The Higher Education Megathread

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Moggy** » Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:44 am

Errkal wrote:9 days until my degree starts.

Getting nervous as I basically have no idea what to expect. Excited too

Is that at a brick uni or through Open University?

I did my degree through the OU (I think Staydead did as well) so if you are going through that route and want to know anything then just ask.

Moggy wrote:
Errkal wrote:9 days until my degree starts.

Getting nervous as I basically have no idea what to expect. Excited too

Is that at a brick uni or through Open University?

I did my degree through the OU (I think Staydead did as well) so if you are going through that route and want to know anything then just ask.

It's a uni caller BPP University it's who work use for courses and things. They seem reasonable and have a bunch of physical sites I can go to as well as all the online stuff.

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Moggy** » Wed Sep 25, 2019 1:50 pm

Errkal wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Errkal wrote:9 days until my degree starts.

Getting nervous as I basically have no idea what to expect. Excited too

Is that at a brick uni or through Open University?

I did my degree through the OU (I think Staydead did as well) so if you are going through that route and want to know anything then just ask.

It's a uni caller BPP University it's who work use for courses and things. They seem reasonable and have a bunch of physical sites I can go to as well as all the online stuff.

Then all of my advice is useless.

Good luck mate, I hope you enjoy it and it goes well.

Moggy wrote:
Errkal wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Errkal wrote:9 days until my degree starts.

Getting nervous as I basically have no idea what to expect. Excited too

Is that at a brick uni or through Open University?

I did my degree through the OU (I think Staydead did as well) so if you are going through that route and want to know anything then just ask.

It's a uni caller BPP University it's who work use for courses and things. They seem reasonable and have a bunch of physical sites I can go to as well as all the online stuff.

Then all of my advice is useless.

Good luck mate, I hope you enjoy it and it goes well.

General uni type advise I'm sure would be handy, hopefully it will be I have my schedule if what happens in each year so looks pretty busy haah

Corazon de Leon

Are you doing it part time Errkal, alongside work?

Corazon de Leon wrote:Are you doing it part time Errkal, alongside work?

Yeah, it's being funded by work and that too so I get 20% of my work time towards it too so going to have a day a week at home dedicated which is nice

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Moggy** » Wed Sep 25, 2019 2:46 pm

Errkal wrote:
Corazon de Leon wrote:Are you doing it part time Errkal, alongside work?

Yeah, it's being funded by work and that too so I get 20% of my work time towards it too so going to have a day a week at home dedicated which is nice

That’ll really help you, I had Friday’s off work when I was doing my OU degree (work didn’t know that was why!) so it gave me a nice quiet day at home once a week to study and write coursework/do assessments.

The main problem you will find is that it can be a little boring and hard to motivate yourself when you are at home alone. I am fine with alone time, but only when I am watching movies/playing games/wanking/messing around on the internet. Motivating myself to actually study and do some work was the biggest challenge.

Just make sure you have a set routine. Plan to study between 9-12, have a few hours to mess around and then study again between 3-6. Obviously those times are just made up, you might need more or less study time! But the mess around time in the middle will help you have a break and feel less resentful towards the uni work.

Overall though, just enjoy it! Learning things is always fun and I miss not getting packages of study books every few months.

Corazon de Leon

Has anyone got problems in putting their ideas to paper? I had a thunderbolt of a project idea leading on from a paper I'm potentially giving next year and it made perfect sense/was very innovative in my head, but having spent the last three and a half hours trying to get it into the form of a draft research proposal, I can't quite put the words that are in my head onto the page. It's very frustrating. :lol:

Corazon de Leon wrote:Has anyone got problems in putting their ideas to paper? I had a thunderbolt of a project idea leading on from a paper I'm potentially giving next year and it made perfect sense/was very innovative in my head, but having spent the last three and a half hours trying to get it into the form of a draft research proposal, I can't quite put the words that are in my head onto the page. It's very frustrating.

Odd idea for this, turn on voice to text in a Windows and dictate it to the computer. Then from dictation work it out into something useful.

Yeah - a dictaphone would seem like a good idea for this.

I'm not entirely sure what to do at the moment. I feel like one of those ducks/swans (whatever they are) that look really smooth above water but are paddling like mad under the water, except I'm also starting to sink. I can't stand people who just moan about how hard they work (as far as I'm concerned, if people spent less time moaning about workload, they'd have more time to work - there are obviously exceptions to this, though...), but I'm really struggling at the moment. My workload/lecturing load is really front-loaded this semester, so things should get better from Week 6 (currently starting week 3), but Week 6 seems a seriously long way away. I've had one day off in the past three weeks, and three or four 02:30 finishes (08:30 starts), with almost every day involving working until 20:00 or 21:00. I get 30 minutes to watch an episode of something then go to bed.

Very much a struggle at the moment. As far as everyone at work and IRL (other than my wife/family) is concerned, I'm absolutely fine and having a great time at work - which is why I'm posting a mini-rant here instead :shifty:

Bleh. On the plus side, I think my lectures are going down pretty well at the moment. Had quite a good session on stroke/MS today. I go into automatic pilot as soon as I'm in front of a group. It's all the other gooseberry fool that is doing my head in.

