of their achievements if they could log on to the SFE website and see 'Full Time Loan' , that it would probably confirm what they already know: that we work at least as hard as brick uni students and we deserve at least the same recognition.
Rant aside I've finally got my application in so it's now a case of keeping my fingers crossed and hoping it all goes through smoothly this year. And with that out of my system I'm off to finally crack on with TMA 04. Or to have some wine. Either or.
Monday, 13 May 2013
Passing grades, pointless jobs and politics.
I've been thinking quite a lot at the minute about what will always be, in my head, the Butterfly Effect. And yes, Ashton Kutcher is wonderful in that film and, yes I cry like a little girl every time but I don't mean the amazing 2004 film I actually mean the theory behind it. That we're all just the summation of a million tiny choices, accidents and decisions made over the course of our lives that have somehow brought us to this point, and that any minor change to this would inevitably change the people we are and the lives we have. Pop culture theory at its best people.
But genuinely, I tend (as anyone who follows me on Twitter will confirm) to whinge on about life, about my boring job, lack of finances and general inability to just make the best of things. The more I think about it though the more I'm coming round to the idea that these things are firstly, very minor first world pains in the grand scheme of things, and secondly even ignoring point one these are things that shouldn't be whinged about. If every shitty choice, bad decision, poor judgement call and moment of laziness are what brought me here then they've all in effect also given me every good part too. Every minor victory when I get a good TMA result back, every afternoon off I can squish in with Little Miss, every night off staying up watching shit TV with the Mr are all experiences that don't exist without days wishing my life away in work and sitting drinking more cups of tea than I ever thought humanly possible and trying to write these damn essays.
I know I'm rambling but I think the point I'm trying to make is that we don't know when things are good if they've never been bad. Or as my thigh tattoo quite eloquently puts it: 'Smooth Seas make for Poor Sailors'. So I'm just going to suck it up, make the best of the present and get through it to hopefully make myself a better future.
ANYWAY now that that's over with on with the actual OU blogging. DD101 is coming on a treat, really enjoying the course book, it's a surprisingly interesting subject and I've so far managed to avoid a total crash and burn on the TMA's to date (*touch wood*). The only thing that's been bothering me was the decision to go part time at first. Although it has been a great way to get used to studying I'm really not keen on the idea of sitting around twiddling my thumbs from October to February when my first level 2 module was due to start. This got me thinking about the idea of changing courses. As I've mentioned before I'm currently studying towards my Politics, Philosophy, Economics BA which was expected to take around 6 years, when I decided that I really want to step it up to full time I started looking a which courses DD101 counts towards which could be studied as a full time course, this took me on a trip around pretty much every social sciences prospectus the OU does before eventually bringing me back full circle to Combined Social Sciences (Politics) BA. Thinking about it now it seems like the obvious choice and to be honest there are a maximum of 2 modules different so it is 100 % the sensible obvious choice and once the decision was made I realised that to be fair politics was the main subject that attracted me to P,P,E in the first place so you would assume this would be an easy decision. It wasn't. Not even a little bit.
I spent a full 10 days of my life obsessively scribbling out module start dates, course planners, career paths, studying any 'Post Grad Employment' stats I could find and generally having a bit of a nervous breakdown about the whole thing. I finally gave up last Thursday and decided that seen as I already have a job (awful or not), and I'm quite frankly studying 90% for my own peace of mind and interest I might as well go where my interest is and in the end it seemed the most sensible choice.
A bit of a let down after this whole scenario was my phone call to Learner Support which I felt was a major life changing moment which essentially involved a (polite and helpful) woman at OU umming and ahhing about whether I could go full time, whether DD101 would count towards the new course (it's the same module?) and eventually saying that someone would have to phone me back in a few days.
All in all not the momentous phone call I'd built it up to be but then again when something's built up that much it's never quite going to live up. The moral of the story is done believe your brains hype kids.
And on that note I'm off to sob into my TMA04 notes.
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
Plodding through with pointless panic.
First off, as you might have guessed by now from my hugely sporadic posting,
I am definitely not what can be classed as an 'organised' person who 'does what
they say they will'. Not even a little bit. With all the best intentions in the
world I, oh dear, completely forgot I'd even started a blog. Somewhere in that
confused, sickening muddle of a life I have between work, OU and trying to have
some semblance of a life outside of that I completely forgot I even had this
set up. There, I've said it, its out of the way, on with the blogging.
