M253 - Milestone 2 Update

Ah well, I did it again - I managed to curse myself.

Now that we are reaching the business end of the second M253 milestone things are getting hairy. I think that the Christmas holidays, coupled with a lack of inertia and enthusiasm are going to mean that the team-generated report section for the TMA is, once again, going to fall short.

The problem seems to be that a lot of people are going through the motions - and are not willing to devote the amount of time to this level 2 university course that they would to other similar level courses. People who were more active during TMA 1 have become disenchanted and are doing the bare minimum - others have stopped checking in altogether and the exercise requiring people to work together in pairs has led to some disharmony!

The only thing keeping me going on with the course is that I am now two-thirds through it, and the only thing that I can think of that would be worse than continuing would be to have to do it all again. It is a requirement for a named degree and I feel that most of the people in the team wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole had this not been the case.

It is a shame. I think the course is useful and interesting and relevant. The problem arises because people taking the course have no interest in it from the beginning. Perhaps if it became a graded course - as opposed to pass/fail - with an exam people would take it more seriously.