Yesterday, a package arrived for me from Open University – a load of handbooks covering diverse database subjects, and a cd with copy of IBM’s DB2 on it.

Unfortunately for me, they seem to have neglected the Linux installation of DB2. It’s mentioned in the readme.txt file, but the installation files are simply not there. I feel a complaint coming on.

So, yeah… me doing college!? My highest qualification so far was my Junior Certificate. I didn’t bother with the Leaving Cert. – got bored, then got a job. That was a bad decision on my part, but hopefully it’s not too late to rectify that.

M877 is “Advanced Database Technology”, a post-graduate course, which I hope to use as a stepping stone to an MSc or even MBA.

The tutor contacted me to ask if I was actually qualified to do this course. I gave him my job history, and he was satisfied – I’ve been working with databases professionally for at least 7 years, and if I don’t know something straight-out, I’ve at least used it or read about it it.

So yesterday (Jareth’s 3rd birthday by the way), I had a quick glance through the handbooks and was relieved to find that I understood what I read, and was able to answer some of the sample exam questions correctly.

I’m looking forward to this -and eventually being called “Dr Kae” 🙂