In 1999 the company I worked for were paying for some people's OU courses. When I asked if I could be sponsored I was told
"Don't be ridiculous at your age"
I was devastated so I made the brave decision to leave & set up on my own.

Six years later I not only have a degree I own two houses, two cars & feel very proud of what I have acheived.

For a bit of light relief from Maths in 2000 I took the innovative new course

T171: You, Your computer and the Net.  with the Open University
In 2005 I graduated
Chuffed or what?

It was studied entirely online and covered PC technology, the history of the Internet and the people behind it, web design and computer conferencing.
As all this techie stuff was new to me I got very frustrated at times (see below)
But it was well worth sticking it out and I cannot recommend this course highly enough as it is both interesting and informative.

Take a look at one of my early projects.

We have a conferencing system within the OU which has proved invaluable. We are a very close online community, ever willing to help each other out.
This is just a sample of some of the conferences available.


Some of my fellow students have produced brilliant web sites with lots of tips, rather than try and compete I decided just to direct you to Sarah's site.

Sarah Horrigan

Sarah's "kinda helpful" site is an excellent example of the camaraderie that was built during our study year.
There you can find lots of useful web tips and links to both student and tutor's web sites.
Well worth a look.

In my opinion this is the best freestuff site I have found.

(Thanks to First Class Web Design)

Started out easy with MU120 in 1999, followed by MST121 & MS221 in 2000 alongside T171.
In 2001 I took two Statistics courses, M246 which is hard and MDST242 which is a doddle.
I also did T172  - an Environment course, the assignments are thought provoking and quite straightforward but there is an awful lot to learn for the exam.
All passed so it was on to Level 3 & M346 in 2002.
I have just passed M343 (Probabilities) & MEXR624 so am now able to add Dip Stats (Open) to my sig.
I fancied the web design course TT280 & loved doing the hand coding. I did well in the CMAs but found the ECA hard work as I don't like writing essays.
You can see my humble attempt here
Just got my result & am overjoyed to find out I passed, only a pass 3 but hey it's a pass!!!!!

Finished off my degree with a 10 point residential course SXR207 - Physics By Experiment

Each September the M500 Club hold a Maths revision weekend at Aston University
For me it is an essential part of my revision and it got me through M246, the tutors are brilliant plus we have a lot of fun, meet up with old friends and make new ones.

This is how I felt at times!!!!!!!!!!!!!