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

...under the pressure of the expanding grey matter? How's the studying going?

My brain isn't growing in the way that it did when I starting cabbing. Although that bit has shrunk now as I can't remember most of the street names in my own town again 3 years on.

I'm really enjoying it. It's exactly the sort of thing that should be given to people who left school 20 years ago. It's reasonably basic stuff, but it's really teaching me to study, as well as teaching me the subject, so I'm mostly learning study skills which is great. I'm really enjoying it, and find it hard to keep to an hour a day sometimes. I keep finding myself surprised that I don't have to do it from memory and if I'm asked a question I can just go and look the answer up! Or rather, check my notes to help with the answer. The last time I did any studying I had to memorise everything because you can't take notes into O'levels, so absolutely everything was memory. If it wasn't stuck like glue in my brain, it was just tough. I can still remember quotes from the books I did for some of my exams, and I've never used them again - especially the bible quotes for RS. I wish I could forget them!

At one point I was asked to write a general rule for something and I got it completely right! Yay! Mostly I write a bit extra.

Thanks for asking!

Glad to hear it's going so well! Mine is starting at the end of January. I've already been sent a pile of bumf 2 inches thick, and that's just all the registration forms, so I'm sort of dreading the actual study materials!

My only experience of 'The Knowlege' wasn't that great. First, the guy didn't know the street. Second, he couldn't make out my accent, and thirdly I was just about able to stand up. Got there in the end though - and he knocked a fiver off the fare since he got lost, but also because his brother-in-law was Irish

Which course are you doing?

I appear to be doing biology and maths, by accident.

I'm doing the Discovering Science one - http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?C01S103

Apparently I'll get a "small kit of rock specimens and fossil plaster casts." Yippee!!

ooh, that looks really good!

I chose my openings course because of the environmental aspect, but apparently it's more biological than 'save the planet'. I've got to do the maths module first, so I'm looking forward to doing the second course.

When I was at school I did start doing statistics for o'level, but left before I'd done more than one term. I quite like numbers, this book is talking about the power of ten and all that, and I remembered I liked that when I was at school. And venn diagrams, loved them too (that's not in this course though). It's just all the other complicated stuff I didn't like, and I do have to do all my maths calculations long hand, I can't just tot things up in my head. But, I'm enjoying it, and at the moment I would like to go on to do something else as well. I'd like to see how I get on with this before I wonder whether I could do something slightly more stretching in science or technology.

On the other hand, I might move onto something I already know something about, like gardening or history!

Well, I've got my study materials now. It doesn't start til January but I've been casting my eye over the books to give myself a bit of a head start. Some of it sounds a lot like yours - the powers of ten and mathematical stuff. That's probably the thing I'll need to work most on - a lot of it's stuff I learned in school but never have had cause to use for 10 or 12 years, like significant figures, so it's going to take a while to get used to again.

There's a lot of interesting stuff in it too - like how camels' bodies &cactus adapt to the desert. I started into the second book which gets a bit heavier, again mainly the maths aspect that I'll need to concentrate on though.

It looks like a great course though - I'm definitely glad I applied! BTW, I'm sure you've picked up a lot of relevent things through gardening - it would just be a matter of learning the terminology and using some of the ideas you already know about.

(I initially was looking for a botany-type course, but they didn't have that. I've a feeling I'll be glad of learning the astronomy & geology etc, even though it wasn't my first intention.)

How's yours going now? Have you given any assignments or anything in?

I did the work for the first assignment, then when I discussed it with the tutor before I handed it in, I realised that I haven't got a scientific brain and had therefore got it all wrong and went into a big sulk and have only worked on 5 out of the 13 days since then, and none of that was on the assignment. I really want to get onto the environmental bit, but I expect that's going to be as hard. It's only that section that's keeping me doing anything at all - I've really lost heart.

Although there weren't very many subjects to choose from in the Openings courses, there are other ten point courses. When I've done this one, I might try another short course, perhaps in history or gardening! To see if that's any better. I'd like to know if I'm just not cut out for this, or if I've just chosen badly. It's so frustrating having to do something I'm not interested in, to get to the bits I like. It's why I left school, and I always assumed it would be different later on.

I hope that you don't get the same problems with your maths stuff.

Having just reread my previous post, I can see I said the same thing about trying the different courses then!

Bit of a bummer, that! Maybe the Introduction to Humanities one or something might be more your cup of tea. One of my biggest problems has always been keeping notes organised etc, so in that sense any course would be a challenge!

The Openings courses are designed to teach you that sort of skill, one of the questions in the assignment is about study skills and reflecting on what you've learnt.

I've picked up on what I always knew anyway - I whizz through so fast that one error at the beginning makes it all wrong, if I'm not interested in the subject I won't go back and do it again when I really don't understand (every now and then they seem to pluck a figure out of thin air and start working with that. Or they ask me to work out something, say, the 'range' when they've never mentioned that before) and I'll only do just enough work for the 'exam' and no more. Oh yes, and I find it hard to plan ahead as sometimes I'm embarrassed that something only takes me half the time they suggest it should - even when I get it all perfectly correct.

All my notes are in a notebook - they suggest a folder so I can move the study techniques to a seperate section, but I prefer them mixed together at the moment.