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Comment by strls | Hacker News Reader

I'm studying for a Math BSc with the OU and I think their books are great. They are designed for 100% self-study and are polished over the years. The range of topics in level 1 math courses such as MST124 or MST125 is huge, while keeping the appropriate level of difficulty.

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Are you in the current presentation of either 124 or 125 by any chance? I'm in both, planning to do the BSc too.

I'm actually finishing M208 Pure Math this week. It's been great.

Which university, if you don't mind me asking?

Can you share the names of the textbooks?

The OU; the Open University. It's a British university founded sixty or so years ago with the intent of widening access to higher education. Their campus is centred in Milton Keynes, a bit north of London.

I took a Masters in Maths with them and it was brutal. Serious exams are a youngster's game. I got a glimpse into why so many Cambridge wranglers were also serious atheletes.

OU = Open University. It's a UK distance learning university. Website is at https://www.open.ac.uk/

The courses the comments refer to are the level 1 courses listed here: http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/maths/all-modules

The text books are the texts for these courses. I don't know if you can get the books from OU without registering for the courses.

The books are called "Essential Mathematics" 1 and 2. They correspond to these modules. http://www.openuniversity.edu/courses/modules/mst124 http://www.openuniversity.edu/courses/modules/mst125

Second-hand OU books are usually bought from https://www.universitybooksearch.co.uk/

Could you provide the direct links for the books used in: MST123, MST124, MST125? I could not find them in your links.

Search for "Open University MST124" or similar on www.ebay.co.uk or www.amazon.co.uk. There seem to be plenty of copies of 124 available on both at the time of writing.

If you're not in the UK, I see that Thriftbooks appears to get at least some copies[1].

1: https://www.thriftbooks.com/browse/?b.search=MST124#b.s=most...

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