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 :-)

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.

I have broken the loop for good!!

Today I have received my M362 TMA03 result and I have achieved a 90%!!.

M362 This year:       TMA01:88%, TMA02:87%, TMA03: 90%
M363 Last year was TMA01:88%, TMA02:87%, TMA03: 80%

I have broken the Déjà vu!!

Three months of hard work just for 3% more than the previous one that was done in 12 days. Explaining theory is not my best skill and I have sweated blood with this TMA, reviewing it over and over again up to the point I knew it by heart. I did 16 different versions of this TMA before I was sure enough I couldn't improve anything else.

I can now tell that once I sit my exam on 7th October I would have sat all my BSc (Hons) Computing exams with the option to have a Distinction in place. Unfortunately the materialisation of that option hasn't been easy at level 3 for me, having sat two exams seriously ill (M359 and M364) and achieving an 81% last year in my M363 exam but... let's see how it goes this time :-).

It's a big true that 88% on OCAS is not the best average I have ever had, it's not even the best average I have had at level 3 either but it's over 85% and that is the only thing that really matters.

For a Distinction I need yet to make it real at the exam hall on 7th October and that is the hard bit of all this.

August it's being a very busy month (as it is every year for me, for some reason) but I'm already studying for the exam.

Repeating myself

M363 Last year was TMA01:88%, TMA02:87%, TMA03: 80%
M362 This year:       TMA01:88%, TMA02:87%

In both modules the same tutor was assigned to me as well (I'm very pleased that's the case as my tutor feedback when marking is high level quality).

Can you see the pattern? LOL.

87%, Not bad for exactly 12 days of work - for the Units and TMA all inclusive - but a bit annoyed that I always make the same mistakes (repeating myself again).

My weakest point is not the programming bit, that part is always graded as excellent, it is to explain things in assessments, it's not that I do not know them well, it's that I always assume some parts are so evident that do not really need an explanation and other times I just do not explain part of something because other thing or perspective was asked but as my tutor perfectly explained in his feedback if I mention something I should give enough reasons for backing it up.

Everytime this happens to me I see myself crashing against a wall in TM470 next year ;-).

Let's be positive and see if I break the loop for good with my TMA03 and achieve higher than the 80% I did in M363 TMA03 last year, I'm not renouncing to have an 80%, at the contrary I wish I will have at least an 80% in my TMA03 this year as that will be the minimum to keep the Distinction opportunity for the exam (as it also was last year of course, even with different percentages in the grading distribution, I ended up having the same situation this year again with exactly the same TMA percentages). Déjà Vu to the maximum expression :-).

All in all, considering that only 27 days of study were dedicated for the first two TMAs I cannot be happier with the results, I'm just a bit frustrated for not having more time to dedicate to this module I think. I'm really enjoying it.

If everything goes according to plan I would be uploading the TMA circa 3 months in advance this time. It was a month and 20 days advance for TMA02 but I would like to have those 3 months to dedicate seriously to review everything and prepare the exam very well. I do not want to make a bad TMA though, so I will upload it only when I'm happy with my work on it, even if I need to wait until the cut-off date...priorities are clear, let's hope everything goes fine and I have a good result.

Currently I'm already highlighting the Units for my TMA03, first unit already done, second unit in process. 3 days working on TMA03 for now.

Let's go!

Alea iacta est

The dice are cast.

My M362 TMA02 has been already marked two days ago but I will need to wait exactly a month (26th June) to know my resultant grade on that. In this case every TMA will decide if I can continue to dream with a Distinction at level 3 or not and therefore if I can keep dreaming on a First degree or not. So the dice will need to be cast again just if this time I was a winner.

In a certain way it would be a relief if the distinction option disappears for M362 as it would mean I just need to focus on having a 2:1 degree and that is almost already done. In fact, if I achieve a distinction in M263 this June - I have now that option as yesterday my results were published and I achieved a 91% in the TMA04 - I mathematically will have a 2:1 degree just passing M362 and TM470 (just a Grade 4 is needed in such a case). On the other hand it would be a great disappointment to have done so many efforts and renounce to so many things and finally end up with something I could have reached doing half the effort. "Pathetic" would be a great term to define that situation.

TMAing during holidays

I'm almost finishing M362 TMA02, only some theory question counting for 10% of the TMA remains and I'm now again on track with my study plans... this is a good point.

To do this I have been working very hard to end M263 TMA04 exactly the day before (21st April) I took my holidays to come to Gran Canaria to visit my family.

I'm here since 22nd April, coming back tomorrow and during my stay here what have I done?
 Did I go to the lovely beaches? Did I visit 100 friends and partied all day?

Nop, I highligthed the first Unit of this TMA in the airplane while coming and have been working very hard on my M362 TMA02 since then, so I can now study for my M263 exam in my return, 39 days free of interruptions to dedicate to M263 exam preparation!!.

Wow!! It does sound fantastic, doesn't it? I hope you can feel the irony in my writen words. Welcome to my OU life :-)

Even better, I have just enough time now to end the remaining bits before fliying tomorrow, I will arrive at UK at 4:05am on Sunday morning and start studying for the exam from 5th or 6th May onwards. Coming back to work on 7th.