So we're now in week 7 of DD101 as I'm reliably informed by the module website which means 1 whole TMA/Essay has been written and submitted (hurrah) and therefore another one is due next week (boo). Overall I'm massively enjoying the course, the material is interesting, easy to read and engage with and helpfully I'm actually interested in the subject (always a good start). I found the first TMA not too bad to write, had it written early, submitted a few days before D-Day and then didn’t have too long sitting trying not to vomit while I was waiting for my results to come back. I know everyone who started in October, is further on in a different course or has in anyway glanced at the marking system for this course will realise how stupid this is seen as the whole thing only amounts to a whopping 5% of my overall grade for this module and probably couldn’t have any less bearing on my overall grade but, I'm a worrier, that and I absolutely hate failing at pretty much everything meant that I was probably far more concerned to get my result back than anyone ever needs to be.
Pointless panic aside my results came back, I ended up with a reasonably decent score and some constructive feedback from the tutor so all in all can’t complain.
One thing I can, and will, whinge about though is the insistence of my work rota on overlapping literally every tutorial and day school on the module. So far there have been 2 tutorials and a day’s school for this course both of which have fallen when I'm working (I've worked one Saturday this month and low and behold it was the Saturday the day school was scheduled for). Obviously this isn’t (as far as I’m aware) malicious on behalf of either my work or OU but it is incredably frustrating sitting watching PowerPoint presentations on your own. It's also weirdly disconcerting now being able to put a face to a name as far as tutors go, I have no idea why this is or what difference I think it would make, it just seems to be one of the many neurotic things that’s bothering me.
Digression over I'm now onto attempting to write TMA02 which is proving to be somewhat of a mental block for me. After 5, yes 5, unsuccessful attempts to write an essay plan I've moved on to just drafting paragraphs as I go and working off a very basic and probably wrongly formatted essay plan which seems to be going a little bit better. Although I'm here writing this so clearly procrastination has still taken over slightly. I think the skills of essay plans and narrowing down information into what is and isn’t needed to be included is hopefully something that will come with time? If not I guess there’s always the fulfilling job in a call centre I'm left with, lucky me.
On a much me genuinely happy note my parental 'Easter present' arrived last week in the form of an incredibly shiny, working laptop to attempt the disastrous essay on which is undeniably making the whole thing more appealing. Writing badly done essays is altogether more enjoyable on a new laptop where the space bar actually works, who’d have guessed?
So that’s it, as far as I can think, I'll try sticking a post it (literal new obsession) somewhere to remind me that this exists and to come back and update it soon. Mental breakdown not withstanding obviously.
So we're now in week 7 of DD101 as I'm reliably informed by the module website which means 1 whole TMA/Essay has been written and submitted (hurrah) and therefore another one is due next week (boo). Overall I'm massively enjoying the course, the material is interesting, easy to read and engage with and helpfully I'm actually interested in the subject (always a good start). I found the first TMA not too bad to write, had it written early, submitted a few days before D-Day and then didn’t have too long sitting trying not to vomit while I was waiting for my results to come back. I know everyone who started in October, is further on in a different course or has in anyway glanced at the marking system for this course will realise how stupid this is seen as the whole thing only amounts to a whopping 5% of my overall grade for this module and probably couldn’t have any less bearing on my overall grade but, I'm a worrier, that and I absolutely hate failing at pretty much everything meant that I was probably far more concerned to get my result back than anyone ever needs to be.
Pointless panic aside my results came back, I ended up with a reasonably decent score and some constructive feedback from the tutor so all in all can’t complain.
One thing I can, and will, whinge about though is the insistence of my work rota on overlapping literally every tutorial and day school on the module. So far there have been 2 tutorials and a day’s school for this course both of which have fallen when I'm working (I've worked one Saturday this month and low and behold it was the Saturday the day school was scheduled for). Obviously this isn’t (as far as I’m aware) malicious on behalf of either my work or OU but it is incredably frustrating sitting watching PowerPoint presentations on your own. It's also weirdly disconcerting now being able to put a face to a name as far as tutors go, I have no idea why this is or what difference I think it would make, it just seems to be one of the many neurotic things that’s bothering me.
Digression over I'm now onto attempting to write TMA02 which is proving to be somewhat of a mental block for me. After 5, yes 5, unsuccessful attempts to write an essay plan I've moved on to just drafting paragraphs as I go and working off a very basic and probably wrongly formatted essay plan which seems to be going a little bit better. Although I'm here writing this so clearly procrastination has still taken over slightly. I think the skills of essay plans and narrowing down information into what is and isn’t needed to be included is hopefully something that will come with time? If not I guess there’s always the fulfilling job in a call centre I'm left with, lucky me.
On a much me genuinely happy note my parental 'Easter present' arrived last week in the form of an incredibly shiny, working laptop to attempt the disastrous essay on which is undeniably making the whole thing more appealing. Writing badly done essays is altogether more enjoyable on a new laptop where the space bar actually works, who’d have guessed?
So that’s it, as far as I can think, I'll try sticking a post it (literal new obsession) somewhere to remind me that this exists and to come back and update it soon. Mental breakdown not withstanding obviously.