Couple of webinars in on my course. Quite liking the maths for computing module although the syntax of maths gooseberry fool is confusing and still get a but “argh strawberry float lots of numbers” when I have a page of equation crap.

Oddly the module I thought I would like which is about information systems and systems thinking I don’t much like.

Either way, all good so far at least and nerves have died down a bit, first set of assignments should come out in 3 weeks which is our sort of mocks then the proper ones in 5 weeks, I imagine my opinions might change when I have a thing to write

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Red** » Sun Dec 08, 2019 1:19 pm

I started an MA in September. I'm 35 and quit my career completely, spent a couple of years working two jobs to save the money to afford it. We've moved from Oxford to Newcastle so I can do it.

It is HARD. Loving the subject but it's intense, more so than I was expecting. I've not had any grades back yet so I can't calibrate how I'm doing at all. There's a mix of idiots and smart people on the course, some more frustrating than others, about 18 on the course in total. But actually learning stuff is blowing my tiny mind. I realise now I've not really used my brain for that last ten years at all. It feels good. I just hope I do well enough to make the massive sacrifice worth it.

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **That** » Sun Dec 08, 2019 1:27 pm

Good luck Red! I seem to recall you were a historian (is that right?) - is there a particular theme / sub-field you're focusing on in your M.A.?

I found a Master's to be a pretty solid step up from an undergrad course so I think it's very normal to feel it's quite intense. In the years since I've managed to get a little experience in teaching postgrads, as well as final-year undergrads dipping their toes into that kind of more independent and in-depth learning, and it's definitely that enthusiasm for learning that is the biggest indicator of whether someone will do well in the end. If you're feeling good about that aspect then I imagine you will do really well.

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Red** » Sun Dec 08, 2019 1:53 pm

I studied Ancient History way back when but I've been working on publishing since I'm left uni (healthcare, trade fiction, academic policing and criminology, all over the shop). The MA is in archaeology.

I'm really hoping the enthusiasm will carry me through - I've not written a proper essay in well over a decade til now and feel strongly that I'm winging it. There's a mix of 'does nothing but work' students of all ages and 'drunk by 11am' 21 year olds so it's a nice balance overall and you can hang out with one or the other depending on how you feel. I can't get out of the work mindset so I do 9 to 5 where possible and try to hang out a bit more in the evenings. It's just a big shift in my life!

I know that I'm doing it to earn less than I did in my career before but that's okay.

I strawberry floated up undergrad massively so I feel like this is my chance to do it properly.

What are you doing these days?

Corazon de Leon

Great to hear, and good luck with the course. MA is really tough but really rewarding. Is it Newcastle Uni or Northumbria you’re at?

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Red** » Sun Dec 08, 2019 2:57 pm

Newcastle - they've got a pretty strong Roman archaeology strand as they're on Hadrian's Wall. It's been a great move so far, the university isn't perfect but it's a nice environment, the city is lovely, the library and all that stuff are much better than I remember from undergrad at Manchester in the early 2000s.

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **That** » Sun Dec 08, 2019 3:17 pm

Ah, Roman archaeology! That's very cool! Try not to worry too much about winging it (everyone gets that feeling, honestly!) or whatever might have happened at undergrad - in some ways you're going back with a lot of advantages, particularly the experience of a work routine that works for you, and what sounds like genuine passion. They wouldn't have let you on the course if they didn't think you could do it - you'll smash it!

Are you thinking of sticking around in the archaeology research / museums / curation kind of field afterwards?

Red wrote:What are you doing these days?

I'm just finishing up a Ph.D. (viva in late Jan / early Feb probably!). I do medical research with computer simulations - kind of a mix of human biology and computer science. It's been good overall. My lab is quite interdisciplinary, and associated with a small biotech company, as well as the department having close ties to the NHS, so there's been a lot of variety. Big stress spikes around deadlines though, and it's getting harder to deal with that year-on-year, so I'm not 100% sure about sticking around long-term - I have my fingers crossed for a 12-month postdoc in the same lab but on different projects, so I'll see how that goes and then decide.

Did anyone here take their assignment results too much to heart? My marks for this semester have been slowly going down. Objectively they are good marks (mostly in the 70%-84% range) and my mentor and tutor have said there is nothing to worry about. But because I'm super self-critical and the marks have been going down I've started really beating myself up and also worry about current assignments. I keep going through phases of "yeah, I can totally do this" to "what was I thinking? I not good enough to do a degree". So does it get any easier? Not from a workload POV, I know studying takes a lot of time and work, more from a "stop picking apart your results" POV. I think I'll be more confident when I start the degree proper (this is a foundation year) and I'm doing modules that I'm passionate about rather than the generic intro modules (which are fine, just not super exciting).

Putting together an academic CV because I'm (hopefully) nearing the end of the thesis and want to start looking for jobs. Uhhhh not fun... Also, I am a bit worried in regards to my publications. I have some stuff credited to myself but I've never actually written anything in any of these papers, just worked on the data analysis side of things, so I'm not sure what I should do for jobs that ask for a writing sample...

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread by **Red** » Thu Feb 13, 2020 7:03 pm

Anyone else being shafted by the ongoing strike action from the UCU?

Losing a massive amount of teaching from my archaeometallurgy class and pretty pissed off about it. Degrees aren't cheap.

The Higher Education Megathread

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