h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm doing a degree with them at the moment, and cannot recommend them (and, by extension, adult education) enough.

Admittedly, I am studying by choice, rather than for career obligations, but I have loved almost every minute of it. Discovering that entire philosophies had been written on things I'd always wondered about has been incredibly uplifting!

For me, it has been literally life changing - I look at everything in a different light now. Returning to study as an adult IS daunting. You WILL have self doubt, and you WILL think at times that you can't cope with it. The thing to remember is that you are capable of very much more than you realise. So keep calm, keep disciplined, speak to your tutors, speak to the other students, and enjoy feeling your brain firing on all cylinders for the first time in years!

The thing I got from the Open University course was that they provide a whole booklet on 'how to study'. Which gives fabulous tips on the importance of

planning your day and hence your 'study time'
i.e. figure out what you've got to do for the week, make sure your study time is when there are likely to be no distractions.
setting aside a quiet place to study in
having a PC in the bedroom is difficult, because it's easy to flop down when you've had enough! Likewise, having a PC in anywhere other than a 'study' makes things more difficult, because you associate the room with other activities apart from studying, and generally end up doing them, instead of studying!
getting organised
it's worth investing in folders, dividers and punched pockets because, if you know where everything is, you don't get brainache from thinking you'll have to sort through mounds of paperwork to find the one particular bit you have to study on/research.

That's all I can remember for now.

Queegle

Yeah, all that stuff is useful. I'm lucky as I do almost all my studying at work, so keep all my books etc there. Keeping all your stuff in one place is very handy - the OU *love* sending you things.

I'm a tutor with the OU and they must send us twice as much as they send the students. Added to which there'll be 28 TMAs hitting the doormat over the next few days. I must buy postie a wheelbarrow for Christmas.

Yes, our tutor says much the same!

Are there any plans, would you know, for releasing the pertinent tv programmes on DVD? I have thus far missed every single one for A103. I don't have a vcr, or for that matter a tape player, so the cassettes were pretty useless at first, too!

I'm on a course with no TV programs so I can't help with the DVD question. The general drift though seems to be away from TV and towards online content.