Misión cumplida (mission accomplished)

I'm now the owner of a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Computing, Upper Second-class Honours (2.1).

As if this would be a game of the destiny I had a Distinction (87%) on my project module.

It's like if life would like to add an eternal itchy and torture me on the fact that if I would have had just a 4% more in M362 and/or M363 I would have achieved a First but true is that my mind is anywhere else but on my BSc achievement and that I don't have that itchy at all.

I have so different plans for my life and my future now, based on my current Project Management studies that I honestly did not feel anything yesterday apart from the "ok, it's finished and now I can progress on my masters and change my life forever".

I have been programming since I'm 12 y.o. and I honestly want to try something else. I see the completion of my degree as the last bit that closes my past allowing me so to continue with my preparation for my future and that's why the degree in itself is not so important for me anymore.

That's it really.

The kind of reflection that normally everyone writes when they finished I did it long time ago here:
http://bscbefore31dec2014.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-end-of-tunnel.html

That is still valid, if you're interested feel free to read it.

I think I'm also done with the OU as my current plans pass more for the PM side of things than for achieving my Diploma in Leadership and Management with the OU. In fact I have found a University in Scotland that offers a Masters in Leadership and Management (2.5 years part-time) that has very good modules ...and it's even cheaper that doing the two modules of the Dip Leadership and Management with the OU!

I probably will go for it once I finish my Masters in IT Project Management in 4 years from now (yes, it's a double masters and it takes 4 years part time).

So, this is me with (masters) study plans for the next 4 - 6.5 years.

The horse is outside

The rubberbandits video, horse outside, comes to my mind at this moment. It's more or less how I feel, I mean, not like anything in the video plot - that is also a bit weird to say the least - else like if I have a horse outside just ready for me to fly away.

I'm just thinking about finishing the TM470 module and end up with the OU, I have even thought now about cancelling my Foundation degree in Leadership and Management if the new Uni accept my application for the Master and going straight away into my IT Master's degree on 2015. Yep, I think that will be what I will do.

The reason for the current mood is that the results were published today and far from having broken the loop - as I thought I have had - I achieved this year again an 81% in the M362 exam, a grade that The OU decided again not to put up a bit so....Grade 2 for me...and bye, bye First degree option.

It's the first time in my life in a module that is programming related that I do not achieve a Distinction but hey!, that was a 100% theory exam (a bit weird for a programming module to be honest).

Who cares! Just achieving a 40% in TM470 will give me now a 2:1 and nothing can give me anything better so if we add to this the fact that the TM470 preparation forum is being a bit of a pain for me I honestly think this is the best that could have happened.

As things are going for me in TM470 up to now I do not want to imagine myself if I would have had a Distinction in M362, just forcing myself to try to have a Distinction in TM470 just because that would have been my last opportunity to have a First degree. That is a reality that now will never happen. For once I think I will be happy with this situation.

I will try to make my life easier this year, so next goal will be "to achieve at least a 40% in TM470" and after that I will fly away, next stop will be Sweden so I need a good horse for that...and it's outside :-)

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? :-)

Sweet and sour bittersweet

Sour:
Yesterday the University I have been chasing during two years to top up my degree changed the degree name to exactly the same name The OU uses for its flexible degree. I was trying to escape from that name since 2010 but that name follows me.

I feel I'm jinxed on this, cannot I just have the degrees with the names I want for God sake?

I contacted them trying to see if I can claim the old degree instead of the new one. It's not possible, I have stopped my application process yesterday and I'm back to point zero in my research on finding a University that would offer this degree online (with good modules if possible).

Only one Uni found at the moment and it was the one I discarded in favour of "the mutator one" :-).

This is very sad for me, the Uni had no exams, had a very good approach to the materials, fantastic modules, it's one of the UK Universities with the highest percentage of people going into work straight away after they finish...and it's even cheaper than The OU.

Sweet:
My M263 results have been published. I got a 88% OES, with a 91% OCAS. Providing that I finish all my modules on time I have now mathematically a 2:1 degree. Just having a 40% in the two modules I have ahead that will be the minimum grade I will be having.

