Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

I really must stop looking at the Open University prospectus! It’s even more dangerous than looking at estate agents brochures: at least with them you know you can’t afford to do buy a new house all the time.

Anyway, now that I’m nearing the end of my modern languages degree I’ve started looking around for something to do afterwards. So far, that has only had one serious possibility in the frame ie the chemistry degree that I was always meaning to do but never got around to.

However, there’s now another possibility: an English degree. As with the modern languages it seems like a long way off but notionally I’ll have done the first course of it by this time next year so there would “only” be five more courses to do from that and I know from chatting with some other folk that at least two of those courses are very interesting indeed.

Still, way too early to be worrying about it now. I might just get some of the set books for one or two of the courses in the meantime. Just to see what the course might be like you understand. No intention of doing them at all. No siree bob!

The big problem with the Open University is that they have just too many courses available and therefore once you start one particular course you find yourself looking at the prospectus when it pops through your letterbox mid-way through that course and choosing another, and another, and another…..

For instance, I am (hopefully) on the home run to a degree in modern languages with “only” one course to go. However, I know that they’ll be sending me a prospectus shortly after Easter next year and in preparation for that I’ve had a look through the courses from the prospectus that arrived earlier this year.

That is, of course, fatal as I’ve already pretty much decided to go for their chemistry degree. I even bought the DVD of that on ebay last year (recommended: search for “S103” or “S104”; the DVD contains the complete course, less the mini science laboratory that they send you and which weights way too much to post).

However, I’d also quite like to have a go at the German courses and possibly some from the history faculty.

Although I’ve stuck to one course per year up to now I’m toying with the idea of combining some of the level 2 30 point science couses with perhaps the 30 point level 1 German courses which sounds like a doable amount of work.

With all this running around Roman remains that we’ve been doing of late, I’m sort-of half toying with the idea of doing a course to learn something more about that era.

As usual, I should never even pick up an Open University prospectus as there are just too many interesting little courses in it which could keep you busy for several lifetimes. Still… their course on Exploring the Classical World would seem to fit the bill perfectly. The only problem with it really is that it’s a 60 point course which requires a fairly full committment unlike the 30 point ones which can be done as a sideline.

Funnily enough for a level 2 course, it doesn’t have any prerequisites as such other than a wishy-washy recommendation to do the Humanities course which I’ve heard, whilst interesting, isn’t worth doing in terms of being a stepping stone to further course.

If you value your “spare time” then you should be very careful never to pick up a prospectus from the Open University.

Nobody warned me about it and I started reading one in 2001 and it’s been eating up all my spare time ever since!

The booklet looks innocent enough, but then you start leafing through it and find that it’s just filled with all kinds of courses that sound really interesting. The short courses only take a few months and even a half-credit course only takes a few hours per week. Before you know it, you’ll be filling in the application form for one of them. Just to see what they send, you understand, after all you can pull out of it, can’t you?

You’re only planning on doing the one course, but then about half-way through that one they send you a letter about those that logically follow on from that one along with a little sampler of what the next course is like. All you have to do is to sign at the bottom and return the letter and before you know it, you’re walking along to the Post Office.

It’s the same next year, but by then you’re hooked and looking beyond the current strand of courses. You’re thinking “sure, if I do a couple of courses more I’ll get a degree”. That kind of thinking is fatal: you get another prospectus. Just to have a leaf through it, of course, but it never works out like that.

You think that it’s all over when you’re about to start the final course for your degree, but you’re totally addicted at that point and it’s time to get another fix. What about that other course that you were thinking of originally? Wow, they’ve updated it and it sounds even more interesting now, doesn’t it?

That’s what happened to me. I picked up the Diploma in French three years ago and have just completed the final exam for the Diploma in Spanish. That just leaves one English course and I get a degree in Modern Languages. But I always quite fancied their science courses and will be signing up for the first of those a little after Easter next year.

I think we need to start Open University Annonymous: it’s worse than drinking!

It took a while but now that James has stopped saying that “Daddy’s doing his French” and gotten the hang of “Daddy’s doing his Spanish”, it’ll soon be time for him to be saying “Daddy’s doing his English”.

This time next, all being well, I’ll have just completed my Modern Languages Degree and so ’tis time to think of what to do next…

A very long time ago, I’d a choice between doing a Computer Science degree and a Chemistry one and chose the computer route seeing as it was easier and the pay was better. So, I thought I’d have a go at the other route and not too long after Easter next year I’m planning on enrolling for the first course of said chemistry degree which looks pretty interesting and should keep me out of trouble for the next six or seven years.

On the other hand the physics degree looks quite interesting too although it sounds a whole lot harder at this point. Still, both French and Spanish sounded impossible to me seven years ago so who knows?