Tell me about Durham

[Durhamm]

DD has Durham on her list of potential unis but she has never been, can't make the open day and it's a long way for us to visit.

She is looking at one of the joint hons degrees via nat sci.

As far as I can see, lots of people like it for the college system and the formals, but DD isn't bothered one way or the other about those. So what else is good / bad about Durham? A family member went there and didn't have a great experience but we'd like a second opinion and I know there are many Durhamites here.

She wants self catering accommodation, great teaching, to be challenged academically, a diverse and interesting bunch of people to meet, lots of fun things to do when not studying. She is not particularly into team sports, but likes music, going to gigs, cycling, green spaces. Space generally would be good - she found Bristol a bit crowded and much preferred the vibe of the campuses at Birmingham and Nottingham.

Please tell me everything you know, good or bad! Does Durham have lots of other positives apart from the college system, living in a castle and the formals?

I wonder what is going on there - whether they are trying and failing to lower that %, or not trying. As you say other universities seem to have had more success but maybe it's not such a priority for Durham. It is quite disproportionate when you look at the distribution of students who achieve top grades at A level.

Availability and cost of Y2+ student accommodation is becoming a more and more pressing problem as loan levels remain static but rents rise. Durham U has not managed this aspect well at all (despite expanding) and in contrast to another very small uni town, Lancaster, where final year students can return to campus if they have been on a placement year or year abroad; Y2 accommodation is cheap and plentiful.

Your comments, @Piggywaspushed, re: Open Day dynamics are interesting. I think some unis attract particular parental interest (town/uni aesthetics, perceived safety, perceived reputation). One of my DC attended the recent U of Bath Open Day (having attended a range of other Open Days in Y12). They did comment that the parent to child ratio was noticeably different with 2/3rd attending with both parents. This did affect the dynamic to an extent, though they got what they wanted out of it. Hopefully at U of Bath and at Durham, parental involvement actually falls away during the uni years themselves and it sounds like it does.

Don’t remember a single parent on the open days I went on back in the day.

Back in the day, parents generally weren’t forking out £££ to pay for uni though - no fees and decent enough grants. It’s much more of a financial investment these days (although we dropped DS and his mates at open days whilst we had a day out).

I remember getting trains and buses and following the travel information on the letters sent out to attend uni interviews on my own (they weren’t open days back then).

I didn't go on any Open Days 'back in the day' myself. They weren't such a huge thing, were largely bussed in school trips and were on Wednesdays. But interviews were more common so students did see the uni.

I don't think we should judge parents for going - most young people appreciate it and also , Godess, not all YPs have independent means to get to them!

It was the behaviour that shocked my students, not the presence. She was with her own parents.

I'm not sure MN realises that students who go to Open Days unaccompanied tend to come form the higher reaches of social classes... (visiting local universities excepted)

Not here - got the National Express coach lol.

Back in my day (when I guess only 10% of kids went to Uni), we'd get shown round the department by a student, maybe the refectory too, and listen to one of the lecturers. Big Uni-wide Open Days didn't exist.

I think the biggest difference (and why parents go) is that, apart from Youth Hostels, I can't think of anywhere that will let a 16 or 17 year old stay overnight by themselves. Thinking back, I think the Unis even sorted out B&Bs for us.

They did - I stayed in a B&B sorted by Sussex in Brighton

Definitely norm for parents on all Uni visits we’ve done this year. I know what poster means by some of the mums at Durham open day. Definitely stood out compared to other open days.
It’s a shame if candidates are being put off by open day behaviour/observations.

Same here, though this was back in the late 80s. I even managed to get lost in Fenwick's after my interview at Newcastle, back when getting lost in Fenwick's really was a thing as there were random escalators scattered all over the place!

Definitely not upper class, btw. All I knew of Durham, at the time, was that my dad sometimes came up here to work in one of the prisons. Back in those days, trains were a lot cheaper than they are now, relative to other forms of transport, with a railcard, and coaches were dirt cheap, though not feasible for me as they took over twice as long as the train.

I rejected my offer of an interview at Bristol. My whole MO had been ,defiantly as only teenagers can, to 'apply as far away from home as possible' so I deliberately applied to Bristol, 500 miles away. Then, when they invited me for interview, it suddenly felt so very far away and inaccessible and I rejected them.

I picked halfway house York and then , ironically, never went home again.

Hmm, yeah, still requires a degree of confidence and social and economic capital tbh.

