What subject combination did I take and why?
In the first year of my degree, I took a combination of maths, chemistry and physics, each making up a third of the year. This gave me options to carry on with all three or any two of the three as I progressed through my degree. I found I was far more interested in the practical skills chemistry offered and the problem solving of physics than the rigorous nature of degree-level maths. I continued with a roughly 50:50 split of Chemistry and Physics throughout the rest of my degree.
Both subjects complemented each other very well, often coming at the same problem from two differing perspectives and allowed me to gain multiple skills, a more practical base from chemistry and programming and analytical skills from physics. Since they are a popular combination of subjects as far as natural sciences goes, I never had any issues with timetable management when selecting my modules.
Mostly, this was down to excellent communication from the director of natural sciences at the beginning and end of each year in which fully detailed emails are sent out explaining what modules would timetable best and what future years could look like as a result of taking different combinations of modules.
What is academic support like across multiple departments?
The departments you belong to as a Natural Sciences student treat you no differently than a single honours student from that department. Every student at Durham gets an academic advisor – a member of staff in the department with whom you have regular meetings to discuss progress or career goals and who you can approach with any concerns. So, in my first year, since I was part of three departments I had three academic advisors – this reduced to two when I no longer took maths modules in my second year.
As well as this all teaching is done alongside the single honours students taking the module. This meant I sat in lectures/tutorials/labs with the physics students for physics modules and chemistry students for chemistry modules.
Every student at Durham studies 120 module credits a year, irrespective of their degree. Despite the fact I did two subjects this meant that my workload was no more than a single honours chemistry or physics student. While it was a lot of work, it did mean I could balance study with my personal life and part-time work.
Highlights of my degree?
One of the selling points of the Natural Sciences degree is can be tuned to your interests very easily. For example, Durham doesn’t offer a material sciences degree, my combination of modules allowed me to specialise in condensed matter physics and solid-state chemistry when I realised part way through my degree that my interests lay in structure-property relationships of materials.
My final year MSci project was my favourite part of my degree. It was my first taste of an extended academic research project with which I had control over its direction and design. I worked on synthesising materials with a particular crystal structure and analysing their magnetic and electric properties in the hopes of understanding the underlying physics behind potential next generation energy materials. It cemented the idea that I wanted to do a PhD and so was pivotal to helping me decide what my next steps after graduating would be.
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