For sure you just hate me for how fortunate I am (and feel right now) after such great lovely holidays in a paradise that one can see through the window of the "office".

I know all of you are green of envy reading this, LOL!

At least I have enjoyed time with my family while they were around and just one TMA remains for this year. These are also good points.

"Let's see the bottle half filled" and carry on... or I will cut my veins :-).

Déjà Vu

My result for M362 TMA01 was published today and I had an 88%. This is the same grade I had in the M263 TMA01 and also in the first TMA of M363 last year.

A real Déjà Vu!

Not the paradise but good to know I still keep over the 85%. I cannot say I'm jumping for joy with a mark like this but considering how busy I am at the moment with my job responsibilities, that I only dedicated 15 days to it and all that I will consider it a good one.

I just hope my marks in M362 this year are a bit better than the ones I had in M363 last year were I ended up achieving just a 85% in OCAS (88 | 87 | 80) and a 81% in the OES.

Let's see if I have the elusive Distinction at level 3 this time. :-)

Question marks

I have just received my M263 TMA03 results two days ago and I had a 90%, this means that I only need now a 53% in TMA04 to keep the Distinction option for the exam. I have never had such a low mark in any TMA during the 4 years I have been studying with The OU so I assume it's very doable to sit the exam with the Distinction option in place.

A completely different thing will be to have more than 85% in the exam in June. If that would happen my classification table would be reduced to its first column and I officially would be in route towards what is called in UK a good degree (a First or a 2:1 Honours degree classification).

Today I'm already highlighting Unit 15 (out of 16) of M263, the last one I will need for TMA04 (due on 16 May) as Unit 16 is assessed at the exam only. So, I calculate I will be uploading the last TMA soon with more or less one month in advance. That will allow me to concentrate on preparing the exam and doing the TMA02 for M362.

Now that I mention M362, I uploaded M362 TMA01 on 1st April (15 days in advance), my tutor marked it straightaway (2nd April) and it's now waiting to be released (probably on 17th April).

So, some question marks are still to be unveiled in the next months but for now is good to dream a bit about it. That is to say, the other columns of my classification table are still there but small-dreaming like this provides motivation :-)

Degree classification progress (Dec 2012)

Part of the new year resolutions should be the process that help us know if we have opportunities to make them real.

During the last years my resolution of having a First degree seemed to have more opportunities than at this time but all of them were thrown out of the window by different situations: a sudden illness, allegedly a norovirus, during M364 and M359 exams gave me a Grade 3 and Grade 2 respectively, instead of the two Distinctions I was going for and last year I couldn't make it better when an 81% in the M363 exam gave me another Grade 2, reducing drastically my options as only around 4% of people achieve a Distinction at the project module.

My current situation is as follows:

M263 only seems to have an impact in my final degree if I do really bad in M362 and TM470. A 2:2 result probability will be reduced to 6% if I achieve at least a Grade 3 on it. Having a Distinction on it would remove the options of having a 2:2 from the table after June 2013 (reducing the table to the first column, with 90% possibilities for a 2:1 and only 10% possibilities for a First).

If I achieve at least a Grade 2 in M362 this year (an option that looks very feasible to me now, as I will try to get a Distinction on it) that would make M263 result totally irrelevant for my degree classification calculation (providing that I pass it).

A First Class degree is only possible if I achieve two Distinctions at third grade (as I already knew), any other combination will be a 2:1 or 2:2 at the moment. So a First Class degree is at this moment unlikely, only a 10% probability, curiously the same as having a 2:2,  the remaining 80% probability is for a 2:1. 

Good point is that if I achieve at least a Grade 3 in M263 and M362 this year but don't get a Distinction in M362 there will be no pressure for having more than a 40% in the project module. The need to have just a 40% is a big margin for a project module.

In summary, I just need a Grade 3 in M263 and M362 to have a 2:1 so in case problems managing the two modules workload would appear I should focus all my efforts in M362 that is the only module that will be able to boost my degree result and keep my opportunities for a (now unlikely) First degree.

Anyway providing that I pass both of them this year, in December 2013 I will have a very clear picture of how hard should I work during my project module.

For now my new year resolution would be at least a Grade 3 in both modules. Focusing on having a Distinction in M362 if possible. That give me some margin to maneuver :-)

Mirror, mirror on the wall

263|362 (mirrored numbers)

This year M263 and M362 will be for me the modules to study. Unless I change my mind before 10th January I will not be registering for the project module this year else the next one.

That will give me all the time to dedicate myself entirely to the project during the academic year 2013-2014. There is an extra pressure added, though. It will be the very last year I will be able to claim my BSc (Hons) Computing with The OU and so failing the project module for some reason would mean for me to have to renounce to my dream as I can only claim my degree until 31 Dec 2014.

But thinking negative is not my thing at all, so I'm convinced everything will be fine for me and that I will finish my BSc on time.

For now M263 is going really well, I achieved a 88% in the first TMA (so far so good).