Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Chemistry’ Category

Although we’re constantly reminded that the Open University has all kinds of checks in place to detect plagiarism, there’s a constant stream of hits on this site around TMA/ECA submission time looking for “SK185 answers”, “molecules medicines and drugs answers” and all kinds of variations on those. Since SK185 is a short course there’s getting on for a thousand students studying it at any one time (double the number for one of the main science courses) and this makes for a whole lot of people searching for inspiration given that the ECA submission date is October 28th.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I’ve not reached the end of chapter 6 so I can do another one of the ECA questions which I may run up this evening as it seems fairly short. The final question is on chapter 8 which I should be able to get through by next week and then there’s just the final couple of chapters of the book to read with no overhanging ECA questions from them.

That would leave me able to submit the ECA by the first closing date but since the 28th seemed way too close to the date of the astronomy exam, I decided a couple of months ago to do the second ECA which means that a) I can’t submit it ’til December and b) all those searching for the answers for the October 28th ECA are wasting their time here as I’ve not even glanced at it.

Overall, I’m quite impressed by this course. It offers a very good re-introduction to chemistry for me and insights to the processes involved in the development of medicines that I suspect I’ll not see again ’til I get around to doing Drug design and synthesis (S346).

The Open University have an interesting type of degree called the “open” degree which is essentially a degree where you can plonk just about any combination of courses into subject only to it meeting the broad requirements of a degree. So, for example, you need to have 120 points at level 3 for an honours degree but those points could be made up of courses in, say, physics, history, English and art.

Since I’m basically aiming at a named degree I’d ignored anything to do with the open degrees. However, the other night it struck me that there’s a semi-open degree option available too in that my life sciences degree only requires me to have 300 points of life sciences subjects and the remaining 60 points can be any subject.

Ordinarily, that wouldn’t really matter to me but as I have to collect the life sciences degree no later than 2014 any help along the way to that is welcome. So I had a think about that. In fact by this time next year I should already have those 60 miscellaneous points accumulated in the form of my current astronomy course and part of the certificate in web applications. Of those two, the astronomy course forms part of what will, some day, become a physics cum chemistry degree but the web applications certificate (a total of 60 points) doesn’t have a proper home at the moment. So, if I find that doubling up on the courses is becoming a bit much I could transfer the web applications courses into the life sciences degree.

That option has a lot of appeal in that my original plan was to do the main chemistry course next year and use those 60 points but longer term that causes a problem in that I would ultimately need to acquire 60 more chemistry points for the chemistry degree. It also has the plus point that it doesn’t leave the web applications certificate just hanging there unattached to any particular degree.

Largely because it’s a course that I need to think about I’ve not established a proper time slot for it yet so the work on it has been slipping back over the last few weeks.

That said, I’m over half way through it so over the point where it’s worthwhile having a look at the ECA. Since the first submission date is the end of October which clashes with the astronomy exam and the first web development CMA I thought that I’d aim for the second date which is the end of January. If nothing else, that gives me the option of backpedalling a little with the course if needbe.

Anyway, I’ve made a start on the ECA as some of the questions relate to chapters relatively early on in the book and should be able to complete the first question sometime this week and perhaps part of the second one. Unlike in other courses the questions don’t follow a neat progression through the course so it’s not entirely clear in advance what questions you’d be able to answer by the time you’ve reached any given chapter. That contributes to making it a little more difficult to do than typical short courses are and there’s also more of an element of needing to understand things generally with this course than I’ve seen before on a short course too. It’s not that the questions are overlly difficult but you definitely need to think more about this course than is usual for the short courses at this level which, of course, is no bad thing and should help me when I start the big chemistry course this time next year.

At the moment it’s starting to look like I would be able to hit the first submission date but since I’ve started on the ECA for the second date I’ll just be plugging away with that and I’ll hang on to it ’til December when I can submit it. Having said that, I may have a look at the earlier ECA if I finish the course really early.

It covers some ground that I did way back in the anaesthetics section of A-level chemistry many years ago but in more detail. Thus, whereas the A-level largely concentrated on telling the story of the development of modern anaesthetics, SK185 tells that story but goes on to explain how the various compounds were developed. Fascinating both in terms of the story, of how the chemicals work and how one goes about developing a new medicine. Very much a recommended course if you’re at all interested in how things like painkillers actually work.

With me changing tack towards biology/chemistry over the next few years I thought I’d see about getting up to speed with at least some of the upcoming courses by way of taking a related short course in advance.

It turns out there are quite a number of courses for which this can be done. So many in fact that I probably won’t be able to fit them all in over the time that’s available. Still, I’ll have a go when it is possible.

So, for the big S204 biology course there’s the S171 Empire of the microbes short course. Whilst it obviously doesn’t cover all the ground that the large course does, it should get me up to speed in some proper biology terminology.

Similarly, for the big S205 chemistry course and S377 there’s SK185 Molecules, medicines and drugs which is reawakening the memories of previous chemistry courses.

For the S366 evolution course a few years down the road there’s S193 Fossils and the history of life. Unfortunately that’s in its final presentation this November so I’m going to have to make a point of squeezing it in.

And so it goes on, with S173 Plants and people having a passing relationship with SXR375, the plants residential.

As well as introducing me to some terminology in advance of the corresponding main course this approach will add 10 points for each of the short courses which is 40 points just for the above and I’m sure more mini pre-courses will turn up over the next few years.

Although my plan was to leave starting this one ’til October, I couldn’t resist taking a little peek at it last night.

It feels very much like the part of the chemistry A-level I did which covered the practical applications of  chemistry. Just as that drew me into chemistry back then, so too it did last night and I found my “little peek” being enough to finish the first chapter.

That first chapter covers quite a bit of ground running from the very basics of atoms and molecules right up to the structure of the alkanes. Quite a leap if you’ve not done chemistry before but many bits of it came back to me.

The second chapter which I’ve almost completed scouts around the development of aspirin, using it to introduce a number of chemistry concepts as it goes along. I’d say that it would be moving at a fair pace if you’d not encountered any of this before and even for me it was starting to introduce quite complex ideas towards the end.

Somehow I suspect that I’ll be finishing this well ahead of my original timetable of pre-Christmas although there are a couple of TMAs for other courses that need doing over the next couple of weeks so I’ll mainly be looking at this in the evenings.