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What are my options? Anyone done it part time? As a mature student? Part time?
Did a B.A. in Maths in 8 years (2005 to 2012) part time with the OU (whilst working full time, moving house, getting married and becoming a dad).
Total cost (then) was about £4k, now it would be ~£15k thanks to the tuition fee hike.
I found the early courses (1st year and 2nd year) quite easy, but then I had done A-Level Further Maths and I'm a maths geek (original degree was B.Sc. Comp Sci). Most courses I started the coursework (4 or 8 assignments per year) a few days before the deadline and they took me 4 or 5 hours each.
The third year courses took more effort (4-6 hours a week) where the OU recommends 8-16 hours a week (for a 30 credit module, effectively 1/4 of a year). Attending the tutorials (held at various places local to you) really helps but I couldn't make as many as I wanted.
Given the cost I'm not sure I'd recommend the OU, look around for other (brick) Unis offering distance learning; I've no experience of them to compare them to.
The OU is very accessible though. Various starts available depending on your current status: http://mathschoices.open.ac.uk/ has quizzes to help you work out where to start.
If you've got a previous qualification then you can claim credits to save you doing all of the really easy 1st year stuff. I claimed 50 1st year credits worth (each year is 120 credits) from my previous Comp Sci degree to save me doing the easy stuff again.
OU also good for bursts, you tend to get the assignments in advance in two separate dumps (posted and PDFs online). There's nothing stopping you doing all 2 (or 4) assignments from the block in one go and sending them in, then another burst when the second lot comes through. Then revise (if you can be arsed) and then exam.
Having done A-Level maths I barely broke a sweat doing the then equivalent of MST124, but it wasn't a waste of a year getting used to the system.
I had no exams for the 1st year courses, but 2nd/3rd year courses have exams (Porchester Hall for me), and there's usually a residential course (which is a bit of a laugh too) but the rules may have changed recently.
Really pushing it you could do it in 4 years with the OU, but that may be tough on top of a full time job and other activities.
I've got the old MST121 (now obsolete) complete set of course books from 2005 (and videos and random stuff) that I've been trying to sell (via http://www.universitybooksearch.co.uk/). Yours for £40 (inc P&P within the UK or £30 if you collect from SW15/SE1), obviously you can't just sit the exam as you have to enter the course (and pay £1250 nowadays).
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Greenbank
To dredge up an old thread.
I was wondering if I could get some help. I'm hoping this thread title will be enough to diswayed the trolls.
I am interested in going back to studying. Most likely part time. But it scares the shit out of me. I want to study maths and perhaps economics. Or something along those lines.
I've been umming and awing for ages and really just need to get on with it.
What do I do? Where do I start? Is something like Open University good? Should I start afresh? Start from the beginning as it's been 10 years since I last studied? What's the easiest way to do it building block style?
Since I have a contractor job, I need something I can look at in bursts. Concentrate study book exam finish look at next.
What are my options? Anyone done it part time? As a mature student? Part time?