HNC Building Services - Maths Skills Require Brushing Up!

[Big Sausage]

Hi everyone,

First time poster but long time member who could use some friendly and helpful advice please.

Basically I'm at that point in my career were I'd like to move higher up the ladder and after speaking to work colleagues I've been advised that a HNC/HND in Building Services Engineering is the way forward.
No problems so far as a design biassed career is one that I'd like to pursue and from research online and from speaking to people in person the above mentioned course appears to be the most favourable way to achieve this.

However one thing that everyone I've spoken to keeps highlighting is how difficult the maths side of the course can be and since I've not been in any form of education now for at least 10+ years I'm concerned that I'm setting my heights to high.:dunce2::dunce2:

With that in mind Ive decided that I should attend a evening course in maths and have being looking at the various options available but can't make up my mind what level to start at?

Has anyone else been in a similar situation or am i stressing over nothing???..................

 

[JameZZZ]

Hi Sausage,

I did an HNC in Building services (electrical biased) a couple of years ago. I found that the maths was difficult as it had been 13 years since I left school. I did however have GCSE maths to a reasonable grade and this definitely helped. The HNC maths got to a level which covered complex numbers and some more advanced calculus (these where the hardest maths subjects though). Don't let this scare you though as most of the blokes on the course had no idea and still passed. One thing I would say is important is to have a good understanding of transposition of formulas, the guys who could not do this really struggled and a few dropped out. Do you have any maths qualifications? If not I would look at doing a GCSE or if you can afford it get some one on one maths tuition (this is the best solution because they can tailor everything to your areas of weakness).

Hope this helps,

JameZZZ

 

[Big Sausage]

Hi Sausage,

I did an HNC in Building services (electrical biased) a couple of years ago. I found that the maths was difficult as it had been 13 years since I left school. I did however have GCSE maths to a reasonable grade and this definitely helped. The HNC maths got to a level which covered complex numbers and some more advanced calculus (these where the hardest maths subjects though). Don't let this scare you though as most of the blokes on the course had no idea and still passed. One thing I would say is important is to have a good understanding of transposition of formulas, the guys who could not do this really struggled and a few dropped out. Do you have any maths qualifications? If not I would look at doing a GCSE or if you can afford it get some one on one maths tuition (this is the best solution because they can tailor everything to your areas of weakness).

Hope this helps,

JameZZZ

Hi JameZZZ and thanks for taking the time to reply.

After taking onboard your advice I've began looking for a maths bridging course that I could take as a separate course before applying for a HNC.
This would give me a chance as well to study it with the help of a private tutor who could then tailor the tuition to suit an electrically biased style of maths (hopefully).

Do you think that would be a viable way of re-brushing up?

I'd be grateful if anyone on here could point me towards a good maths bridging course that I could take via distance learning.

Also has anyone used a private tutor before for studying and if they did what was it like, ie did you feel that you gained from it more rather than trying to muddling your way through a course?