OU DD100 and MU120 - any other students here?

HomeSpun

Aww thanks lucky_me! It's really no problem.

I meant to add to the last message that, when you have heard back about your funding, it is worth filling out this form for further funding. They can pay your internet costs (up to £30 per month for a year) and travel expenses to tutorials, ink cartridges and paper etc. Any study related costs at all, I think. There is also a section on there for childcare, you can apply for up to £1000 per child for each 60 points you are studying in any one year. There is also an MSE thread here which dates back to 2006, but also has some current and useful information about putting in an application for the ALF.

:hello: Ibizavic. Good luck with your course. There are a few of us here now studying this course, and others, in October, so we're fast becoming our own little study support group! Please join in and keep us updated with how you are getting on. Everybody here is really friendly and I'm sure as we all progress, we'll be able to help each other out!

No study done here today . It's tough with the children running around so I'm going to put more effort in when they're back at school (11 days :j). I had planned to get some done this evening, but my youngest is still not asleep :rolleyes: and now OH has just got in from work, so I'm writing today off!

Goodnight all

HS x

lucky_me_2

Hi HomeSpun,

Thank you for that information on the further funding, that's great to hear as I wasn't aware that this was something else that was offered. Did you find that once you had registered with the OU they provided you with all the information that you needed? Just wondering what to expect really..?

I really need a new laptop and was going to use the £250 grant to pay towards this and now I may even be able to claim the rest of the total back which is excellent

Not too much longer left to go now!! Looking forward to hearing back from them shortly and then I can purchase my books!

It must be hard to find the time to study, its just me at the moment so I am looking forward to something to fill my evenings and weekends

Hope you have had an excellent bank holiday weekend

x

slick-chic85

:hello: everyone,

Phew its been a long week, 2 days in France:D:D a days rest, 2 days at my moms and got my teenage 5yr old back home now:eek::eek::eek:

Received my materials for openings Psychology course I cant wait to start havent even had a chance to read anything yet I was hoping to start a little earlier than the scheduled date of the 1st as DD2 is due towards end of month and I wont get a chance to study for a few days. Good Luck to all of you fellow students for DD100 (oct) and other all other courses & a extra special thankyou to Homespun (You are like a solid encouragement rock for studying, honestly u motivate me:beer::beer:)....Take care x x x x x x

HomeSpun

:hello: lucky_me! I had quite a good weekend thanks, hope you had a good one too. Didn't get much studying done, but that's to be expected with the chaos that is my home life :rotfl:. OH worked all weekend, so nothing special happened, Mum had my eldest Fri-Sun and my middle daughter Sat and Sun, so just me and the boy for the weekend! He lost his first tooth yesterday and he was soooo excited! The 'tooth fairy' had to give him a fiver as it was all she had in her purse :rolleyes:.

Most of the information I got through searching on here and on the OU site, I think I must have read just about every page of their site. The OU did send me a form to complete (all I had to do was sign!) to apply for a computer grant of £245 to top up the £255 course grant, and a week AFTER I had spent £72 on a stupidly complicated calculator which I need for MU120, they sent me a form saying they would send me one if I didn't have one!

Study time has been pretty hard lately with the children home (couldn't fit it in today as we've been making puzzles from old photos, learning to draw cartoon characters, having a water fight and, in true 70s child style, making pineapple upside down cake :rotfl:), but they're back at school in 6 days so I can throw myself into it then. Not really looking forward to them going back, the house will be all quiet again (although I will enjoy the peace for the first couple of days ).

:hello:slick-chic! Aww, hun, that's so kind but really it's my pleasure

I was getting all worried about you and excited for you then! I'm glad you've had some time away before the imminent event. If you're 5yo is anything like my 6yo, you certainly know you've got her! Despite his normal insistence on messing around til about 11 (only during holidays, he's better at bedtimes during school time) yesterday he started asking to go to bed at 3pm so the tooth fairy would come! He slept nice and early too, although was up early this morning, but so was I as OH decided to have a chat with someone in his sleep and woke me up :rolleyes:. Bl00dy men :rolleyes:

I have found that, when time is short, it helps to read just a couple of paragraphs when you have 5 minutes and then when you go back to it later it kind of makes more sense, if you see what I mean. I tried yesterday to study, but had no time to answer the maths questions in the textbook,so I read the last half of module 3 (about 4 pages) in bits and pieces throughout the day and I shall sit down tonight and read it again and do the q's.

