M256 and M257

Has anyone studied these before and if so how did you find them? What was the workload like? I'm contemplating starting them both in February but don't know if i'll be taking on too much!

Reply 1

SunburnedCactus

I finished M257 in June and have the M256 exam in (gulp) 2 weeks. M257 is pretty lightweight, especially if you've already done M255 as it retraces a bit of that and builds on it. The assignments are pretty much all coding so they can be a bit time consuming if you end up stuck staring at the old while(false){} loop and wondering why it won't execute etc but nothing too troublesome. Exam needed a bit of writing Java off the top of your head, although you do get a booklet with a chunk of the library in.

M256 is software development and is to be honest pretty dry. It's all about specifications and diagrams and basically all the stuff involved with a software project which isn't writing code. There is a little bit of coding now and again, bit of GUI action later on. But yeah, object and sequence diagrams and requirements documents and so on and snore forth. Exam is half multiple choice action and half write tests/code/that sort of thing.

Any other questions hit me up yo.

Open University

Milton Keynes

Reply 2

raspberryswirl

Thanks! Do you think the workload would be too high studying both at once?

I want to start them in February, but I've just started M255 and T191 too so I would be studying 95 credits, whilst working full time. I am up to Unit 10 so far though in M255 as I've done some Java before at 'brick' uni so there haven't been any new concepts to me yet. (I haven't tried any of the TMAs yet though, and I agree there is nothing more frustrating than when your code won't work and you DON'T KNOW WHY). And T191 is just a 15 credit 'reflecting upon your learning' type course and doesn't count towards anything so i'm not planning on putting huge amounts of effort into it...

Ooh and have you taken any of the level 3 courses yet? I want to do AI but I don't know what else to choooooose.

Good luck with your exam btw, I have T224 on Tuesday, ARGHHH!!!

Reply 3

raspberryswirl

Just realised that most of the level 3 courses I wanna do start in Feb each year. So maybe I should do M366 and M257 in Feb...this is such a nightmare trying to sort out! :woo:

Reply 4

SunburnedCactus

raspberryswirl

Just realised that most of the level 3 courses I wanna do start in Feb each year. So maybe I should do M366 and M257 in Feb...this is such a nightmare trying to sort out! :woo:

Good luck to you too, hope the revision is going well! And now for many, many words :p:

M257 is only 20 points and it sort of shows in that there's slightly less work, it is slightly shorter. Doing it alongside M256 wouldn't be a problem I don't think, with M255 in the mix as well that's a fair amount but it's down to how much free time you have and how much you're used to studying. They all overlap a little so in some respects it would be beneficial because you'd be able to get into a serious Java groove and apply it to all three (less so to M256). You'd probably have a TMA or two due in during your revision for M255 exam which would be irritating but again manageable.

The level 3 course I am just finishing is in fact M366. It is the hardest OU course I've done to date, some really interesting stuff in it though. And some other... not so much. Being familiar with it already as a subject would definitely give you an advantage. Loads to try and memorise for the exam which is an arse pain.

For the other level 3 (aside from the two compulsory ones which just seem like M256 and M257 The Next Chapter(s)) it's UI design or database theory for me. The latter is probably much more practical but not so exciting. Not sure how interesting the design one will be either tbh, they tend to suck all the fun out of such things.

I'll PM you the course guides in pdf if you like, for 256, 257 and 366.