Yesterday was the M359 exam, and it’s going to go down in history as one I’d rather forget. There are a few things that went wrong with this:
- I misunderstood the whole block 5 thing, and assumed that each presentation would do one part and ignore the other. By the time I figured out [...]

S186 done & dusted, with the ECA submitted with about, oh, 5 minutes to spare. I think that’s a record for me in the “cutting it close” department. Enjoyed the course up to a point – the subject and course material I found fascinating, I was just hampered by a severe lack of [...]

With about 3 weeks to go until the cut-off for S186 (this is my deferral date, so no further extensions), I’m just starting Chapter 5. This isn’t exactly where I wanted to be with this course, but domestic issues plus the dreaded M359 have meant it’s been on the backburner for a while. [...]

In amongst all my grumbling about M359, I’d mentioned that I though moving on to Block 3, and it’s more programming-style SQL content, would make life a whole lot easier.
I started on Block 3 this evening, and it was like a metaphorical weight being lifted from my shoulders – as expected, SQL queries are much [...]

The horror that is M359 continues. I’ve just finished Block 2, the final part of which was all about Normal Forms – 1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF… The chapter started with the ominous warning that…
..students often find the topic of normal forms to be quite difficult. Be aware that you might have to [...]

I’m still plugging away at M359 – normally I’d wait until a TMA is returned before ploughing on into the next one, but with only 1 month between TMA01 and TMA02, there isn’t time. Block 2 is mostly relational algebra – algebra is I think one of those things that everyone remembers from school [...]

M359 continues, and continues to really test me. Got TMA01 in with 6 days to spare – the latest I’ve been with an assignment submission in nearly three years with the OU – and I was as glad to see it go as I was to see the S199 ECA go. That’s not [...]

So M359 Relational Databases: Theory & Practice is my first foray into the world of Level 3 courses. Choosing it was an easy decision – I use databases a lot in my day-job (I work in IT), and as a hobbyist (there’s a MySQL database storing the contents of this site, and several others [...]