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Continuing Open University Study

My studies so far

I am now coming to the end of my first module with the Open University, which I previously spoke about here. At the time of writing that post, I wasn’t sure which module I would be starting with, but I ended up starting with M816 - Data Management.

The module itself has been an interesting one - on the one hand, it’s been a lot of work and a lot of reading, but on the other hand, I have learnt that when it comes to data management as a topic, I already knew a lot more than I thought I did. That isn’t to say that the module has been a waste, not in the slightest, but it has served to reinforce, and codify, a lot of the knowledge that I already had.

What’s next?

Well, in my initial post, I had mentioned a series of modules which I was interested in, and I think I’ll probably move onto M813 - Software Development next. I imagine this will strengthen a lot of what I have already learnt with my years in the industry, but I’m sure that there will be things which will be new to me.

One of the concerns I have with this module in particular is the focus on UML. I’m not personally much of a fan of UML; I have very rarely used it when working in the industry, in fact the only time that I have used it a lot was last time I was studying at a university, nearly twenty years ago. When it comes to this kind of documentation in the industry, I, and those around me, have often used Entity Relationship Diagrams for this purpose, or even code as documentation.

An aspect of this course which I am looking forward to, though, is writing some Java again. I haven’t touched Java much since I started working in the education sector, although I have used a lot of C#. To be honest, I don’t believe I’ll have much difficulty here given the similarities between the two languages, but it will be interesting to see how much I remember, and what has changed in that time.

Do I still want to complete an MSc?

This is one of the questions which I’ve been asking myself a lot - I do like the idea of having an MSc, but at the same time, the module which I’ve been going through so far has taken up a lot more time than I have been expecting. However, I will need to complete at least one more module in order to get a qualification at all, so I will at least be doing that, and with that I would have a Postgraduate Certificate in Computing.

Another aspect has been what else has been going on in my life during these studies. I’ve been working full time, I’ve been working on this course, and I’ve been moving house which has required a lot of work. I’ve also been working on a few other side projects to learn more about different technologies, such as my devc-nvim-commands scripts. All of these things have taken up a lot of time, and I’ve been finding it difficult to balance all of these things at times.

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