I’m not overly enthusiastic on the portmanteau “Coronacation” as it implies that by working from home to keep ourselves and others safe during a pandemic, we’re not really working. We’re working. We’re pulling double time. There’s no longer any difference from our work and home lives, so work seems to intrude at all hours. Those who aren’t able to work are also working trying to get work. Plus we’re nearly all inadequate educators, now.
But I’m using the word differently, to describe trying to have a vacation from university while still in the latter part of the full (or nearly?) lockdown stage. I’m done with uni for this academic year! In fact, I submitted all my EMAs last week and have been recovering. And with three modules, I need a lot of recovering! I’m not ready to do full module reviews, yet, but figured I’d get this part out of the way.
I only gave myself a few days to do the TM257 EMA because it’s halfway done by the time the day school (or alternative thereof) is completed, and it’s in my wheelhouse, to boot. Mistake! Well, I mean, not a huge mistake. I got it done with a week to spare. But it was surprisingly tough.
The research question was shockingly broad. Like, people throw the phrase, “How long is a piece of string?” around, but imagine that was an actual exam question. Yeah. It was that broad. By the same token, though, it was great from both the perspective of learning networking details, and self-education. Regards to the module team, it was a top-notch question, and I enjoyed it. I also would still be in a blind panic over it if I hadn’t reached out to my very excellent tutor. I have never been so supported by a tutor as I was over that question.
The last question wasn’t difficult, but it fooled me! After I submitted it with some niggling questions at the back of my head, I was just gathering some documentation on the solution for my own notes, and something jumped out at me. My allegedly systematic approach had pole-vaulted over a step, and it would have cost me at least 4 marks and possibly a couple more.
All told, I’m happy with my submission, and am expecting somewhere in the neighbourhood of 84 to 97 marks on the EMA. The worst-case scenario is that I’m a border case.
(For the record, I finally figured out what I’d done wrong on the day school scenario. The question was written in an “okay” manner, it was really on my own shortsightedness that I missed it … And if it were me, I’d have deducted 4 marks instead of just 3.)
For TT284, the EMA was fairly straight-forward. The practical stuff was dead simple if you’ve done it before, and definitely doable if you hadn’t. In fact, if you can get an HTML form to work with a reference book beside you, you should do well on the EMA. The report side was mostly difficult in making choices; about what to discuss, which aspects to put forward, that sort of thing. In fact, I possibly didn’t answer the question for 1b, so I may resubmit that, but I did hit many points that an answer should have.
I feel I did somewhere between 86 and full marks on this one, but we’ll see.
Technically, I’m not quite on my Coronacation yet, as I’m going back now to look over M269 materials for units 6 and 7. On one hand, I’m glad I didn’t have the exam, because I don’t know how much time I would have had for primary study and revision this year. On the other … I’m really loving these blocks! I’m glad I’ve got a few months to catch up on them without deadlines, and can just enjoy the learning.
Within things that are in my control, my module results on M269 will be based entirely on our OCAS marks, but will not simply be our OCAS results. They’ll be applying an adjustment based on previous module cohorts’ exam results relative to their OCAS results. Regardless, I’d be surprised if I didn’t get a distinction from this module.
None of which matters! I’ve crunched the (fairly complex) numbers, and realised that so long as I get two distinctions at stage 3, nearly every path leads to the same degree classification. As long as I pass my three modules this year, it’s all the same in the end.