Parents of Durham freshers 2025

[MillicentFaucet]

We've chatted on a different threads over the past few months so do any anxious/excited/slightly overwhelmed parents want to congregate here for Durham chat?
My DS will be starting an MEng next month and has been allocated to Cuths 🐯(but no confirmation of what type of accommodation he has yet).
He's slowly working his way through registration etc and fretting about the important things like what to wear for matriculation <sigh>
How's everyone else getting on?

Hello and welcome, I'm guessing by your name you'll be travelling up from That London so remember to pack your big coat 😁
DS & I did a little bit of shopping today and he now has a smart white shirt for matriculation plus a hangup washbag for trips to the shared bathroom. He said he only wanted to move in with the bare essentials but the spare bed is already buried under a mountain of stuff

@HelenDenver I don't think DS has booked anything yet, what's he missed?

Fresher fair tickets are available through the SU website to see the clubs and things

I nipped into town yesterday and the Bailey is a total building site with scaffolding everywhere, I hope they get it shifted before moving in day. We had a peep at some of the Cuths accommodation, imagine living here😍

DD is finding choosing her Liberal Arts modules a bit painful. Timetable clashes, minimum credits needed for certain subjects, ALL of the business courses removed from the options - you’d never guess she wrote her 3 preferred subject areas down when she accepted her offer!

She’s arranging a chat with her course leader, but it’s been a bit of a rude awakening for her after all the “Pick your own degree” stuff you hear at all the LA open days. She’s already looking at a different configuration to what she went in to do, and now even one of her substitutes isn’t looking feasible either. Hopefully the chat will help iron things out.

(To be clear, I don’t think this is just a Durham thing, but a reality of Liberal Arts vs uni timetables & trying to make different faculties get along thing.)

DS struggled with the timetable checker, it did look a bit steam driven. He only had one elective choice to make and fancied a look at medieval archeology, but it clashed with a core maths module so now he's doing something about computational tools for engineers instead. Bit of a contrast!
His timetable has been approved now, his face when I pointed out he's going to be running up cardiac hill between some lectures and tutorials 😮

@MillicentFaucet hopefully DS is choosing his module now, after mucho nudging from me. I think he's starting to get worried about leaving home etc etc so he's being a bit head in sand!

Ah, I do feel for him - he’s trying to round out his engineering education, even if the timetable doesn’t support it!

@RayonSunrise - where is your DD getting the Liberal Arts information from? My DD is doing her subject combo (philosophy + MFL) through Liberal Arts and she had a message saying to wait to receive guidance but she’s not heard anything further yet. Can you just book through Learn Ultra or something?

She’s out this evening but I’ll encourage her to take another look tomorrow.

My daughter is doing a joint degree in two departments separated by Cardiac Hill - should improve her fitness (especially as we live somewhere pretty flat).

@Dery It’s been confusing, hasn’t it? She’d not heard anything but knew modules were open to select, so I asked on the Durham Parents’ group if any other LA students were selecting modules and it seemed they were. They shared a link to the schedule checker, and she started making her choices. She’s needed to get in touch with the LA coordinator since, so it’s not been straightforward. One absolutely required, no-substitutes ab initio class clashed with the core LA module, but that seems to have now been sorted. It’s the substitute for the subject Durham’s decided to discontinue as a LA option that’s she’s struggling with now.

Ah well she’s had a sleep on it now, it may be easier to make her trade-offs in the light of today.

Can I ask a question about the timetable checker? My YP is doing Education, but wanted to do ab initio French, and some of the classes clash - but there seem to be a awful lot of classes and so I suspect there might be two sets running. Is there a way on the timetable tracker to check this, it’s really not clear to us!

Thanks, @RayonSunrise!

I will suggest to DD that she try the subject-checker. I’m on various Durham parents’ groups but haven’t seen that.

We had to get in touch with the course leader. He said to just put things down, but the problem is you can’t submit clashing courses so DD had to sub in a couple of things she knew were a bit mad and would be rejected just to put her first draft in and keep the convo going!

@SW19MumEmma my dd is also studying geography at Durham. Bachelors of science one. She’s getting confused about the modules and emailed a few people but they are not getting back to her.

DD in South and they have formals so she has managed to find a second hand gown and has a dress and some dress shoes. She’s not a usually into dressing up so am
glad we found something she likes.

We have so much accumulating in the conservatory! No idea how it will all fit in our small car.

She applied for a Santander account so got the 4 year rail pass for free which is a huge bonus for her!

2 weeks to go!

@RayonSunrise - huge thanks for the tip! Turns out DD was further along in the process than I realised but still needs to register a few more modules which she will hopefully get done today.

Honestly, i’m so thankful to you both:@RayonSunrise and @MillicentFaucet. I don’t think we’d have kept on top of this process without all this sharing of information!

@Brienneoftarthismyheroyes we went for Santander too, that’s one thing ticked off the list!

DS hasn’t chosen his modules - he is very (? too) laid- back about the whole thing. He has registered for the first formal though, small wins! Good luck to your DD!

No worries @Dery, I’m finding all the parental chat pretty helpful too! We’re all figuring this out together while our DCs are doing the same in parallel. I think it’s useful we have our own separate sources - it lets the YPs take charge and figure things out themselves, while we sit in the background sharing info and reassuring ourselves. 😂

@BrienneoftarthismyheroMy DD is not the dressiest of girls but she has accumulated a couple of nice frocks and a proper evening dress for formals and balls. I’ve heard there’s often a bit of dress-trading within colleges to keep variety up without having to take an enormous wardrobe!

DS can see his timetable in the mydurham app even though he hasn’t chosen his module

Did someone say their DC was doing Maths? My DS hasn’t mentioned anything about choosing modules and I thought that was because it is quite explicit which modules they have to take. However, now I am wondering if he just doesn’t know about choosing modules….

@BeverleyHofstadter My DS is doing maths and has chosen his module but due to timetable clashes there aren’t many options - I think he’s gone with even more maths!

@RayonSunrise - definitely helpful to have both lines of intel. DD is usually very resistant to me helping with this kind of thing but the last 2 days she has submitted to sitting down with me and working through things together.

@BeverleyHofstadter - it’s worth checking with your son but for many students their modules will be largely predetermined and he may well only have one slot to fill.

Both Rayon and i have DCs who are studying under the Liberal Arts rubric so aside from one obligatory 20-credit LA module, they have to build their courses from nothing!

Same for DS, all 5 compulsory modules already on it without him doing anything and once he chose his free module it appeared in his timetable the next day.

Our son is going to Durham first year, he has been allocated to St.Aidans . It wasn't a college of his choice but i am sure it is fine.
Feels surreal not to worry about school TT and uniforms anymore , but also a bit sad that he has grown too quick and is an adult already . 😅