A new academic year begins

And so the new academic year begins. This year I enter Level 3 and I'm taking more modules, hoping to complete the Law degree by next summer. It's going to be an interesting time ahead.

The shift from one level to another is quite a different experience from going forward from one academic or school year in a bricks & mortar institution. Whether it's university or school, there's a continuity of people around you and a shared experience so you return to familiar faces and surroundings. But with distance learning, you're not returning anywhere physical or seeing anybody after a time away. Instead, you're just going back to your desk at home. So all the focus is on waiting for the new academic year's module website to open.

The start to a module is often a bit staggered, with the website opening a few weeks before a module formally begins. This allows some students to get ahead but things can be complicated if tutors haven't yet been allocated whilst the online forums for most modules I've done often don't open early enough. One result is that very few students make the recommended online posts from module activities so it's harder to . Everybody studies at their own pace and around their own schedule so some will want to start ploughing through as soon as possible whilst others choose to follow the formal schedule and await the online tutorials to help them. There's no one right way to do things.

Level 3 sees students split off onto different pathways, which I'll discuss in more detail in later posts. It's by far the most diverse of all with many possible module combinations so my experience will be very different from many other students on other routes. So let's see how it goes.

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