Student and tutor module reviews

Wow! I thought S207 the previous year was an intense course (and it was) but MST209 is on another level altogether; the material is fascinating and well explained, but the scope of the course is considerable.

I managed to get a distinction, to my surprise, so for what it's worth here are a few tips for surviving and maybe even doing well.

(1) Stay ahead of the curve; start the course material as soon as you get it and definitely ahead of the official start date - this is a tough module for part-time study.
(2) Don't lose heart early on if you struggle, keep chipping away.
(3) Practice past papers religiously (I did 6); you can get past papers from the OU webshop and answers from Black Badge Press; they were brilliant

My top tip for the exam; the final section requires you to do 3 out of a choice of 7 long questions (one question per block), do not try and master all 7 blocks as you'll never do it ... pick 3 blocks to really specialise in and if you have time pick a 4th as backup, then you'll do well in the final part. You will still need to have a good overall knowledge of all 7 blocks for the first 2 parts of the exam, but this might help with your revision plan.

Whatever you achieve in this module, you will learn some fascinating topics and, as with all things that are hard to do, you will feel very proud of yourself when you get to the finishing post.

P.S.you will definitely need MST209 for any Level 3 applied maths courses, so don't skip it.

Andrew Kelly

Course starting: January 2012

Review posted: December 2012

After passing MS221 and MST121 , the natural progression for a mathematical methods addict like me was MST209. I especially enjoyed this course because of the mathematical techniques and methods that are used in applied mathematics.

The sections on differential equations and vector calculus are very good, as is the section on numerical solution of ordinary differential equations and their interpretation. Also, it helps to have a good supportive tutor who provide good explanations with the TMAs. Although this course has a lot of topics to cover over 9 months, if you plan ahead and focus on the bits that you like then you're able to cope!

My advice is to plan ahead for this course, practice lots a past paper questions and don`t be afraid to get extra books on certain topics for extra practice! In the end you are rewarded with a good old fashioned 3hour paper which is fair and balanced.

Overall a good course to take. As I am now addicted to Applied Mathematical techniques, I am now doing MST326, which means even more differential equations, numerical methods and vector calculus! Can't wait!

Course starting: January 2011

Review posted: September 2012

This is without a doubt the most intensive course I have ever studied. Get hold of the materials well before the start date and start working on the first block as soon as you can. Falling behind is easy as there are lots of units to go through.

The OU does a great job at making the material clear and accessible to students with different levels of mathematical ability so if you have completed the pre-requisite courses (MST121 and MS221) you should be able pass at a reasonable standard.

Course starting: January 2011

Review posted: May 2012

A broad course which introduces many techniques useful for future study.
The TMAs are well-spaced and a fair reflection of the materials, and become gradually more difficult as the course progresses.

Tutor support was excellent, as was camaraderie on the dedicated forum itself. The moderators were enthusiastic and the Elluminate sessions enlightening.

My own personal frustrations came early on with the introduction of statics and dynamics, lasted for a fortnight, then largely dissipated. The rest of the course was relatively plain-sailing.

I enjoyed the treatment of Fourier series, numerical analysis, vector calculus and, particularly, multivariable calculus, all of which are immensely useful at third level and beyond.

There's a lot covered and most students will find themselves busy, but the satisfaction of making it to the end is immense.

A very good course and thoroughly recommended. The exam in 2011 was firm but fair and kept me busy until the "pens down" moment.
Having done M208 the year previously, I'd say MST209 was substantially more work.

Keith Farr

Course starting: January 2011

Review posted: December 2011

A good course for an introduction to mechanics using vector calculus, matrices and partial differential equations. The course title pretty well summarises the course, it's about half modelling and half methods. I found it useful to have done M208 previously.

The course materials were very well presented and the TMAs were pretty straightforward. At the end you are ready for more advanced work on vector calculus and partial differential equations. The most interesting part of the course is the final section on rotational motion and planetary orbits.

Be ready in the exam for some lengthy algebra. The questions are reasonable, but the amount of writing required varies quite a bit, and if, like me, you tend to run out of time in examinations, choice of questions is important. The exam paper allows you to try for over 100 marks, I managed to nearly complete 100 marks worth and just scraped a distinction.

If you are planning on Level 3 applied mathematics modules, this is an excellent and absolutely essential precursor.

Roger Beautiman

Course starting: January 2010

Review posted: November 2011

I studied MST209 alongside MS221 and MST121 while also working full-time and having a young family -- and my advice would be do NOT do that!

I always enjoyed Maths at school, and was very excited about taking MST209 and I was not in the slightest disappointed. This is an excellent course and an excellent example of why one should study with the OU because that materials were excellent and my tutor was great.

As the title suggests, this is a 'methods' course. I did not fully appreciate the significance of this word in the title until well into the course. The materials give great explanations and proofs for the mathematics used for solving problems from vastly different modelling areas ranging from particles and objects in various types of motion, heat and waves, and population dynamics, but the emphasis is on applying the methods taught and this meant that the course covers an immense amount of mathematics.