Now I have 10% of probability to have a First, 90% to have a 2:1.

The new unofficial table is as follows:

Uncertainty but with some good points and a lot of hope

The University I'm going to do the top-up of my Dip HE Comp & IT is now doing changes to their planned modules. The contents will be unveiled near September. I now do not know if they will change the module contents as well or not.

I liked the old modules and their practical approach, they were the reason for me to decide to study with them, now everything is a bit uncertain until they will publish the new structure.

For now I know they are going to increase the number of credits per module from 15 to 20 and thus will be reducing the number of modules in the top-up year from 8 to 6. I also know that they are now asking for an English qualification for foreign students.

Another good point with this degree is that from the 8 modules they had they only had 1 exam (that was equivalent to the 40% of the module grade only!). That was another reason for me to select them as even when I do not fear exams at all I was searching for a practical approach that would allow me to use the knowledge in my day-by-day work at the same time I was learning it.


Good points: I will have less modules meaning I probably will reduce a year of studies.

Hope: I just hope they accept that if I have finished an undergraduate degree already with a good grade that demonstrates I can study another undergraduate level in English and would accept my application without any academic English qualification exam to be sit. Should that's not the case I will probably search for another University that be more open minded on this point as I just do not want to have to waste 6 months - or a year - of my life going to an academy course just to pass a stupid exam I do not need at all.

I also hope the modules I liked the most still remain in the new structure.

I'm happy these changes are happening before I'm going into the degree instead of while I'm inside. I do not want to live the situation of starting a degree that is being created on the fly so I will probably wait to finish my BSc with The OU before starting it, leaving them another year to define their modules and have them all in place.

The end of the tunnel

Yesterday the OU has finally published the pricing for the next academic year modules.

TM470 will cost me £795.00, making a total of £6435.00 with each penny paid from my pocket and a huge amount of hours studying plus a very long list of trade-offs in pro of a dream (that I honestly prefer not to list here) some of them having consequences for me at work and in my personal life.

Once I finish - on Dec 2014 - I will have done:
53 TMAs
3 TMA00s including real TMA exercises
5 EMAs
4 CMAs
6 iCMAs
8 Exams

...And 5 years of my life will have almost passed in front of University units but the hardest bit of all this is not reflected in any of the amounts expressed above. All of the above is fine for me and I'm happy I took the decision of studying for my degrees back in 2009.

2009 was a very good year, everything was going as planned and things seemed very possible then. For me, the hardest part in all this process has happened after the OU informed us in November 2010 that they were going to introduce a new flexible degree  that would get rid of the current BSc Computing I was studying. They introduced a limit for us to claim our degrees (Dec 2014) and it was initially decided that only one degree could be under transitional arrangements (and also some other limitations). That destroyed my initial plans of studying for B44 and B29 and obliged me to choose to study for B29 hoping that I would be able to adapt to the replacement for B44 afterwards and end both degrees as I initially planned (first replan).

At the beginning of my second year I had to renounce(/decide not) to study some B44 modules to focus on B29 only as it was decided that the modules selected should be related to the degree we would be going for (and replanned again), after my second year I had to renounce also to the idea of claiming the equivalent to B44 after I was informed in a forum by another student that to claim two degrees one should have 120 credits at level 3 not counted for any other degree qualification, I double checked with the OU and the student was 100% right and so I accepted that I couldn't change my reality...and replanned accordingly.

The reason is that the new flexible degree introduced has only 90 credits available at level 3 without counting the project, due to the introduction of U101 at first level the replacement for B44 only offers 90credits at that level without any option of taking a 3 level module as free credits. So, I could not claim B44 (due to it expiring in 2014 while I was studying for B29) nor take  the new replacement afterwards due to the above limit and the fact that The OU do not allow to repeat any modules. As the project would be the same module I already took for B29 I wanted to double check if that rule was applicable to it as well; I asked specifically for this situation and I was told that the rule also holds for TM470, even when the project would be different. So B44 and its replacement were out of my league forever.

