My first OU-free day in almost 4 years

It's 6:30am, the sun is shining and I'm about to start the first day where I can go about my business without feeling guilty that I'm not doing something related to my studies, and right now that feels pretty good.

Since October 2010 there has not been one single day where I have not been in the middle of some module or other. This has been because in every year except 2014 I have had modules that ran both from October to June and February to October, so there has been no respite, even over the summer. Try selling that to a student at bricks-and-mortar university.

Sadly, I have to go to work, but hey-ho, you can't have it all good.

M256, the £5K fee barrier and student loans

So I registered for M256, and this along with TM470 will be the last two computing modules that I undertake if everything goes to plan. The total fees paid have now topped £5000, and that is under the transitional fee arrangement. Still, it's a lot to fork out of your own pocket.

It got me thinking about the fee structure, and I concluded that if it had not been for the fact that I started on this before the university funding started, I would have had to take out a student loan. Given that I'm already the wrong side of 50, that would have been pointless, and consequently I would not have gone down this road.

I really wonder how the new fee structure will work for the OU which has a vast majority of mature students. How many of them a will be put off entirely by the price? My guess is that it will be affected severely. Still, there is no point me worrying about that, I'll just plough on regardless until I'm done and hopefully then I will get my life back.

Updated blog layout

It was time for a bit of a clean-up of the blog. Too many "gadgets", so I just created one big html file with multiple tables and moved stuff around a bit.

This means it will be easier for me to maintain and also to change to a new layout (which will probably happen, as I think this one looks a bit dull)

I'm an ISTP apparently

I don't usually hold much store by these things, but out of curiosity, I did one of those personality tests (Jung, Briggs Myers or something) and I came out as an ISTP which stands for Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving type.

Elsewhere this had a nickname of "Mechanic" which I quite liked, and was also pleased to see myself alongside such luminaries as Clint Eastwood, James Dean, Frank Zappa and Keith Richards. (always been a bit of a Clint, or at least that's what I though people were saying)

http://typelogic.com/istp.html

Reading it, I did feel that it was reasonable accurate, so I'll go with it, and if anyone asks then I say "hey, I'm an ISTP" with pride!

A lull in the proceedings

Feeling at a bit of a loss since I've finished both M150 and MU123. Only my final TMA (which I've already completed) on MU123 to send in, but I can't do that until I get the previous one back. All M150 TMA's are submitted.

M253 starts at the beginning of May, and I'm not doing any work on M255 until I see TMA03 which is supposed to be available from the beginning of May also.

I suppose I should make the most of the free time, but I'm impatient to get thing finished.

Summary and Costs

Added a couple of gadgets to the blog for tracking my progress in terms of credits accumulated (which is of course none so far, since I've not finished a module) and the affect on my bank balance (which is considerable).

For interest, I added a cost per credit, so I can see which modules are giving good value (purely in terms of credits, not necessarily content)

Targeted advertising

Supposedly adverts are linked by relevance, so given that, I had to wonder at the "Fish Pedicure" one that popped up here today. Are OU students as a rule into that sort of thing?, or is it mathematicians? or Java programmers?

Almost put me off my dinner at the mere thought of it. Does the RSPCA care about cruelty to fish I wonder?