Initial contact with TM470 and how things are

I have found that in TM470 there are no PDFs to download yet and as I don't like to read everything on the screen in a certain way I'm a bit "behind" my normal schedule as even when the module hasn't officially started yet under other circumstances I would have already read part of the materials, etc.

I published my idea in the forum the first day and I'm trying to progress on that following the advice of the forum moderator. I'm trying to do something that would push me to learn new things because how can I report on my learning if I would do something that I would already know by heart? Anyway, all this "tell me about your idea and I will tell you how wrong you are" is putting me a bit down really because somehow I feel I cannot get it right but I'm not surrendering.

Good news are that this will be the last module for this degree and that I still can enjoy the experience if finally my idea is accepted by my teacher.

On other OU related things, I'm still waiting for my M362 results that now are said to be published around 6th Dec the sooner, the OU sent yesterday an email that indicates that there could even be further delays. M362 is the module I want to base my project on so I need to wait until I have the results (hopefully a Distinction) to be able to fill the form that will help me to have a teacher assigned.

OU printed materials available on demand

The OU has reached an agreement in October this year to start with 10 modules to pilot the process so those ones needing the books or preferring them can still have them for a small charge.

More info here: http://news.kmi.open.ac.uk/82/245
and here: http://news.kmi.open.ac.uk/rostra/news.php?r=82&t=2&id=231

Unfortunately for me B201 does not appear in this initial list but during next year I will contact them before I register on it, hopefully I will have a printed copy available then (or at least a PDF copy).

Only 3 weeks to the official results date and currently reading about the Master during what it is my first holidays without a TMA around.

I'm finishing now with the highlighting (and my second reading) of the book "Projects in Computing and Information Systems. A Student's Guide", Christian W. Dawson.I find it very enlightening regarding the project process.

I'm trying to have all my highlighting done before the project module opens this 19th Nov. (The OU delayed the starting date from 10th Sept to 19th Nov.).

Crazy as hell

I have been thinking about giving the step forwards professionally and about preparing myself for a Project Manager or a Team Leader role.

It's not that I do not like the Senior Web Developer role I have been into since several years now, in fact I like it but this is about personal and professional development, finding new challenges and learning new interesting things.

Yesterday a colleague told me that some people can go 'stir crazy' for being doing the same thing again and again at work as that will make them feel demotivated. I feel that the best way to avoid it is to put oneself in situations that will bring new learning to your table and keep your enthusiasm alive.

I contacted The OU on 12th Oct. regarding their Foundation Degree in Leadership and Management (G08), mainly asking if I would be considered a continuing student after finishing my degree in 2014, being so able to use my Business modules to do the foundation degree without adapting to the new structure, provided I finish my foundation degree before 2017.

After some confusion - where they thought I was asking for an extension of my transitional arrangements when that wasn't the case at all - everything is clear now and even when I was only asking to be able to decide accordingly in a future they took action and yesterday I received an email indicating they have already linked all my correspondent completed business modules now to the foundation degree (all the first level modules are done now, they even selected the free module for it without asking which would be the module I would like to use but curiously they selected the one I would have selected). It will be more than £2,500 per module as only two 60 credits modules left for me to claim it and I really need to think about it before deciding anyway.

At the same time, and in part because The OU took so much time to reply, I have been looking around for optional studies that could fit better to my professional aspirations and I have found a Masters degree that looks even better than the Foundation degree the OU offers because is IT specific.

I'm now crazy trying to see if I can fit all my studies and make them all :-), if it would be convenient for me not to go for some of them or what. I also have pending the top up degree and I'm still searching for online IT top up degrees with good modules.

What a cooking pot life is, I have all the time 1000 things going around and I'm always saying that I want my life back and have a rest but always engaging in new learning challenges. I have started to accept that this (studying all the time) is really my life and that what have happened before was really the unusual bit.

I have also enrolled in an online Maryland University course that will start on 6th Jan and will help me with my project idea's programming needs. There is also another course from Vancouver University in March that seems to top up the Maryland one so I need to think about it as well.

So many things one can do but we just have one life to do them.

Will all the trade-offs we do during life count as a coin in the other side to buy a ticket to come back and do the things that we left aside? :-)