As if my life would be a big joke, in June last year The OU gave an opportunity to people that would like to have a second degree under transitional arrangements to apply for it, unfortunately it was already too late for me as I would have never been able to claim B44 nor its equivalent anyway.

Also, during this time The OU had published end dates for the modules that were part of the old degrees (now in transitional arrangements). I planned accordingly to the published dates and studied those modules at certain years, trying to avoid being forced to adapt to the new flexible degree, all this planning and replanning just to see how they extended the final date for those modules afterwards.

Am I happy to have decided to study with The OU? Overall yes but the process wasn't as I expected. I also feel frustration due to everything that has happened and all the adjustment and renouncing I have had to do due to it.

Would I define my experience with The OU as a good one? 60% Yes, The OU has given me the opportunity to acquire the equivalent to the Certificates and Diplomas I have from my Spanish studies and I would value that as very positive as now I have English official recognitions and that make it easier to explain what I have under my belt in job interviews, etc. If everything goes as expected I will also end up with a BSc (Hons) Computing in 2014, and with a Diploma in IT next June that will allow me to do a top-up year in another UK online University and claim a second degree once I finish it. So around a 60% of my initial dream is still there, I will not be able to study a Computing and Design degree as I initially tried to, not even do a top-up year into that studies branch but the Diploma in IT will allow me to go into a degree in another area I'm also interested into, so... I think 60% is a good grading that reflects my experience until today.

Would I have selected The OU to do my BSc (Hons) Computing if I would have known in 2009 that all the changes that have happened were going to happen? No, I would have preferred to study in other University that wouldn't have changed their study plans during my studies, just for the sake of avoiding so much replanning and unnecessary hassle. I have ended up sick of being notified of the change of the change after the change that changed something that was previously said it was X but now is Y and have to replan accordingly.

Would I study something else in a future with The OU? Yes, I probably would but with a completely different frame of mind; maybe something that if it ends up as I planned it's fine but that if it doesn't it's fine as well. Honestly, the quality level they offer (teachers, materials, etc.) is excelent and just that would already be a perfect reason to study with them at any time but I definitively would not do it under the same situation nor with the same perspective I faced my studies this time.

It looks like I can top-up my DipHE Comp & IT

Today I contacted the online University that offers the IT top-up year I'm interested to study (using my DipHE Comp & IT, after I finish it next July 2013).

They did a very fast reply and have basically said that they will consider my application as even when they had in their requirements that they normally accept HND's, Foundation Degrees and access courses as entry requirements DipHE's are of the same FHEQ level (5) so I could be elegible.

It seems to be I can study both qualifications at the same time if I can demonstrate I can face the workload that would entails. That shouldn't be difficult to demonstrate as I have been studying 4 modules per year with The OU and I have done it fine. Apparently I will not need to wait until I have my BSc(Hons) Computing under my belt to study another BSc in parallel.

Hurrah! Definitely this is a good motivation to continue to study M263 and do it well.

Let's see what future brings and how this unfolds then but it's very good to see opportunities are there. It sounds like "everything is possible" for now and that makes me happy.

I would need to double check with The OU once I have claimed the DipHE (or maybe a bit before) to be 100% sure though. I don't want to lose my opportunity to be entitled to B29 as that's a high priority for me.

UK Educational system questions

Being a foreigner means sometimes that one doesn't know all the small things around something that is understood as common knowledge.

In my case, even when I'm studying with The OU since 2009 and living in the UK since 2007 I doubt sometimes that what I assume is exactly how things are, one example of this are the Diplomas I have chosen to claim.

I've chosen to claim D12 last year because I thought it would be good to have it (career relevance) - even when my professionalism and knowledge is not in doubt at all at work - but I wasn't sure when I did claim it that a Diploma like D12 would count after having claimed B29, as it will probably be superseded by it then.

Can you do something with D12 once you have B29 under your belt? It would be relevant to mention it in a CV? If so, why?

With E66 I have understood that I could go to another university and do a top-up year with it but the question is:

Once I have claimed E66 next July, can I go to another UK University at the same time I'm studying B29 with The OU and top it up there or do I need to wait until I finish my B29 studies with The OU to go to another University to top-up E66?