Thinking about my education...
Mar. 14th, 2018 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayI studied for my degree (in IT and Computing) through the Open University and it was the best decision I've made. I took a certificate in French through them a couple of years later.
For a long time (before I started seriously thinking about moving back to the UK), I've been thinking about doing another degree. The only thing that's held me back is that the subjects I most wanted to study aren't offered to overseas students. If I hadn't left the UK, it's not impossible that I'd be in the middle of another degree right now.
The only question is which degree. The incredibly sensible part of me feels I ought to take a Masters in Computing, because career. I'm not sure whether it would boost my career much, but that's what most people do with second degrees, right? Something to further their career. It's definitely an option and something I might pursue, but it's not top of my list.
Studying for the love of a subject is more what I really want to do with a second degree.
I've always wanted to study history. If things had been slightly different (i.e. if my school had allowed me to study history at A-level with my sciences), it's quite possible I would have gone straight into a history degree from sixth form. Studying history to degree level is on my bucket list.
The problem is that the OU's program doesn't offer any medieval history modules, and that's my jam. That's where my passion lies. So I'd have to go somewhere else, probably full-time, so it's really more of an after I retire plan right now. Oxford University offers a foundation history thing that can be studied part time for a couple of years and used to apply to degree programs at many universities (including Oxford! Their degree is amazing), so there's a route in, but not at this moment in my life.
Law is on my list of possibilities, because I'm a nerd and all the silly details of law fascinate me. I'd definitely consider doing first level-one module of the law degree to find out whether it's something I could keep going with.
(That's one of the joys of OU - you can study an entry module without committing to the whole degree, which can help you find out whether the degree is actually what you want.)
Way back when I was seventeen, someone gave me a biography of Stephen Hawking and he's been one of my heroes ever since. His books helped me to understand concepts in physics (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) that nobody else had been able to explain. Losing him today felt like a gut punch and it reminded me that not taking physics past GCSE (due to a bad teacher who didn't finish teaching my course, which put a dampner on my attempts to do well) has been a big regret of mine.
The OU has a degree program in astrophysics and planetary science that sounds amazing. An entire degree focusing on the areas of physics that have always fascinated me the most! OMG! I've been toying with the idea of a natural sciences degree, either physics or chemistry, and leaning more towards physics but that one sounds perfect for me.
Except it's been over twenty years since I did A-level maths so I know my maths is rusty and I'll need to really revise that before I start any science degree. Helpfully, the OU has a level-one module called Discovering Mathematics that I can study as a stand-alone and will remedy my rusty maths problem. Maybe I'll actually be better at it? My C in A-level maths still rankles, mostly because it would have been a B if the marks in my first modules had been better. Grr argh and all that. It took me a while to really 'get' that maths and I wish that I'd 'got' it about six months faster!
Anyway, Discovering Maths. I could do that (it starts in October!) and 30 credits would be a good way of easing myself back into studying. Testing whether I'll be able to handle the maths. It doesn't commit me to anything long-term, but it does give me the possibility of starting the first module in a science degree in October 2019 if I wanted to. It doesn't eliminate starting the first module in law (or even history) in October 2019. And that's a time when my life should be more settled, so if I wanted to take on a 60 credit course-load at that point, it would be much more doable than it is this year.
Plus, that's something that might help me in my work, so it would be a dual-purpose bit of studying. I'm a data engineer who always considers herself a terrible mathematician. It's probably not true and I'd like to prove to myself it isn't. I've tried taking some calculus courses recently and realised they're too advanced: I need to revise algebra and other basic concepts before I hit that stuff again. I don't want my next degree to be for career advancement, but I don't mind if it helps me better understand some of the data science concepts I've been studying lately.
I'm still noodling all of this around. But at the back of my mind, ever since I made the decision to come back, studying for another degree has kind of been a goal. It's just been deciding which one to start with that's the problem!
So watch this space and don't be surprised to see an announcement in late July that I've signed up for that maths course :-)
For a long time (before I started seriously thinking about moving back to the UK), I've been thinking about doing another degree. The only thing that's held me back is that the subjects I most wanted to study aren't offered to overseas students. If I hadn't left the UK, it's not impossible that I'd be in the middle of another degree right now.
The only question is which degree. The incredibly sensible part of me feels I ought to take a Masters in Computing, because career. I'm not sure whether it would boost my career much, but that's what most people do with second degrees, right? Something to further their career. It's definitely an option and something I might pursue, but it's not top of my list.
Studying for the love of a subject is more what I really want to do with a second degree.
I've always wanted to study history. If things had been slightly different (i.e. if my school had allowed me to study history at A-level with my sciences), it's quite possible I would have gone straight into a history degree from sixth form. Studying history to degree level is on my bucket list.
The problem is that the OU's program doesn't offer any medieval history modules, and that's my jam. That's where my passion lies. So I'd have to go somewhere else, probably full-time, so it's really more of an after I retire plan right now. Oxford University offers a foundation history thing that can be studied part time for a couple of years and used to apply to degree programs at many universities (including Oxford! Their degree is amazing), so there's a route in, but not at this moment in my life.
Law is on my list of possibilities, because I'm a nerd and all the silly details of law fascinate me. I'd definitely consider doing first level-one module of the law degree to find out whether it's something I could keep going with.
(That's one of the joys of OU - you can study an entry module without committing to the whole degree, which can help you find out whether the degree is actually what you want.)
Way back when I was seventeen, someone gave me a biography of Stephen Hawking and he's been one of my heroes ever since. His books helped me to understand concepts in physics (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) that nobody else had been able to explain. Losing him today felt like a gut punch and it reminded me that not taking physics past GCSE (due to a bad teacher who didn't finish teaching my course, which put a dampner on my attempts to do well) has been a big regret of mine.
The OU has a degree program in astrophysics and planetary science that sounds amazing. An entire degree focusing on the areas of physics that have always fascinated me the most! OMG! I've been toying with the idea of a natural sciences degree, either physics or chemistry, and leaning more towards physics but that one sounds perfect for me.
Except it's been over twenty years since I did A-level maths so I know my maths is rusty and I'll need to really revise that before I start any science degree. Helpfully, the OU has a level-one module called Discovering Mathematics that I can study as a stand-alone and will remedy my rusty maths problem. Maybe I'll actually be better at it? My C in A-level maths still rankles, mostly because it would have been a B if the marks in my first modules had been better. Grr argh and all that. It took me a while to really 'get' that maths and I wish that I'd 'got' it about six months faster!
Anyway, Discovering Maths. I could do that (it starts in October!) and 30 credits would be a good way of easing myself back into studying. Testing whether I'll be able to handle the maths. It doesn't commit me to anything long-term, but it does give me the possibility of starting the first module in a science degree in October 2019 if I wanted to. It doesn't eliminate starting the first module in law (or even history) in October 2019. And that's a time when my life should be more settled, so if I wanted to take on a 60 credit course-load at that point, it would be much more doable than it is this year.
Plus, that's something that might help me in my work, so it would be a dual-purpose bit of studying. I'm a data engineer who always considers herself a terrible mathematician. It's probably not true and I'd like to prove to myself it isn't. I've tried taking some calculus courses recently and realised they're too advanced: I need to revise algebra and other basic concepts before I hit that stuff again. I don't want my next degree to be for career advancement, but I don't mind if it helps me better understand some of the data science concepts I've been studying lately.
I'm still noodling all of this around. But at the back of my mind, ever since I made the decision to come back, studying for another degree has kind of been a goal. It's just been deciding which one to start with that's the problem!
So watch this space and don't be surprised to see an announcement in late July that I've signed up for that maths course :-)