I rejected an interview at Bristol, too, for similar reasons. I figured 3 hours on the train was about right, in the end. Once I was out of halls and not getting turfed out all the time, I stayed put, got summer jobs up here and stayed well away from my parents' respective mid-life crises!

Open days are whole day affairs. Logistically many involve an overnight stay.
I know some of the London ones offer contribution to travel costs for certain disadvantaged groups but was only £100 which wouldn’t cover travel and stay.
We have also found school unhelpful - they rang querying where dc was yet knew she was attending open day (really did need it spelling out that we couldn’t teleport like Star Trek and visits a long train ride or flight away wouldn’t just be one day off)
My dc’s school has put on one trip to a local Uni (and Oxbridge)

slightly more nuanced than perhaps I first suggested but I think my general conclusion still stands.

10 unis in the previous year’s data had at least 30% indie.

Durham small increase from 38.4 to 39.1; also showing, mainly marginal, increases

UCL 32.4 to 33; Oxford 31.3 to 31.4;

on the flip side:

St A 36.9 to 36; Edinburgh 35.5 to 31.1; Exeter 34.5 to 30.3; Imperial 34.2 to 33; LSE 30.4 to 26; Cambridge 30 to 28.2

The four in the 20-30% range

Bath up from 27.1 to 28.2.

The other 3 all down at varying trajectories:

Bristol from 27.3 to 24.6; Newcastle 23.3 to 22.3; Oxford Brookes 29.8 to 24

in the high teens Warwick and Kings slightly up 19.3 to 19.8; and 17.1 to 18. Loughborough and Leeds both slight decreases; 19.3 to 18.7, and 17.7 to 17.4

of the remaining 16 unis with at least 10% indie 14 of these showed a fall, ranging from 3.8 to 0.5 percentage points.

Geography of course is not particularly on Durham’s side. Being in the North-East it is a fair way from many parts of the country; allied to the North East itself having the lowest progression rate to Uni; whereas two of the regions furthest away, London and South East have the highest. Given the disparity in this summers A level and GCSE results I don’t see that situation changing soon.

it doesn’t help itself in terms of self-catered accommodation provision which could be off putting for some; or in the price of its accommodation in general which again could make many think twice. Add to that the challenges and again cost compared with many places for private accommodation in subsequent years. The benefits of the collegiate structure as several posters have already outlined are I think real, but do not off-set the potentially discouraging factors.

it would be interesting to know from past grads (from the pre-tuition fee era) whether far more students from Scotland went to Durham back then. With free tuition in Scotland only around 4% venture elsewhere in the UK nowadays.

I think, even pre fees, Scots tended to study in Scotland as it’s a different style of degree programme. Up until 1992 a lot of higher education was conducted in colleges so students would most likely attend their local one - these were then converted into universities.

I was at Durham 89/90 with about 20 or so on the course - 3 or 4 were Greek students, half a dozen or so had been Durham undergrads and the rest of us had probably been attracted by the SERC funding and grant (plus it was fairly niche and not offered at many places).

Is there ANYWHERE with a reasonable reputation (currently for biochem/pharmacy) that has cheap/easy to find accommodation?

Re private school % it seemed to me that Bristol was quite focussed on giving contextual offers to disadvantaged students. Helpfully (for us anyway) they also guarantee to make offers to local (specified) postcodes (probably a 15 mile radius, given that we qualify)

Birmingham - not massively cheap , but plentiful.

@Madcats Have you looked at Leeds for pharmacy? I was chatting to a current student and he is loving it. He's starting a year in industry at one of the big name companies and three of the four students they have taken on for this year were from that course.

Cardiff?

I’ve heard pharmacy at Nottingham is good @Madcats

In years 2 and 3 £125 a week this year wouldn’t get you very far. It just might get you a very small house in a very run down part of Gilesgate (quite far out), perhaps somewhere in Newcastle or a village or an estate even further out so if you think the Hill Colleges are far out forget it.

Yes their is a small chance you could get back in Halls in years 2 and 3 (but nothing is guaranteed and you wouldn’t know until quite late on well after Christmas when your mates in Halls will have already had to sign up to accommodation (so thats not really a realistic option to hold out for).

Having said all this our YP is at Durham in a far out SC Hill College in year one and loved it and wishes he was that far out and back there this year but instead they are stuck in Gilesgate. Everyone walks everywhere in Durham and the student walk and chat or walk listening to music and don’t mind it, it is the norm.