OpenMusings

Probably the only time I’ll ever see that, so I’m going to enjoy the feeling while it lasts.

After doing all the sums on what it would take to get a distinction on this one, it wasn’t to be:

There’s only so much studying you can do ahead of an exam, and there’s a certain sinking feeling you get when you revise a chunk of a block and then, come the exam, find that both questions relating to that block (Part A of the T224 paper has two questions per block) come from the parts you didn’t have time to do. I got that sinking feeling in this exam. Q5 & Q6 were the guilty questions (ISO7816 smartcards and Bluetooth SCO & ACL links, for the curious), worth a total of 16 marks. I was just 6 marks short of a Distinction – so guess where I likely lost those marks. I’m something of a perfectionist, so yes, frustration with myself was the emotion of the day – but at least this won’t count towards my Honours classification…

S199 is done & dusted, and I have to say I’ve never been so happy to see the back of the course. Initially the problem was just information not sinking in – taking a break for a while (and deferring to the 2nd ECA date as a result) and starting over again solved that problem, but then technical issues with the Student Visualisation Interface app that the OU provide nearly scuppered the whole thing. With an issue that left me unable to complete the ECA, I spent 3 weeks trying to get a solution out of the OU Computing Helpdesk and the course advisers, and drew a blank (OUCH aren’t interested unless it’s an installation problem, and the advisers were a tad.. relaxed.. when it came to replying to the query). Even allowing for the problem running over Christmas, that’s not really ideal.

In the end, I solved the issue myself and the ECA is now away – but the prospect of being unable to complete an ECA, and therefore failing the course, through no fault of my own has left a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. Here’s hoping it doesn’t happen again.