There are numerous topics covered in the course and the calculus includes solving of ordinary and partial differential equations using analytical and numerical methods; fourier series; vectors and matrices. You have to like maths to enjoy this course and you have to feel confident about calculus from the start otherwise the course will get extremely tough very quickly.

I would say you would alse have to have some interest in the sciences, or at the very least not averse to them. Although there isn't any real physics to learn for instance, many of the problems used for motivation in applying the methods of the course, are drawn from sciences.

I had a huge sense of achievement getting through the materials and understanding them. The TMAs are very fair though demanding, and test your grasp of mathematics thoroughly. There wasn't a TMA that I didn't enjoy doing.

Allow yourself plenty of time to revise for the Final Exam and to practice past papers, as you will enjoy, all the pieces coming together and the increased understanding gained from bringing the whole course together. Good Luck!

Course starting: January 2010

Review posted: September 2011

The course materials were excellent, as with all the OU courses I have taken. Even the supporting software modules were good in spite of relying on Mathcad.

The topics are all part of what every educated mathematician must know, but I would definitely shift the balance from physics to mathematics. In particular, the treatment of multivariable calculus needs to be beefed up (e.g. including the Green-Gauss-Stokes theorems and a proper treatment of the inverse/implicit function theorems), especially since there is no other OU course where that is covered (I think there is a bit more in the fluid mechanics course, but probably without rigorous proofs - and not everybody may want to study an esoteric subject like fluid mechanics).

TMAs and exam were a bit too long, but not very difficult and overall fair.

In sum, a very good course.

Course starting: January 2010

Review posted: July 2011

This was a really well put together course, and I had the benefit of a very enthusiastic, knowledgeable and constructive tutor. I went straight into this course having done the OU online "are you ready for MST209" tests. Otherwise I would have studied the pre-cursor courses first. My last foray into maths had been in 1992, and so I had some memory-dredging to do, but it proved possible.

Thankfully, although MST209 goes into quite some depth, it works its way up in a well explained manner with good examples. It's worth using the tutorial sessions if you can, since on a few occasions I found the leap between example and practice questions hard to grasp. At this point human intervention is crucial.

Many people commented on the course forum that the 2010 exam was difficult or unrepresentative (in comparison to earlier years' papers). However, although pushed for time in my revision schedule due to a ramp-up in my work commitments, I believe the exam was a fair reflection of the syllabus. Indeed, I not only finished the exam in time (including an "extra question" to improve my chances) but I even got the grade I was looking for. Overall I found MST209 an excellent mathematical preparation for the mechanical engineering areas which I need to study.

Christopher Andrews

Course starting: January 2010

Review posted: December 2010

Disclaimer: I am one of those people who rather enjoys maths, so please bear that in mind when reading my comments!

I thought this was a great course. the materials (as in all the OU maths courses I've done so far) were excellent, and really led you through the material well. The course is mainly a calculus course, but with a heavy emphasis on application to real world problems, mainly mechanics, but also a few other areas (eg heat transfer). It does cover other areas (such as vectors, matrices, etc) but in the end these generally contribute to the calculus sections (on partial differential equations or vector calculus).

The TMAs were generally fair assessments of the material, and the exam (provided you've looked at enough past papers) is relatively easy to prepare for (and has more than 100% available, if you have the time)

Tutors were helpful, I'd highly recommend this course.

Course starting: January 2009

Review posted: January 2010

I found this course to be a very wide and often interesting, but which was significantly heavier on my time than previous courses. On many occasions I felt the university had given little thought to whether or not a particular unit could be completed within a week, the written text was usually of a manageable length but often the associated computer package consisted of a lengthy read through and there was often a 1970's style Open University film which no one has been brave enough to throw away.

Additionally the tma questions were much harder than I was used to, the final two tmas struck me as being far more difficult than they needed to be.
That said, as a maths course (and often a Physics course) this was a good one. The units on Forces, Projectiles, Vectors, Matricies and Eigenvalue were well written, and once you understood a topic it had a reassuring habit of turning up again in a later unit.

I found my tutor particularly helpful in many areas but specifically in supplying the answers to the last 4 written exams, with these on board I found the exam considerably easier than the tma's and I managed a relatively good final exam score.

My advise with this course is look at the exam questions early on, it is possibe to pass to a reasonably good standard with a good understanding of the basic core ideas. I think with this course it is necessary to prioritise and I wonder how sensible or practical it is to spend many hours on the finer points of the last 2 modules.

Sean Robinson

Course starting: January 2009

Review posted: January 2010

Another excellent OU course. Expect to be busy, but not necessarily challenged. This is about applying maths, not the 'whys and wherefores'.

A lot of the techniques boil down to basic integration/differentiation, solving simple quadratic and simultaneous equations (such as you might have done in MST121/MS221), along with being able to remember which direction you called 'positive'! But you will need to generate equations from basic principles applied to the described situations, and apply complicated patterns of equations without getting your algebra in a twist.

If you can do those basics accurately and confidently, you can do very well on this course.