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Stuck in Start mode...
As you might have read in my last post my course materials for DD101 arrived a few weeks ago to much excitement and enthusiasm. The box was opened, an extortionate amount of money was spent on shiny new stationary and that was pretty much it if I'm being totally honest. I'm not sure how none else starting out feels and I can only peak for myself obviously but I seem to be looking at such an endless expanse of work that I can't even figure out what I need to do and how on earth I'm going to do it! Now before anyone points this out I am aware of the study plans, I'm aware of the organisors available online and I'm completely aware of how well structured the OU course material is and yet still..... Nothing.
Unfortunately for my motivation the arrival of my course materials was almost exactly 2 weeks before my change of job which is never a straightforward and stress free process at the best of times. Fortunately I am just moving to a different department in the same company but this does still mean not only relearning a whole new job role and set of products but also 3 weeks of working (supposedly perfect but actually incredible inconvenient) 9-5 shifts which means I'm being robbed of all those lovely free mornings I usually have to do work in when Little Miss is off to school. Like I said as well; it may not be rocket science (it's actually selling car insurance which I think may be the literal opposite) but trying to drum all my new work information into my head at the same time as starting my course is not making getting a decent amount of study time a week any easier.
All of this along with trying to decorate our house again ready to sell and move on as well as training for my half marathon later in the year are all meaning a severe lack of anything resembling breathing space at the minute.
I do solemnly promise to try and make this my last massively wingey post, I know it's early days but I'm going to stick with the theory that this is all my bad wingeing getting out the way early so I can stay calm and motivate for the rest of the year.
Maybe.
Unfortunately for my motivation the arrival of my course materials was almost exactly 2 weeks before my change of job which is never a straightforward and stress free process at the best of times. Fortunately I am just moving to a different department in the same company but this does still mean not only relearning a whole new job role and set of products but also 3 weeks of working (supposedly perfect but actually incredible inconvenient) 9-5 shifts which means I'm being robbed of all those lovely free mornings I usually have to do work in when Little Miss is off to school. Like I said as well; it may not be rocket science (it's actually selling car insurance which I think may be the literal opposite) but trying to drum all my new work information into my head at the same time as starting my course is not making getting a decent amount of study time a week any easier.
All of this along with trying to decorate our house again ready to sell and move on as well as training for my half marathon later in the year are all meaning a severe lack of anything resembling breathing space at the minute.
I do solemnly promise to try and make this my last massively wingey post, I know it's early days but I'm going to stick with the theory that this is all my bad wingeing getting out the way early so I can stay calm and motivate for the rest of the year.
Maybe.
Sunday, 6 January 2013
Delivery and Distractions.
Firstly, as I think is as traditional as anything can be in blogging I suppose I need to start my first post of 2013 by saying 'Happy New Year', I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year and have all now recovered from the lack of a Mayan apocolypse (you'd already forgottn hadn't you?)!
As you'd imagine having a 6 year old and working in a job which doesn't recognize Christmas Day as a bank holiday (study motivation enough for anyone I'd imagine) Christmas was pretty busy in our household and, not unusually seemed to pass by in one big hyperactive, chocolate fuelled blur. An amazing time had by everyone but as always over far too quickly and one very steep drop back into reality.
Now that's all my personal stuff out the way and on with the exciting OU news of.....
MY DD101 MATERIALS CAME! Yes, the all caps were necessary. Coming home from a frankly horrendous day at work to find a nice big OU branded box waiting on the table for me really cheered me up. Also the delivery came on what I think may have been Friday of this week so actually before the course site expected them to have been dispatched. Seen as I'm far too excited about this I'm putting this down to good Karma and deciding that this bodes well for the months ahead.
After several minutes squealing and clapping like a seal (definitely serious student behaviors *ahem*) I finally calmed down enough to sit down and actually open the box. To be honest I was so excited the materials had arrived and I'm such a sucked for 'new book smell' that I would have been pleased no matter what I was sent but I have to honestly say I'm really impressed with the materials. The sheer volume of course material provided by the OU and the (from what I can gather from an initial flick through) organized and in depth study guides all look both incredibly interesting while still looking (reasonably accessible).
Having said that I do have a confession to make. I may have had a quick skim through the assignment list provided and had a small (to medium) breakdown. Being a fairly unintelligent person with basically no formal qualifications beyond school level who's been out of eduction for 7 years the whole thing just completely overwhelmed me and I may or may not (but definitely did) end up in a defeated heap on the floor questioning what had possessed me to sign up for this. Thankfully my ever supportive husband glanced up from his iPad long enough to tell me to 'stop being stupid' & in his own distinct way snap me out of it and give me a bit of much needed perspective and I'm now back to normal and excited to get on with the challenge.
