Showing posts with label academic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label academic. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Another course!

Not content with a Masters degree i have also started another course! This is not an Open University one however and is much more career focussed, in fact potentially career changing. I have begun a PTLLS course which at the end in a few weeks (if i pass) will qualify me to teach post 16 students such as adult learners or in company training schemes for example.

Staff training was a small part of my previous job and part i quite enjoyed, mostly i was teaching people how to use the university's content management system but also how to use social media. Maybe i shall teach people web design or IT in future. Hopefully it will not clash with my masters though one potential confusion is that the PTLLS course uses Harvard referencing and i use MHRA on my masters. Don't really want to get those two mixed up...

Thursday, August 15, 2013

A level result day

A level result day (a.k.a. girls being photographed jumping in the air day), and on this day i always remember when i got my results. This was back in 1990 which was about 5 ice ages ago in the early Holocene. I turned up at my awful 6th form college (since closed down) to confirm what i already expected that i had failed my Maths and Physics A levels. I got U and N respectively.

More importantly however was my Computer Studies A Level. I needed an E to get into Birmingham Polytechnic to start a HND in Computer Science, in the end i got a D and my polytechnic/university career began at the end of the next month. In hindsight i could have got straight onto a degree course if i had gone through clearing but i always prefer to stick to plan A and that was to do the HND first then do a degree, and 5 years later i had achieved both.

Midlands Today filmed a report from my college though i was not asked by the reporter (David Davies in fact in his pre-FA days) about my results probably because i was not blonde or female. However it probably would have been a bit embarrassing to tell the nation (or the West Midlands at least) how my results read D U N. Incidentally one of my friends got E N D which was mildly amusing.

That was 23 years ago, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. 18 years working in web development and a second academic career with the Open University. Actually thinking about it i should have chosen history for my A levels all of those years ago, i probably would have got to university to study history back in 1990. I could have my own Channel 5 or BBC4 TV career by now...

Thursday, February 28, 2013

The illustrated guide to a Ph.D

The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D by Matt Might is something i enjoyed finding the other day, it is an attempt to explain what a Ph.D is using simple graphics. Although i am "merely" aiming for a masters i could relate to how my knowledge is represented. I am aiming for the horizon though. I am not discounting working on a Ph.D one day but first things first...

It is almost March and that means results month. Hopefully i should find out if i have passed A825 by mid-March and have some guidance as to where i should be going with my dissertation.