From my experience, they are not strict about entry requirements so fingers crossed you will get in!

@@sarahstudies8149 thanks Sarah! 😃

Wanna go live on study together sometime? 👀 And are you on discordd

No not personally

Thanks Lorna :). I've actually heard this too. However, my symptoms seemed to be very similar to POTS or IST (inappropriate sinus tachycardia). I have had a variety of horrible symptoms for 14 years and maybe even longer, many of which I was told to be anxiety and panic or some variety of 'in my head.' It took a few years before I started to believe that they must be right and stopped bothering the drs so much. I have a high heart rate that tends to be well over 100bpm when resting and at work when walking, and even standing sometimes, it can get up to 140-150bpm. I feel like I have been gaslit for some time! My Fitbit HR graphs look like I have been exercising all day every day. My resting HR according to them is around 90-95 but it takes into account when I am asleep as it drops to 80 or lower then so it isn't accurate. Funnily enough, when I saw the doctor this week he told me I need an urgent referral to the cardiologist. After all the years of believing it was in my head, this new doctor actually listened to me. I've felt like I was very sensitive to any kind of adrenaline or stress from a young age, which appeared in a very physical way - generally with my heart racing. I feel more emotionally resilient now I know it's more than anxiety and hope to get some answers soon.

@@sarahstudies8149 I hope that you are taken seriously with this problem. It's terrible the amount of gaslighting that there is - it seems that women especially are treated this way as it's assumed to just be emotional! I don't know anything about the specific issues you experience, but when I was doing my research into the ADHD and fibromyalgia link, one of the participants mentioned 'dysautonomia' (autonomic dysfunction) which I had never heard of before and I found out that there are many different types, some of which cause tachycardia. Anyway, I know it's not necessarily the same as what you have, but some types / symptoms of dysautonomia could explain many symptoms of fibromyalgia. Also I know that POTS is very common in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. But anyway, there seem to be many different types of actual physical differences that are linked to neurodiversity (just to be clear, I'm not suggesting this in your case necessarily, but I think that physical health in autistic / ADHD people is often ignored)

@@lornajoy8765 Thanks Lorna. I tend to agree that women are brushed off by doctors. I've been reading many stories of women diagnosed with chronic illnesses and heart problems say the same thing. I believe dysautonomia is an umbrella term and POTS comes under that. I don't think I have EDS because I don't have stretchy skin or problems with joints but I have read that POTS can be either primary or secondary - caused by something else such as EDS or even IST, which is a possibility for me. I wonder why there is a link between neurodiversity and physical health conditions, especially chronic illnesses.

My main issue with dogma isn't necessarily in the heart of each religion itself, but how dogma creates little tolerance some religions have towards other religions, especially in terms of equality - certain religious people use their religion as justification for their views on equality or to harm others. Their claim of what is 'true' is also one of my biggest problems and science and reason should always come first and naturally does to me as long as I am not being steered by my own biases, which I recognise does happen. But you are right nothing is ever simple, especially when it comes to religion, and nothing is black and white and when you start to study a religion in a country where most people practice it, such as Hinduism it becomes clear that it is so engrained into their culture and way of life that it becomes something much bigger than the type of religions we see more over here. The UK and the US at least are both moving even more towards multi-faith societies that it almost feels natural that there would be an amount of intolerance, from religion and non-religious alike. From what I have learned so far, I think religious literacy is the main way people will ever change their attitudes and live more in harmony with each other. Science and reason does play it's part but for countries like India, people aren't going to change their entire culture at least over our lifetimes in favour of this, and in the past it has caused something harmful to happen for people to realise potential dangers. I'd argue that many people who believe in more, shall I say, outdated ideologies, generalise and dehumanise those of the religions they disagree with (also atheism). A random point that doesn't seem to fit in anywhere else but many people love to feel connected to the past in some way, to their younger idealised life, their parents lives, their ancestors who are the reason they are here today (whatever the reason) and that's potentially another reason why they hold on to dogma.

@@sarahstudies8149 Ohhh I love this idea that at a certain point it probably does just have to be allowed to be there as a joyful part of a culture, and not as related to some kind of toxic nationalism machine. I take your point that it's not like we are going to get people to agree on some kind entirely transformed new religion with an updateable code of ethics in our lifetimes, so may as well get everyone educated. In the US we can't even keep people from sheepishly deciding to listen to people who as best we can tell are genuinely antisemitic, which is making life feel a little like bad fiction, but I just heard good news from Dr. Jonathan Haidt who had data that only about 7-8% of Americans are extremists on both the left wing and the right wing. It's a little creepy to have extremism at a measurable level like that, but, could be worse I guess.

