Foreign Perspectives

Whilst I’m getting into the swing of the human biology course, the cardiovascular diseases one is something else together.

In principle, the human biology course as a level 2, 30 point course should clearly be harder than the cardiovascular diseases courses which weighs in at level 1 and only 15 points. However, at the moment the reverse is very much the case although it’s early days for both courses.

With the human biology course, we’ve moved through a very easy going introductory chapter, onto a much more serious one on the structure of cells, through a long list of aspects of nutrition to finish with a very thorough going through (literally!) of the digestive system. I can’t say that I remember all of that as yet though all being well, after I’ve ran up my notes for it things will be somewhat clearer.

The cardiovascular course kicked off with quite a terminology loaded introductory chapter before going straight into the detail of how the cardiovascular system works. If nothing else, when I come across the same topic in the third book of the human biology course, it’ll seem really simple in comparison! Still, at least the next couple of chapters look like a much easier ride and the assignment questions look reasonably doable (there’s no exam for this).

The reason for the apparent discrepancy in the actual and apparent level of these courses is largely down to how the OU assign levels to courses. In practice, it’s the assignments and exam (if any) that are taken to establish the level of the course rather than the course content. Thus, the assignments in the cardiology course are easier than those in the human biology course. On the other hand, the apparent level of each course from the students point of view is very different: if it were me, I’d have put the cardiology course at level three and if the assignments matched the complexity of the first couple of chapters that’s where it would be.

Personally, I’d have preferred it to have been set at level three although that would have meant I’d not have done the course for a few years. As it is, I suspect that the dropout rate will be very high for the cardiology. As per usual, I’ll be too stubborn to drop out but will be mainly looking on it as pre-revision for the cardiology section of the human biology course.