SD226 Day School

Since I was in the UK this weekend, I took the chance to go to Leeds to attend a day school for my ongoing Open University course in Biological Psychology.  Having given most of my attention to the Human Biology course over the last few months, the day school was a great opportunity to refocus on this course, and receive some tuition that didn't come out of the text books.  I attended two tutorials, one on experimental design, particularly relating to the End of Course Assessment (ECA) and the other on schizophrenia.  Both were informative and well presented.  It was also great to meet some other people on the course (predominantly women, and most studying psychology).

Afterwards, Mum and Dad picked me up (they'd taken the opportunity to visit a stately home in the area) and we went to the Middleton heritage railway.  We arrived just in time to catch the last train ride of the day.  We finished the day off with a birthday meal for Mum, at Swadesh, a fairly new (well, to me, anyway) Indian restaurant in Bowdon.

OU Study Group

This afternoon I hosted a small study group for my Biological Psychology course - of the six people on the course who are based in The Netherlands, we managed to muster up 3 participants (including myself). We spent about three hours chatting and discussing various aspects of the course - how the OU works, how to write essays, what a pain it is to try and get your head around all the terminology in the course. Having neglected study recently for other distractions I was concerned before we met that I might be out of my depth in the discussions, but in fact the three of us seemed to work well together, and coming from different backgrounds, all had different perspectives to offer. I found it a very enjoyable afternoon, and I hope we can have another meeting soon.

SK277 Human Biology - TMA01

As a general rule, most of what arrives through my letter box is not of great excitement - junk mail, letters addressed to the previous occupants, or if I'm really lucky, a bank statement.

As it happens, there was one thing I've been expecting for the last week or so - the results from the first assignment (on Cells and Nutrition) of my Human Biology course.  In the event, I was so sidetracked when I came home this evening, wondering if Rupert was finally going to manage to keep down his dinner (he did, a great relief to all!), that it was some time before I realised that the dreaded OU envelope had arrived.

Despite the rush to finish the essay in time for the deadline, I surprised myself once again by scoring 88%.  The tutor's remarks were also very positive, although his final comment "I look forward to receiving your next assignment" certainly increases the pressure for TMA02.

(picture taken from "Cells and Nutrition", Open University 2004)

Biological Psychology

Despite the fact that my Human Biology course is still running, I have despite to take on a little more work, and am starting a second OU course Biological Psychology in February. I hope I'm not taking on more than I can chew, as the two courses will overlap for a couple of months, but I didn't want to wait until 2010 to continue my progress on the Diploma in Health Sciences.

Certificate in Health Sciences

Well, I've done it! Passed my first longer OU course "Introducing Health Sciences: a case study approach" with Distinction, and gained the Certificate in Health Sciences.

The next step will be my first level 2 course, "Human Biology", aiming for the Diploma in Health Sciences.

Studying Mammals Result

Just logged into the OU website to find my result for the Studying Mammals course - 82 percent. There would be a percent sign but punctuation is quite a challenge on a Morroccan keyboard. Anyway, Im very pleased.

And after Molecules, Medicines and Drugs comes ...

... SK195 - Human Genetics and Health Issues.

The current course is going so well that I already made the choice to sign up for the next one! Have also heard about some new up and coming courses such as Forensic Science which sound really interesting. I think the OU can keep me out of mischief for plenty of years to come at this rate.

SK185 - Molecules, Medicines and Drugs

Great excitement when I got home on Friday night (or should that be Saturday morning) after a relaxing few drinks at our monthly choir social, and found a parcel waiting for me.

Despite the lateness of the hour, I had to rip open the box of materials for my new Open University course, amongst them a molecular modelling kit.

This little beastie is an aspirin molecule - black balls represent carbon, red ones are oxygen, and the white ones, hydrogen.

In the Post....

... well, nearly.

My End of Course Assignment for the Open University course I signed up for last summer - Studying Mammals - is all packaged up and ready to go! The course was based on the BBC television series, The Life of Mammals, and covered many aspects of mammalian biology.

Both the television series and its accompanying book are available through Amazon (DVD, Book), and I'd highly recommend either of them.

Despite the fact that making time to study has been hard the last few months, and indeed most of my work for the course has been done in the last three weeks, my innate thirst for knowledge (or lack of common sense...) has not been overcome, and I've signed up for another course Molecules, Medicines and Drugs: A Chemical Story which begins in February.