Tuesday, March 11, 2014

In case you want to tell me something

Please, in case you want to tell me something be aware that this is a blog that has the comments hidden for a reason. I decided to hide the comments and apply comments revision after a bad experience some months ago.

I will publish all those comments that are respectful and do not contain what I consider sensitive information in it.

I do not provide TMAs, module PDFs or old exams to anyone, do not add advertisements of any kind to my blog and will not accept any type of insult, threat, etc. as part of the comments towards myself or others.

In principle, unless it is very well justified I will not contact anyone that leaves their email as part of a comment even if they ask for it and I will not publish those comments either (in fact I delete them).

So, unless I know you personally based on my real life or by prolonged contact in this blog please do not assume I will contact you just because you left your email inside a comment, I won't.

If you want to tell me something, please feel free to do it as part of a comment. You can add a request for the message to be deleted and/or not published and unless I need it as a proof of something I will delete it after reading it in those cases.

I'm glad that this blog is a way of sharing and encouraging each other, I'm always open to people that wants to share their thoughts freely and respectfully. I hope you all understand and this will not stop you to comment and share here.

6 months left

Today I received my results from TMA01 and all the hard work has finally given its fruits: 92%

It's not a bad start at all, having read and highlighted the entire book "Projects in Computing and Information Systems. A Student's Guide" by Christian W. Dawson has helped but it also helps to read carefully what is expected to be present on the TMA.

So far I think this is the module that demands more time, effort and dedication in the entire BSc. Maybe it's because my idea is an original idea and I need to do a lot of work just to have it up and running but maybe not and all of us are exactly in the same situation. I cannot see why my case would be different from others, so I assume all of us are under pressure ;-).

As an advice for all those ones taking this module in a future: It's not easy to fit all the tasks in the allocated time, remember: "it implies hard work", a lot of it.

For some reason this year the forum moderator tended to show as "acceptable" mostly original ideas and not extensions or versions of something already existing. Some of the comments have been quite devastating and I have to recognise I felt relief when my second idea was well received. I would have expected that approach on original ideas to be present in the research module of a PhD but not exactly for a BSc.

After that I relaxed until the beginning of the project on 1st February as a way to avoid engaging into the preparation forum just for ending being told my idea wasn't good enough or similar...and haven't relaxed since the module started ;-).

My tutor is very kind and encouraging, I hope the allocated time it's enough for me to finish the project and learn a lot of new things. It looks that I lost my 8% because I did not reflect on my process at the level I could have done.

I had this same issue in BU130 where I passed from a 69% (OCAS) to a 44% (OES), that have been my lowest grade with The OU (by difference) and believe it or not it happened because I'm a very reflective person (maybe too much) and when I need to talk about something in a module that expects you to make a new reflective process for it, as I do it as normal and it's not new for me at all I cannot find what is the thing that is so different to what I do every day for me to add it to the TMA. On the other hand if I add all the things that I reflect on it would be a book instead of a TMA.

I will need to find the equilibrium on this.

It's being engaging and also interesting, on the other side of things I do not have free time at all, my weekends are "project weekends" and my life can be summarised as "house work - project work - job work".

Only 6 months and it will be over, hopefully with a BSc (Hons) Computing under my belt a few months later.

I contacted the Uni in Sweden and they have just told me that I cannot apply this year because my BSc results are released in December and the Masters degree starts in August, so it will be a 2015 start for me if they accept me next year.