Durham University

[KingscoteStaff]

The continuation thread for those with DC at Durham, or applying to Durham, or alumni, or staff!

September 2021 finds us packing, unpacking, meeting old friends and new, and all with our fingers firmly crossed for a positive year!

People do tend to walk up and down the hill. At lecture change tubes and especially lunch tugged is just a never ending throng of students. You get good legs going up and down the hills! Especially if you then live up gilesgate on your second year. Or if you need to go up cardiac hill on a regular basis!

Clearly I can't manage to type this morning. Lecture change TIMES.

I think one day I'll have to go back just to try walking up Cardic Hill. I didn't do sciences so never went anywhere near!

Me neither! I did languages and linguistics so it was old elvet all the way. Hardly even went to the library, which may explain my degree result. But it was just soooooo far away!

Morning! When applying to Durham should they apply to a specific college or Durham in general please? DD has never been to Durham, knows nothing about the different colleges but is very interested in one of their courses. There’s 17 colleges that offer this course. If she needs to apply to just one college how does she decide please?

Good morning @NotDonna. The colleges at Durham are not linked to academic study so she is just picking her college based on where she wants to live in her first year and the type of accommodation and/or culture she wants. Dd did put her preference on her ucas form but she then got to later fill in a form ranking all colleges in order. Not sure if that will happen again this year.
Dd whittled down her choices by location, catered, gowned formals and societies but others will have other priorities. It was good fun picking but warn her not to set her heart too much on one type, some are much more popular than others! Unlike Oxbridge though your choice of college makes no difference to your application, you apply to the university not the college.

www.durham.ac.uk/colleges-and-student-experience/accommodation-and-catering/student-accommodation/
This is where dd started her research, followed by lots of online videos. We then visited her shortlisted ones over the summer to get a feel (no rl open days).

That is incredibly helpful leia thank you!

@NotDonna Ds did a spreadsheet based on least likely to share a room and then whittled it down from there. Wasn't bothered about catered or not catered and really wanted an en-suite. He was lucky that he was given his first choice college.

@Vargas has he walked the hill at all from VM to wherever he is having his lectures? We visited back at Easter and walked up to Bill Bryson library and back down to the car. Durham is hilly. Ds has his timetable and knows what buildings he is in, luckily they are all very close to each other so not a huge amount of walking but still has to walk from South to the Geography building. He loves cycling but is not taking his bike to Durham yet, he is going to see how he gets on.

Thanks @OnTheBenchOfDoom. I have never been to Durham but ds went up with a mate a few months ago and has seen VM, but not sure about whether he has been to where his lectures will be. DS is also doing Geography. I am thinking it's not worth taking his bike straight away too...but he is pretty sure he will want it.

@NotDonna Keep in mind that many of the dc's on this thread did not get their first choice college, in my ds' case it was his fifth!

DS chose purely based on food recommendations!

Assuming the geography department hasn't moved since the 80s, it's really not worth cycling from Mildert to the department - it's a hop skip and a jump down South Road.

With regards to bikes, there are essentially 2 types. 1) An inexpensive conveyance that you can lock up anywhere (at a risk of it getting nicked) or 2) a sportier road bike type that will need to be stored in student's rooms for safekeeping. DS will have the latter. He never uses it for errands or to go from A - B. His rides typically go from A to A via every letter of the alphabet!

@Vargas Ds is doing computer science but lectures are all over the place including the geography building, psychology building etc, I assume they are just large lecture halls. Ds has his timetable which shows the rooms they are in and cross referenced that with a map of the uni buildings, all info on that portal thing they log into.

Durham is small, it is a 10 minute walk from VM to the Geography dept.

Are you planning to stay over when you do drop off? I always assume everyone is miles away from Durham and is facing 4 hours plus in a car. We live in beautiful Yorkshire so it is an easy jaunt for us, hence having been up there.

@OnTheBenchOfDoom another computer science DS here. We were surprised the classes weren't all in the computer science or maths buildings. We did the walk from halls to their when we visited but not to the others. Guess there will be a bit of map following the first few days

@cmcc22 yes we were surprised that they were not in that new building too, he was reading out the room numbers and I was looking them up on the buildings map and querying are you sure? It says psychology? Then eventually we get the Computer Science building for a programming session.

Ds is a planner, no doubt he has committed the map to memory by now. He has been a few times, once with us at Easter, again for the official tour for students and then again with some friends who are going too.

Can I be a pain and ask someone to paste link to the buildings map again please? I can’t find previous link to it

My dd has just noticed that some of her lectures which had room numbers are now showing as online. My heart is sinking. I really don’t think I could cope with a rerun of last year. Last year it was all online, apart from three face to face seminars in the whole term. Anyone else seeing lectures moving from rooms to online?!

@SpringSparrow Ds has just looked and all his classes still have room numbers next to them. He is a fresher computer science student.

@Longtimenewsee the what room number for what building is www.dur.ac.uk/timetable/roominfo/durhamrooms/ here

The map with the key to where those building are is attached.

@SpringSparrow shall we protest publicly on all social media platforms if this is the case? I don't even know my DS timetable but feel aggrieved

MN won't let me upload a pdf map as that one above has terrible resolution, so here is a link to the 2012 map online astro.dur.ac.uk/ripples/DurhammapwithkeyNov2012-1.pdf the only things missing off it are a couple of colleges (South and John Snow opposite Josephine Butler) and some new buildings ie Computer Science which is below building 45.

Ds accessed the up to date campus map via his log in and he is not here at the minute.

Yes, noticed that too I think that over subscription has not helped as the numbers are just far too big for humanities to hold in person lectures. But in all honestly would you feel comfortable squashed cheek by jowl in a room of 200 people who had come from all over. I want to feel cross about it but I think I am just exhausted by the whole bloody situation and insanely angry at our useless government for getting us into this situation. its not like this in Germany or Denmark

Apparently it’s the compulsory module lectures that are now showing as online, so the ones where you would expect the whole cohort to attend. The year group is about 260. Humanities subject so pretty low contact hours anyway. My dd seems resigned, but I’m feeling angry about it.
The talk on here about getting between buildings, when last year my dd only went to her subject department three times in the whole term she was there!And she has only met a few people on her course in person, from a seminar group and two from her household.
@chopc can you check the compulsory lectures in your ds’s subject to see if it’s the same for him?

@Peaseblossum22 but if you look at all the people at concerts and stadiums and festivals, and given all the testing and vaccination status, 200 people really isn’t that many.
I am feeling angry and anxious about my dd returning. She had such a crap experience last year, I just want to hope it’s going to be better this year.

They have to test not more than 48 hrs before social gatherings (organised) and at least twice a week. Seems very unfair if large lectures are online when they could be having 4 LFTs a week!
DS is Science, I will ask him about his lecture arrangements.

@SpringSparrow he hasn't even had his module confirmed yet 🙈

@jano69 has your dd has her modules confirmed or timetable?