Simon Harrison

Course starting: January 2009

Review posted: December 2009

I found this course to be both challenging and rewarding. You need to be able to keep studying at a rate of one module per week, and do the TMAs on top. I found that the latter courses built on the earlier modules, so it's important to really get to grips with the early modules. I also signed up MXR 209 - the summer school -which complements MST 209, but as a result of pressure of work I had to postpone the summer school until another year.

I thought the TMAs were fine, they cemented and extended my understanding of the concepts in the modules; like others though I found it difficult to get MathCad do what I wanted it to do. I like the idea of using a maths package to solve problems, especially where numerical methods are involved, I think the answer is perhaps to make more use of MathCad and become more familiar with it. I didn't have enough time for that.

I went to a few of the day tutorials which were great, informative and quite good fun too. I didn't make use of all the video materials as I do most of my studying whilst commuting. I did need help with the intuition on some topics such as gradient vectors, and I found some useful materials on YouTube, and also on the MIT lecture site.

With regard to the exam, I did lots of revision based on the supplementary exercises, and also five past papers. As has been said many times, it's vital to work quickly and efficiently to get through all the sections in the exam.

Overall a great course, I think that had I been able to devote more time to it I would have enjoyed making sure I understood the underlying concepts in more depth.

Stephen Robinson

Course starting: January 2009

Review posted: December 2009

I studied this course alongside the residential MSXR209. I found these courses very difficult both academically and in terms of workload. It just seemed to be a never-ending slog from January to the exam in October. There is only 1 week to get through each of the 28 units - I felt that I was going like the clappers just to keep up, sometimes averaging 4 hours per night. Then I would spend all weekend roughing out answers to the TMAs and copying up. I became tired very quickly as I was working long hours as well.

I found both the Maths and Physics aspects of this course to be equally tough - the Maths (Second order differentials, vector calculus etc.) being just as hard as that in M208 last year. I have not studied Physics since my 'A' levels in the late 80's, and I found it very difficult to understand some of the concepts, such as Hooke's law for Springs. Luckily, I was able to attend all 7 tutorials, where our excellent tutor would go through various topics. Also, I found that the Mathcad units helped me with this aspect of the course.

I came back from the residential (at Nottingham in July) a week behind, with a 3000 word report to type up - I was getting stressed with the workload, also having to complete the final 2 blocks of MST209!

Having said all that, by the time I came to start revision in mid-September, I was surprised by how much I could remember. For example, drawing force diagrams and vectors came instinctively by the exam, and I had struggled with this earlier on in the course. The exam was hard but fair, being very similar to the past papers, but with a few surprises thrown in. I had forgotten all about Newton's Law of Restitution! The 3 hours seemed to go very quick, unlike other exams that I have taken.

I was very pleased to have gained grade 2 passes in both these courses.

To sum up, I would advise anyone taking this course combination (MST209/MSXR209) to have no illusions about either the academic difficulty or the workload. To those doing the B31 Mathematics degree, I would advise doing M208 Pure Maths before these two, if only because the workload on M208 (23 units) is slightly less than this one. Having studied with the OU for 3 years now, I believe that the idea behind these 'big 60 point courses' (MST209/M208) is that the student gets used to coping with a very heavy workload whilst studying at a high academic level. I feel that I have acquired many Mathematical and studying skills that will assist me when I go onto level 3 next year.

Christopher Bernard Clarke

Course starting: January 2009

Review posted: December 2009

A super course if you have an interest in applying maths to physical world models. I do, and although it was challenging especially if you are not particularly mathematically inclined, you can do well if you are prepared to put in say 16 to 20 hours a week. It is a pity that vector calculas, multiple integrals and rotating bodies are covered during the summer holiday period. Particularly interesting topics, but dificult to study on holidays with the children at home.
The tutor was excellent (bit of a tyrant sometimes) and usually gave good explanations during the tutorials and over the phone.
It is a course that gets you thinking about applying maths to everyday situations. Unfortunately during the tutorial sessions there is never enough time to discuss your own observations, and the tutor was inclined to divert to discussion back to course material.
Summary: Best of the 4 maths courses I have taken with the OU. I wish I had done the associated summer school.

David Norman Murray

Course starting: January 2008

Review posted: October 2009

An excellent but tough course!
An excellent course but please do not underestimate the amount of time required, especially if you plan to take MSXR209 in the same year. I was advised of this workload by my MS221 tutor and he was right!

I took this course as one of the specified courses in the BSc (Hons) Mathematics. I am glad that I studied M208 (pure maths) first as I found this course harder.

I had to put in at least 20 hours per week. There are 28 units to study which means you have about a week to read the unit and then answer the TMA questions. I found I didn't have enough time to do many of the examples in the text before attempting the TMA. My tutor's support was excellent and really helped, as did attending the tutorials.

There were a lot of complaints about the exam on the forum. The 2008 exam part three (long) questions were written more like the MST207 exam questions so there was plenty of revision material available. I felt that the exam fairly tested the material covered.

Much of the modelling is done using mathcad and as I do not like spending hours in front of a computer I didnt enjoy that part.

Overall, excellent, enjoyable and tiring.

Jonathan David Richards

Course starting: January 2008

Review posted: September 2009