That's right, three weeks in and I'm already behind!!
I finished Unit A1 of M337 only a day or two after the schedule said I should have done, at least. As for M381 though, well, I'm still ten pages from the end of the first book! It's fairly sad to be behind so soon in. Especially considering I printed out the first two units way back in the autumn with the good intentions of getting ahead.
The timetable has me starting the third unit of each course next Friday so there's still time. However, I think I need a reassessment of how I'm going to approach the Open University this year, bearing in mind both the fact that it's level 3 now, and that I can probably assume work will continue to be busy throughout the year. After all, it has hardly let up since the start of November.
As a side note, can you believe I'm still waiting to be paid for some work I did way back then? Translation agencies have various payment schedules. One that I do the odd job for pays roughly 45 days after the end of the month following the month in which the work was completed. This is kind of harsh at the best of times, but the job in question was a long one that started in November and ended just after January started. That means I have to wait until 45 days after the end of this month (so mid-April) to get paid for all of it, including the work I completed right at the beginning! Madness.
Anyway, back on topic. It's looking like I've got nothing on over the weekend, so I have planned a hardcore catch-up session. Beginning tomorrow with the rest of Unit 1 of Number Theory, and maybe as a bit of revision, by redoing the Exercises at the end of Unit 1 of Complex Analysis. Then Saturday and Sunday's plan is to get past the half way mark in the second unit of each (which in M381's case is onto mathematical logic), which should put me roughly where I'm supposed to be. Ideally, I'd like to be slightly ahead, but as much as I love maths, I'd be surprised if I manage to do quite that much!
I'm quietly confident that I can get my head down and do the studying necessary at least. If nothing else, the amount of work I've had on recently has helped me learn to just get on and do something, and face the fact that it might mean long days and late nights. Last week for example, I had a friend coming to visit from Thursday to Saturday; we went to see the Sisters of Mercy at Leeds Metropolitan last Thursday, which coincidentally, is where my tutorials are (didn't stop me having a bitch of a time getting there in the car!). Anyway, to clear all the work due in over the period before and during his visit meant, a very busy week, culminating on the Wednesday with 9am right through to 3am (excluding dinner, dog walks etc.), then back up at 8am to start again on Thursday, and working right until his train arrived at 3pm.
Now, if I can just tap into some of that! Unfortunately, I don't have the fear of missing a deadline, never being given work by that agency again, and not being able to afford to eat or pay the bills!
Hi Neil,
ReplyDeleteI've only just found this blog.
It's a great read - it's really good to read other peoples' experiences of maths study at The Open University.
It's interesting that you've gone straight to third year pure, instead of taking MST209.
I wrestled with both pathways after taking M208 last year but decided I might be better off with another solid year of level 2 courses instead - hence I'm doing MST209 and M248 this year.
A couple of questions, if I may - how does M337 compare with the analysis blocks of M208?
M337 is my final year choice for October 2012, along with M346 (linear statistical modelling) and I'm curious to see what both the workload and difficulty are like, with M208 as a benchmark.
Thanks.
Hi
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. It's good to see that I'm getting read.
I went straight for level 3, without too much soul searching to be honest. My ultimate aim was to do Topology, and waiting until 2012 seemed long enough already. Being fairly certain that it's about as hard as the undergraduate pure maths is likely to get, I wanted to get some other level 3 pure under my belt first. I wasn't desperate to do MST209 quite yet anyway.
Then the OU went and decided to do away with M338, M336, M381 to be replaced with their level 3 60 point pure course, so I hadn't much choice if I wanted to do some level 3 practice before M338, than to take the route I did.
How does M337 compare to analysis in M208? Well, I've only finished A1 to A3 (on schedule in fact) so far, but can honestly say I'm finding it no more difficult than the analysis in M208.
When I got to the analysis block, I put in quite a lot of work because initially, I found it quite demanding, even the sequential definition of continuity threw me for a few days. Incidentally, it clicked randomly at the pub during one of the England games last summer, so I had to scribble it down on a beer mat or something to be sure I didn't forget it.
I don't know if it's down to the effort I put into analysis last year, but I feel I'm doing much better with it this time around. We'll see whether that changes when we get to the hard sounding stuff like conformal mapping and residues, though.
At this point however, I can fairly confidently say that if you coped with analysis in M208, then M337 is not going to be too much of a shock, at least at first. I'm enjoying it immensely, and sort of feel like I'm really 'doing maths' when working on it, if you know what I mean.
Hope that helps.
Neil
P.S. About the length of time it is taking by the way, I can't really remember how long it was taking me when doing the analysis blocks of M208 last year.
ReplyDeleteThis is because, mainly, I spent those blocks behind schedule, and trying to keep up, so it was all a bit rushed. I can say however, that without the pressures of another module at the same time, you can comfortably get through a unit a week, give or take.
As you probably know, the schedule basically gives you two weeks per unit, so time-wise it is not so bad. Now I'm on schedule at last, I think it should be paced perfectly. Again, time will tell on that.
Neil