Undergraduate astronomy courses?

Frank,
Why not do the MSc course through Swiburne?
Will take the same length of time if not less.
You get a higher grade of qualification.
And apparently it's not too heavy on the maths.
It's the one I would do if it were me.

As it happens I am about to commence a MSc by distance learning on a work-related subject.

Michael.

Dunno Mike.
Just wanna make a start this year

Hi everyone
I'm applying for the part time astronomy corse with the university of central Lancashire and was hoping anyone with experience could answer any of the following questions.

Roughly how many hours per week are needed for the introduction to astronomy course. What sort of backround is useful for the course. For myself i did physics and maths at leaving cert level several years ago and did ok at them. My astronomy knowledge is limited mostly to magazines like astronomy now and sky and telescope.

Are there many students on the various courses and are forums the main form of contact. Is there a lively amount of discussion on the forums and are queries answered quickly. Any online tutorials and are they useful for the course.

How many textbooks are actually used during the various courses and are the notes supplied by the course of good quality. Are the textbooks more like supplental readings or are they core to the course. Also is there any online access needed or granted to astronomy magazines and databases.

What is the assesment for the various couses like. Are there long essays and project reports to be written or does assesment consist of maths type problems. Is there any oppurtunity to use your own equipment for projects or do you use data given with the course. If doing more than 1 course a year are the assignments for courses spaced out or do they tend to clash with one another.

Well i can't think of anymore questions and hope some one can answer a few of these queries. Thanks in advance for any answers.
Mick.

Hi,
I have done a few courses with UCLan (some Level 1 and 2).
In terms of work load you get out very much what you put in. There are 3/4 assignments to be sent in per course, the level of maths required is not high, not much more then Inter/Junior cert. some of the assignments are essay type questions, or for example generating a H-R diagram based on provided data. I would say 2/3 hrs per week per course is sufficient. there are no practical courses with UCLan with exception of one of the second level courses, where you can go over and use their equipment. There are no final course assesments, your final mark is based on the assignment results. The learning materials are all good quality pdf files sent out on CD.

You should also consider Liverpool John Moores uni ( www.astro.ljmu.ac.uk/courses/distance.shtml ), they do Level 1 course as well, have a good selection of courses. You can transfer any course credit gained with them over to UCLan on a point for point bases. They do course which are shorter (12 point to UCLan 20 points). I have done one of their courses, the 'Universe through a small telescope' which is basically a set of observational assignments.
I would actually recommend doing all your level 1 courses (120 points) with them over UCLan as they offer a number of advantages, the stagered course starts is very handy, you get to study a few courses over the year as they are generally shorter. Also, more importantly, they are cheaper the UCLan. To get the Basic Level 1 Certificate with Liverpool costs 10 * 135GBP = 1,350GBP to get the 120 point requirement, but with UCLan is 6 * 330 = 1,980GBP, which is not a small difference. Once you have the Level 1 certificate, you can go over to UCLan and complete the Level 2 and Level 3 courses to get the degree if you want.

I am actually transferring my credit from UCLan level 1 courses over to Liverpool, to finish off the level 1 certifiacte with them. The cost is lower and there are some more interesting courses (eg Exoplants, Gamma Ray Bursts).

There use to be courses in Radio astronomy in Jodrell bank as well, which were cool (I did one that supposedly let you control one of the small radio telescopes over the internet for one of the assignments), but I think they have stopped doing them now.

Hope this helps.

Excellent info! Thanks.
How long does it take to do the 10 courses at LJMU?
I'm assuming after you have done all the level 1's with them
You can then apply to UCLAN to do the BSc?

I am seriously looking at the UCLAN courses for this year, the reason I dismissed LJMU was of the end of module exams (been there done that for my MSc) does anyone have experience of these exams with LJMU, i.e how are they conducted, where etc.?