Still keeping myself one week ahead but not by doing 8 hours a week - more like 12 - 14. This week it was all about the Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act. I found the reading quite interesting and followed up a lot of the links. I have to admit to getting lost in the detail of the acts themselves. The official guides were very helpful. However, I am sticking to my current learning practice of reading everything, taking notes of the important points but not trying to digest everything as I go along. I find that if I concentrate too hard I actually start to glaze over and think of other things. So, reading and gleaning the important stuff and knowing that, should a topic come up in a TMA/CMA, I will know where to come back to is keeping me on time. This means that I am still maintaining my one week advance on the course. Not much of a buffer but a buffer none the less.
I am confused - again - about the suggested timings. I can't remember what I used to do - my last TMA that I completed was in 1980 so I am sure that a) I can't remember what I did or how it was marked and b) It has probably all changed since then! It seems that my studies are taking up more time than the authors of the course suggest. So, my question is - where does the time come from to complete the TMAs and CMAs? As far as I can tell, these have to be done in time outside of the weekly allowance. I am lucky in that I am retired so can find the extra time. I wonder what I would do if I was in my previous situation - a senior trader in a bank in the City plus a wife and four children between 11 and 2. A year previous to that I did a 60 credit maths course (M101) which included a week's summer school. I came back from that having learned Basic and promptly got involved in writing software for the bank's trading room - as well as completing the course on time and successfully. I am a bit (ha!) older now so expect to be a bit less capable but this is only a 30 credit course so the timings ought to allow another course to run parallel. I am glad that I am not doing that other course though.
I sorted out the mess that I got into having signed up for two courses next year. I took on the second course knowing that I would cancel the first one. I sent an e-mail to the Student Support people asking them to effect the cancellation - I got an auto acknowledgement back but no action. I telephoned and the person there said that they had taken the appropriate steps but 10 days later I had to send another e-mail which finally got the job done. I am now enrolled on TM352 - Web, Mobile and Cloud Technologies which starts in October.
I have completed the second CMA. Hmmm. I learned a lesson with this one (which I knew really). I thought that the first question was easy so I rattled off the answer - wrong - did it again - wrong and then a third time. Guess what - wrong again. I ended up with just 4 marks out of 10. OK, I thought. Let's do this properly so, yesterday morning, I sat down and went slowly through the rest of the CMA. I found questions 2 and 3 somewhat confusing and, even though I did spend a good amount of time on them, I had to accept that I was going to get less than full marks. As it worked out, the results looked like this:
Question
Status
Marks
Possible
1
Correct
4.00
10.00
2
Correct
6.22
10.00
3
Partially Correct
8.00
10.00
4
Correct
9.33
10.00
5
Correct
10.00
10.00
6
Correct
10.00
10.00
7
Correct
10.00
10.00
8
Partially Correct
10.00
10.00
67.55
80.00
Result
84.44%
I am not sure quite how I got 10 for question 8 when it was marked up as Partially Correct but I think that I got it right. I have just checked back but , to do that, I have to start another session and question 8 is different so I can't answer that one now. Still I got 94% and 84% so far which means I have 5 more to get my final 3 over 30%. I am struggling with the TMA though as my poor 70 year old brain is dragging its feet back to assignment writing. I will get there though. Still a few weeks before the cut off so I can keep working at it.
That's all for now. I am just about to open Part 7. I love using spreadsheets and could write you a book about where 'non-programmers' go wrong in using them (hint - a lack of planning and debugging skills).
Week 5 and ICMAs
Still keeping myself one week ahead but not by doing 8 hours a week - more like 12 - 14. This week it was all about the Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act. I found the reading quite interesting and followed up a lot of the links. I have to admit to getting lost in the detail of the acts themselves. The official guides were very helpful. However, I am sticking to my current learning practice of reading everything, taking notes of the important points but not trying to digest everything as I go along. I find that if I concentrate too hard I actually start to glaze over and think of other things. So, reading and gleaning the important stuff and knowing that, should a topic come up in a TMA/CMA, I will know where to come back to is keeping me on time. This means that I am still maintaining my one week advance on the course. Not much of a buffer but a buffer none the less.
I am confused - again - about the suggested timings. I can't remember what I used to do - my last TMA that I completed was in 1980 so I am sure that a) I can't remember what I did or how it was marked and b) It has probably all changed since then! It seems that my studies are taking up more time than the authors of the course suggest. So, my question is - where does the time come from to complete the TMAs and CMAs? As far as I can tell, these have to be done in time outside of the weekly allowance. I am lucky in that I am retired so can find the extra time. I wonder what I would do if I was in my previous situation - a senior trader in a bank in the City plus a wife and four children between 11 and 2. A year previous to that I did a 60 credit maths course (M101) which included a week's summer school. I came back from that having learned Basic and promptly got involved in writing software for the bank's trading room - as well as completing the course on time and successfully. I am a bit (ha!) older now so expect to be a bit less capable but this is only a 30 credit course so the timings ought to allow another course to run parallel. I am glad that I am not doing that other course though.
I sorted out the mess that I got into having signed up for two courses next year. I took on the second course knowing that I would cancel the first one. I sent an e-mail to the Student Support people asking them to effect the cancellation - I got an auto acknowledgement back but no action. I telephoned and the person there said that they had taken the appropriate steps but 10 days later I had to send another e-mail which finally got the job done. I am now enrolled on TM352 - Web, Mobile and Cloud Technologies which starts in October.
I have completed the second CMA. Hmmm. I learned a lesson with this one (which I knew really). I thought that the first question was easy so I rattled off the answer - wrong - did it again - wrong and then a third time. Guess what - wrong again. I ended up with just 4 marks out of 10. OK, I thought. Let's do this properly so, yesterday morning, I sat down and went slowly through the rest of the CMA. I found questions 2 and 3 somewhat confusing and, even though I did spend a good amount of time on them, I had to accept that I was going to get less than full marks. As it worked out, the results looked like this:
That's all for now. I am just about to open Part 7. I love using spreadsheets and could write you a book about where 'non-programmers' go wrong in using them (hint - a lack of planning and debugging skills).