I may have also mentioned in an earlier post that I had ordered 'Good Study Guide' and 'Good Essay Writing: Social Sciences' from Amazon and was excitedly awaiting arrival over Christmas. Well both books arrived around New Year and I've spent the last few days ready through them.
Although I did miss out the 'Computer Learning' chapter of GSG as I feel more than comfortable using a computer and also missed out the 'Exam Preparation' section this time around purely due to the lack of a formal exam on my module I did find the book incredibly helpful. It eased a lot of the worries I'd been having about studying and really helped explain a few points that had me completely baffled at the start. I'd definitely recommend anyone waiting to start course to get a copy if you can, I think the clarification it gave me more than justified the £15 or so it cost to get hold of a copy.
Having said that I've just this afternoon finished reading 'Essay Writing' and I'm now seriously concerned about my writing ability. I think to someone with no writing experience it is a genuinely terrifying book and has really made me doubt myself more so than before I read it. That said I have put it in my 'OU Box' along with my course materials and lovely new notepads for future reference as although reading it right through has terrified my I think it will come into it's own if used in separate chapters when actually writing an essay and it definitely had a lot of helpful advise and material in which I know I'll need to go back over later in the course.
With all that said I'm now of to start going through my course materials as although I'm over my initial breakdown I am still massively concerned about my (lack of) academic ability and I think giving myself a head start in getting on with the material might bring me just about to the same level as everyone else by the start date. Hopefully!
As you'd imagine having a 6 year old and working in a job which doesn't recognize Christmas Day as a bank holiday (study motivation enough for anyone I'd imagine) Christmas was pretty busy in our household and, not unusually seemed to pass by in one big hyperactive, chocolate fuelled blur. An amazing time had by everyone but as always over far too quickly and one very steep drop back into reality.
Now that's all my personal stuff out the way and on with the exciting OU news of.....
MY DD101 MATERIALS CAME! Yes, the all caps were necessary. Coming home from a frankly horrendous day at work to find a nice big OU branded box waiting on the table for me really cheered me up. Also the delivery came on what I think may have been Friday of this week so actually before the course site expected them to have been dispatched. Seen as I'm far too excited about this I'm putting this down to good Karma and deciding that this bodes well for the months ahead.
After several minutes squealing and clapping like a seal (definitely serious student behaviors *ahem*) I finally calmed down enough to sit down and actually open the box. To be honest I was so excited the materials had arrived and I'm such a sucked for 'new book smell' that I would have been pleased no matter what I was sent but I have to honestly say I'm really impressed with the materials. The sheer volume of course material provided by the OU and the (from what I can gather from an initial flick through) organized and in depth study guides all look both incredibly interesting while still looking (reasonably accessible).
Having said that I do have a confession to make. I may have had a quick skim through the assignment list provided and had a small (to medium) breakdown. Being a fairly unintelligent person with basically no formal qualifications beyond school level who's been out of eduction for 7 years the whole thing just completely overwhelmed me and I may or may not (but definitely did) end up in a defeated heap on the floor questioning what had possessed me to sign up for this. Thankfully my ever supportive husband glanced up from his iPad long enough to tell me to 'stop being stupid' & in his own distinct way snap me out of it and give me a bit of much needed perspective and I'm now back to normal and excited to get on with the challenge.
I may have also mentioned in an earlier post that I had ordered 'Good Study Guide' and 'Good Essay Writing: Social Sciences' from Amazon and was excitedly awaiting arrival over Christmas. Well both books arrived around New Year and I've spent the last few days ready through them.
Although I did miss out the 'Computer Learning' chapter of GSG as I feel more than comfortable using a computer and also missed out the 'Exam Preparation' section this time around purely due to the lack of a formal exam on my module I did find the book incredibly helpful. It eased a lot of the worries I'd been having about studying and really helped explain a few points that had me completely baffled at the start. I'd definitely recommend anyone waiting to start course to get a copy if you can, I think the clarification it gave me more than justified the £15 or so it cost to get hold of a copy.
Having said that I've just this afternoon finished reading 'Essay Writing' and I'm now seriously concerned about my writing ability. I think to someone with no writing experience it is a genuinely terrifying book and has really made me doubt myself more so than before I read it. That said I have put it in my 'OU Box' along with my course materials and lovely new notepads for future reference as although reading it right through has terrified my I think it will come into it's own if used in separate chapters when actually writing an essay and it definitely had a lot of helpful advise and material in which I know I'll need to go back over later in the course.
With all that said I'm now of to start going through my course materials as although I'm over my initial breakdown I am still massively concerned about my (lack of) academic ability and I think giving myself a head start in getting on with the material might bring me just about to the same level as everyone else by the start date. Hopefully!
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