I've got my first CMA to do in the next couple of weeks, well, it's not due until 4th Oct but, like slick-chic I want to stay ahead (although not for the same reason hun :rotfl:) so I'm getting excited/nervous about that, but it's only a recap of the 4 modules in the prep book so everything should be fine.


Only about 3 weeks until the DD100 course materials turn up :D Can't wait :D

Good luck everyone and keep in touch

HS xx

Wanted to add that I really enjoy reading everyone else's posts on this thread and that I hope we all keep this up and stay in touch - it's nice talking to other people out there doing the same and getting just as excited xx

HomeSpun

Hi all

Well the house has been lovely and quiet as the children have returned to school. I've managed to get a big fat nothing done this week but going to start with a vengeance next week,

How is everyone else getting on?

HS xx

Sneezy

Whatever you do don't underestimate how much time you have just because you don't work....Children are probably more time consuming!!
MU120...i'm just coming to the end of that one and found it really easy going with the exception of the odd "crazy moment" One good thing that you can do is forward your ou mailbox to yahoo, hotmail etc that way if you forget to log in you don't miss important messages.

Read the stop presses when you get them....edit the erratia relating to course books/TMA straight away otherwise its a pain having to go over it again

Someone else has said that doing the TMA questions with the relevant Units which is good, but another thing i found quite useful was to read the question once and re-read it before starting it to get a good grasp.

check into the forum on OUSA they are a friendly helpful bunch (if you add the icon to your desktop when using FirstClass Conference then it'll be easier than trying to find it each time you want to check something.

If you get stuck don't panic....contact your tutor she/he won't mind as thats what they are there for.

And finally make sure all your units are in one place so when you need to refer to them your not searching the house high and low....(i did this on Friday looking for Unit 14-16 ready for the tutorial on Saturday morning! - not a problem because the people at the warehouse were extremely helpful)

(i had a lazy year this year - only 30 -because i pushed myself last was the first year i'd ever done it and did 60!)

Sorry its so long - hope some of that helps

bankersmug

HomeSpun wrote: »

Hi all

Well the house has been lovely and quiet as the children have returned to school. I've managed to get a big fat nothing done this week but going to start with a vengeance next week,

How is everyone else getting on?

HS xx

I'm doing DD100 too starting in October. My local OU centre is being vague about when the tutorials are going to be. Apparently they're not compulsory, and you can read many accounts of people getting on fine without them. I'd like to go along anyway - does anyone know what time of year these are likely to be (Birmingham Harborne centre if that helps!)

Sneezy

There are no set rules for tutorials, they are based upon your tutor so when one tutor is is free another might not be....like for MU120, i haven't had a tutorial since the 28/06 - but then i had one Sat just gone and i've another tomorrow.
Do you know the date that the website opens? Because as soon as it does there is a good chance that your tutorials will be on there

kibs

Hiya, I am doing the DD121 and DD122, which is the same as the D100, just be broken into two parts. lol.
I am doing the last bit of 121, and have a few weeks off before starting the mext part.

The tutors are great at offering additional advice where they can. As for tutorials, they are not compulsory. Thankfully, as I have never been able to attend one. They are an hour away, and trying to get someone to look after the children at night has been tricky.

For other sources of help and advice, when you log into OU there are forums in there. In addition to this facebook have a dedicated group, and there are usually course specific groups set up.

You can also get Office at a reduced price by using your OU email address. At the moment they are not doing the offer, but should be very soon. I took the offer earlier this year, and have found Word and Onenote a great help. Especially onenote as you can file everything, like using a ring binder.

psychopathbabble

Hello All,

I have just signed up for DD100 to start in Feb. Me being completely unorganised only realised last night that I could get funding for OU which was too late to organise it for Oct start. So in the meantime I am starting Openings in Psychology just to get myself into the learning frame of mind! I did terribly at my a-levels so am worried about the assignments, but it seems like there is a lot of support to be had for all the students which is good!

x