@@Hinsoog 7-8% seems a lot to me (seeing as I know like 1 person in real life who I would class as asn extremist) but if to hear your relief it does really seem like you may have thought it was much higher. I guess they may have the loudest voices and try to have the most influence. There was a fascist British group quite a few years ago called 'Britain First' but had a clever marketing scheme of posting subtle memes and this got lots of people liking and sharing their posts even though I knew they had no idea who this group was. Over time it was clear that they were a fascist group but they convinced a lot of people to follow them at first. I was like... do you know what they stand for??? It was crazy how easily people liked and followed them without considering that they were an extremist political group... the name has a clue in it. They definitely played big a part online in the whole 'foreigners are stealing our jobs' mentality.

@@sarahstudies8149 It's amazing how much of that has a familiar ring to it, especially the "Britain First" name. Maybe everyone has their own version and just hopefully it doesn't grow into the mindless frenzy they are probably hoping for. There is an especially absurd one in the US whose name I even feel weird about typing at this point, but I think I have fussed about it before, it's essentially a politically fueled cult called Qanon. This group apparently thought it was no big deal to not resemble reality in any way, and if they had their way you would just assume that I'm harvesting the blood of children for being a Democrat in America. I think for people into it it is actually kind of like drugs to feel special and to see themselves as witnesses to what are basically holy events in their minds. But, despite that being that level of extreme, we now have a person in the US Congress (Marjorie Taylor Greene is her name, and it's so funny I feel weird about even just typing the name of someone in Congress) who was touting it right along antisemitism, and she just won another election in an apparently confused district of the state of Georgia. That was really freaking me out, but, it seems like the tide is shifting, their version of extremism seems to be losing them votes elsewhere, so I'm letting myself calm down.

I am not interested in whether it is good value for money or not. It's purely a hobby and a desire/interest to study things academically. At least that is how I feel now. I lost all motivation to study science so it wasn't that I didn't see the value so much as my ADHD brain wouldn't let me be interested in it anymore. Studying for a degree keeps me more focused and on track than just doing some research at home now and again, and I do find myself appreciating the study of religion and philosophy a lot more in this degree than I had done previously and I already have a deeper understanding that I wouldn't have otherwise. My brain wiring allows me to explore more in these topics and I believe that's where it gets dopamine. So it's not that I didn't see value in a STEM degree but because I am motivated by interest and curiosity over anything else and there's nothing I can do about that.

Sorry for the late response I guess you may have made up your mind by now but the information can be found on the OU website: help.open.ac.uk/career-opportunities-arts

Thank you! And I’m glad to hear that 😊

I hope you are enjoying it so far!

There's no context to this comment. It makes no sense to me.

I also start this course in October.

I only learned about it last year! It's a challenge but it's also not too bad as each TMA is based mostly on one of the 3/4 topics you have studied. I personally don't like to study the arts side of it so I've just been skimming those sections and it's saving me time. Don't tell my tutor!!

@@sarahstudies8149 oh, that's a great tip. I have wanted to study this for a long time and that is very helpful, thanks. I will probably just stick to normal key's for now 🤣

what?????

Informative - I have subscribed!

Thank you :) Yes exactly - that's why I think it's important to study it!

Thank you Dawn for your kind words and insights. I was Christened and went to a Christian school despite my family not even being religious themselves which always seemed odd to me - I think it was more out of traditional than anything else. Thank you - I am interested in giving it a read when I get round to it :)

To me that shows that more guys are needed in the field! So pleased you are following what you want to do with your life! Good luck with your studies :)

Thank you!

Well spotted!! Yeah you are right - I was doing a BSc so that will be why I made the mistake ,

The noise is quite pleasing to me but I definitely don't like the sound of many keyboards.

I just didn't watch it fully back that's all, which resulted in some parts having the music too loud. I didn't have much time to get it done. Do I appear nervous? I have been making videos for 4 years I can assure you I am not at all feeling nervous in front of the camera.

Thanks for your feedback. I will watch them fully before uploading next time. Some people like background music so I guess that's more a personal choice.

Thanks! Same to you. I have just been studying this evening. I hope you enjoy the course :)

Awesome and don't worry you don't need the textbooks to start as they are all on the module website :).

Awesome! And yes I agree about work keyboards!!!

Haha that's always funny to me when I am editing

Good luck to you too :)

Awesome! Good luck with it :)

Me too! Just received the textbooks today and I am absolutely over the moon. Can’t wait to get started. I wish you all the best 🙌🏼

@@TheMuslimIntrovert aw that’s amazing well done and thank you same to you too! 🥂

Good luck with it 😊

@@TheMuslimIntrovert I’m still waiting on mine but they are at the depot so hopefully they will arrive tomorrow!

That’s the route I am hoping to take too.

That's pretty awesome!