Personal Blogs

So i am on stand by tonight, giving my the luxury of a little time to do a rambling blog post.

Firstly, i am very proud of Son #1, he is on for a first with his degree, BA(hons) Politics and International Relations. He has his offer to do his masters in International relations, so all things being equal, he should get at least a 2:1 and go into the masters course. so that makes me proud, well done him. I think he is lucky, when my dad died, he left the kids the money to go to University, so there is enough to cover son #1's masters fee's, because he is continuing at Portsmouth, so he gets a discount on the masters. I wonder if he knows how lucky he is that he can graduate with a Masters degree and no student debt, although it is always a two sided coin, he could have got an apprenticeship after A levels and have had the £35,000 as a deposit for a flat or something. Looking at the data for incomes for people with Masters degree's, i hope he will fit into a good graduate programme somewhere with the option to have a good wage going forward, so who knows, it is a game of two halves. It looks like Portsmouth Uni are planning to restart graduate ceremonies, his will be in July hopefully. Followed by another one next July, with any luck.

I am still waiting for Winchester to get back to me with an offer, i have confirmed my offer with Portsmouth, so grades willing that is now my plan A, both applications ae held up whilst i wait for Student Services at the OU to give both universities my academic references. According to the website, they aim to reply within ten days, so they are not outisde that window yet. My friend Tony, who got a Masters in procurement from Manchester Uni when we were young, wrote a lovely personal reference for me, so that is appreciated.

I am now up to date with DD309, i feel so much more comfortable now with what remains and my final project. I decided my research question with be based aorund game theory and assurance cooperation games, comparing cheap talking players to third party moderators and which provide the best untility (outcomes). Game theory is a subject i find very interesting (so much more than the vast lumps of neo classical theory in DD309) sp hopefully that fact that i find my research question interesting will help me get a good mark. It is quite liberating, having had several occasions when the TMA question was really something part of the course i had no interest in and so had to drag the essay out of the very bottom of my brain. so it is nice to have the chance to do somehting i am actually interested in.

I am still feeling the same way about the OU i have for a while now, 'lets just get this done and be done with it' i did have a look at the OU Masters programme, nothing really suitable for me. Also, having looked at quite a few graduate scheme's i have noticed that a couple of the bigger name financial firms do not list the OU as acceptable institutions for their programmes. So if i get a masters from Portsmouth, then that will be less of  problem. It is weird, i have eleven weeks remaining witht he OU, after 6 years and 4 months, i am really on the final eleven week stretch.

So reflecting on the journey, it has been fun, it has been not fun, it has been interesting at points, it has been dull in points. I feel it has been worthwhile, when i started i thought i would be satisfied with the BA degree. that has changed, now i feel like i should carry on, and get the MSc degree. I have recently started to doubt how much of an achievement the BA(hons) Politics,Philosophy and Economics qualification will be, i am sure other people would feel prouder than i will, however i think it might be linked to the isolating nature of the OU study. I have not had a tutorial face to face for over a year now, and i miss that. I think that by slogging away on my own, on the lap top that i am starting to lose the feeling of connection to value of achieveing the qualification. It is an up and down thing, i guess i am not the only student that goes through the journey. I imagine this feeling is shared by others about to graduate their qualification. I think i have also lost the context of how long six and a half years really is. Studying has become habit, habit become routine, routine becomes tedium and that is where i am at now. I am glad i claimed by Diploma of higher education last year, that gave me a little push along, i also think i should have left DD316, the Politics module until the last, and got this Economics module out of the way first, the most important thing is that i binned the Philosophy at level 3, that was a good choice, and doing Economics last was a bad choice.

Spring is here, my potatoes are planted, Covid seems to be far more under control than it was, half of all UK adults are now vaccinated, so as the seasons change so does my academic season. Bighter days are ahead, warmer and hopefully more content on all counts.

i was aiming for 1000 words.... did not nail it, tailed off at 953....

I am really excited about being in round two of the university challenge sorting.

I have to pick me specialist area of knowledge. Do i choose politics and philosophy, the natural choice for my study path? Or do i take a punt on general knowledge?

I fancy taking a punt on general knowledge.

I keep seeing lots of adverts on social media feeds which declare that OU study is 'life changing' despite my struggle with a222 so far this year, i do agree.

Study with the OU is life changing.

Well i found some time yesterday to do something outside of Work and the OU !

I produced another cartoon, attached above, for the Star and Crescent micro news site.

Hopefully my editor, Sarah, will like it enough to publish it with my others.

I thought i would share it here, i am studying Politics after all.

I also did a written article, 1000 words, perhaps all this TMA writing is starting to blend into my life outside the OU and work.

I call them cartoons, actually i can not draw for toffee and so produce sarcastic infographics instead!