Carrie on being a student
On knowing your strengths and how to articulate them...
I started a little something extra today at Durham Uni. One of the things they now offer for postgraduates is the ‘Durham Award’ which is a programme aimed at helping you improve your employability and be able to better articulate the value of your masters to potential employers. I was thrilled to get offered a place on the programme and gave a thin-air high five (I’m doing a lot of those lately aren’t I) at the prospect of this little something extra to put on my CV and...
Newsflash: This assessment's optional and I'm CHOOSING to do it
Following last week’s rather hectic schedule things have calmed down a bit for me. I don’t have any MA lectures this week due to the lecturer being away on business so they’re classing this week as a ‘reading week’ which is great because it gives me an opportunity to catch up with a bit and get cracking on my formative assessment which is due next week. For some reason, one of the assessments is completely optional. The ‘formative’ assessment is an...
Something has to give... but what?
Now that I’m a few weeks into my masters study I’m really starting to panic. The workload isn’t really any bigger than at level 3 with the OU but my failing as a student is causing my problems. My OU-pampered self is so used to leaving study for a week or two then cramming it into a packed weekend that now, having lectures every single week which I HAVE to do reading for is coming as quite a culture shock to me. This wouldn’t be so much of a...
Science starts here... or am I over complicating it?
I’m 13 again. I’m sat in science class with a Bunsen burner and a peanut trying to work out the fat/calorie content of it by setting it on fire and seeing how long it burns for. Something like that anyway. I never truly understood the practical use of such an experiment but it was fun nonetheless. Fast forward 18 years (blummin heck, 18 years??) and I’m in my kitchen with 416 grams of sliced potatoes and a microwave trying to work out the water content...
Why I'm giving an hour to Mr and Mrs OC...
I never quite understood why the UK still does the whole daylight savings thing. Right from being a nipper I’ve always forgotten when, during the year, the clocks go forward/back and the only way I can remember which is which is by the rather Americanised ‘spring forward, fall back’ mantra. I remember a kids’ TV series which was on when I was younger called Eerie Indiana and one of the episodes was about the main character refusing to adhere to daylight savings and...
Another one bites the dust
Doo doo doo. Another one bites the dust. On Wednesday night, with early glee I submitted the EMA for my 30-point ICT module ‘T122: Career Development and Employability’. That’s another module done and dusted and it’s come at just the right time because it’s full steam ahead with the MA now. I had my first lectures last week and my reading list is already frighteningly huge. Amazon must’ve been rubbing their miserly hands together when I put my order in....
Life experience trumps classroom experience? If only
I listened intently to the local radio station this morning as they discussed the inevitable October occurrence – Freshers' Week. Aah, Freshers' Week. Not something I have personal experience of, however I’ve been caught up in the midst of it on numerous occasions during a stroll through the town centre. Both of the universities in Newcastle are smack bang in the city centre thus the city centre is always teeming with freshers at this time of year. The discussion on the...
It's time to get organised
Enough is enough is enough, I can't go on, I can't go on, no more, no. I’m really sick of being disorganised and it can’t go on anymore because things are changing. In the simplest way I’m just carrying on with my studies and not really doing anything I haven’t been doing already. In the more complex way it’s changing beyond all recognition. Not only am I going from doing undergraduate to postgraduate study (with Durham University) but I’m also carrying on...
Science starts here for me...
My S154 course material arrived today. I wasn’t home when it was delivered so my lovely neighbour June took it in for me as she always does, and when she brought it round she said something like “are you not finished with your studying yet?” I chuckled and said “Oh no June, I’ll never be finished”. I’m not sure she would’ve quite understood what I as implying but in saying it I meant that I’ll probably continue to study for as long as brain...
Studying to help change career? Me too
Phew, this module is passing over really quickly. I’ve just submitted my final TMA and the EMA is due in mid-October but I can’t believe how quickly it’s going by. It hardly seems two minutes since I was down at Walton Hall handing in the final piece of work for my degree. I’m quite frightened at how quickly the time seems to be passing lately. I was watching an episode of Futurama the other night and they were experiencing time-skips where time would just suddenly lurch...
About Carrie Walton
I dropped out of school at 17, halfway through my A Levels and got a job. I’ve worked full time ever since, but when I reached 23 I enrolled with the OU and started on a journey towards the degree I’d never stopped wanting. In 2009 and aged 29 I realised I didn’t want my journey to end and formulated a new plan which includes a masters, a PhD, research and whatever else I might be able to cram into a journey now held under the umbrella term “lifelong learning and ongoing self-improvement”.
I finished my BSc (hons) Open in December 2011 by which time I'd already started on an MA in Social Science research at Durham University with a view to doing a doctorate in the not too distant future. The OU isn’t getting rid of me that easy though, I've already signed up for a BSc (hons) in Criminology and Psychological Studies and I plan to keep studying with them for as long as grey matter will allow me to, it’s all part of my never ending lifelong learning path.
Alongside studying, I work full time for a building contractor in the North East of England as a Liaison Manager. Working is a means of affording and appreciating the things I really enjoy; mountain biking, hiking, theatre, gigs, cinema, eating out, writing, the list could go on, I just like doing things. In whatever spare time I can muster after that, I volunteer for OUSA and am a school governor.
My name is Caz (or Carrie) and this is my journey from dogsbody to doctorate…
