I loved the interactive nature of this program. We were able to analyse the human skeleton in relation to its evolutionary history and trace humanity’s origins back thousands of years. The lecturers are very passionate about their subject and always take the time to respond to my emails with lots of information and reading suggestions. I also love the facilities at my university. They are very clean and modern and all within walking distance of one another. I believe my program has given me a wide range of skills which will set me up for any future career.

I enjoyed the holistic nature of my Anthropology program and the way it encompassed explorations of the social, biological and cultural facets of world issues. I also appreciated the efforts of the Anthropology lecturers in organising interesting trips to facilitate our learning, including a Boxing trip in Barnsley and fieldwork in Volos, Greece.

I actually loved my time in Durham so much. Durham helped me grow not only academically due to the challenging nature and high quality overall of teaching, but also as a well-rounded person because there were many different societies that I could participate in. There are a myriad array of college (intramural) sports – I joined football, basketball and badminton – as well as musical societies – I joined a band and gospel choir – not to mention societies for international students, theatre (both onstage and backstage), cooking, crafting…you name it, Durham likely has a society for it.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from my course, as I’d never studied Anthropology before (having done a bit of archaeology as part of my Classical Civilisations A-level). I was very pleased to find that it combines a lot of what I enjoyed from my A-levels (History, Geography, Biology and Classics), and also offered good practical experience, especially the opportunity to go on a three-week dig at the end of the year. In first year, Joint Honours Anth and Arch students have four core modules (2 in each department) that cover the basics, and we have 2 electives. I chose a medical anthropology module and a module on Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Civilisation. Both were fascinating and the teaching quality superb; the tutorials in the medical anthropology module were extremely useful for consolidating the content covered in lectures.

In second and third year, the module choices grow more niche and we had increasing freedom to choose modules as we decide which areas we particularly enjoyed researching and learning about. In both second and third year there was again excellent practical work opportunities, particularly in the archaeology modules I chose – Developing Archaeological Research and Advanced Professional Training. In DAR I gained practical experience with human DNA and materials analysis (which were the areas I chose among a great variety), and in APT I had the amazing opportunity to go to Vienna with one of our bioarchaeologists and catalogue some ancient skeletons.

Overall the teaching was high-quality, though for some modules I felt like I would have benefitted from more contact hours in form of tutorials. However, it is often not difficult to find lecturers during their contact hours, though it is best to go with prepared questions (especially if it’s a complicated topic) because otherwise you might leave just as confused as you went in. The reading lists were always helpful, though for certain Term 2 modules I would have preferred they be released slightly earlier, perhaps over Christmas, so I could try and get some reading done then, rather than squash it all in during a very busy second term.

Another great thing about Durham is that college often have trusts and awards that can help you fund projects, volunteering, sports etc. so you don’t have to give up on an incredible opportunity because you might not be able to completely self-fund it.

Overall, the university has an excellent standard of teaching and quality of research. I would recommend the university, especially to people that want a completely immersive university experience in a smaller city. There are extremely useful career services and the collegiate system enables welfare of students to be high and integration to be relatively easy. Additionally, the sports facilities are excellent and all levels can get involved. The lecturers are generally extremely helpful and willing to answer any questions and help with any queries about the work. I will go into greater detail about the pros and cons, specifically of my course (Anthropology BSc).

1) Lectures and teaching:
A) pros: The lecturers are readily available via email and weekly consultation hours means that they are accessible if you have any queries over the work, reading, or if you want a general discussion and so on; the tutorials are particularly stimulating and classes are not too large so that everyone generally gets to discuss points; module handbooks and the online teaching support enables you to access readings mostly online and gives you clear direction and guidance about the work you must do for each of your seminars and lectures; the department is happy to take constructive criticism about its teaching and tends to act on it as long as students are upfront about issues they have; the departments are typically very helpful with issues about not being able to hand work in and valid extensions on deadlines are relatively easy to obtain; the workload is challenging but manageable and leaves time for you to get involved with other activities outside of studying.
B) cons: lecturers can sometimes be difficult to access via email; the feedback on assessments can be inconsistent between modules, with some lecturers providing extremely detailed feedback and others extremely minimal (however, further feedback can always be obtained from consultation hours); handbooks are inconsistent and some do not provide a detailed reading list to assist you with topic readings for assignments; dissertation supervision quality and quantity of feedback and meetings depends on the supervisor which means many students will experience much more feedback than others and there is no control over the amount of guidance dissertation supervisors must give (other than you have a maximum of 4 hours of time with your supervisor for Anthropology); sometimes feedback is extremely late for assessments and past the department deadline; Anthropology typically has very few contact hours per week (averaging around 6 hours of lecture time and maybe 2 hours of tutorial/seminar time); lecture quality is not always consistent and depends on the lecturers.

2) The library and study spaces:
A) pros: the library tends to have most of the books you need; there is a huge and extensive online database that is ready to access for students and enables access to most articles and papers you need that are online; the main site (the ‘science site’ as colloquially named by students) has a formal space to work (The Bill Bryson Library) and various more casual spaces to work such as the Chemistry Cafe and the Calman Learning Centre; colleges have their own libraries and study spaces for students; there are other larger libraries such as the Palace Green Library and the Leazes road library off the main site.
B) cons: the Bill Bryson Library (main library) does not have enough spaces to support all the students and with many thousands of students moving from the Stockton campus, there are even fewer spaces and the library is often overcrowded; not all articles you need will be available online; there is a shortage of books available online; there is often a shortage of core textbooks in the main library which will result in these often being recalled; study spaces are becoming increasingly crowded as the university expands and the needs of students have not been taken into account.

3) Collegiate system and sports:
A) pros: the collegiate system has an extremely strong welfare support team which assists students with welfare problems such as mental health issues; colleges also make approaching someone over difficulties with workload quite easy and often they are very happy to assist if you have valid problems that are affecting your work; college sports is very easy to be involved in and make sports viable for any skill levels; it’s easy to integrate with other students in your college with the college system; there are various study (e.g. libraries and study rooms) and leisure spaces (e.g. gyms, common rooms, music rooms) in colleges that are great; the sporting facilities at Durham are excellent and it’s really easy to get involved in sport at the college level and there are opportunities to get involved with the university-level sport.
B) cons: not all colleges have the same facilities; college accommodation is extremely expensive and is not always consistent (e.g. some individuals have extremely small rooms, some have issues with the maintenance of their rooms, accommodation blocks might be quite far from college etc); sports opportunities at colleges have costs that depend on the college (e.g. some colleges have a standard fee so you can get involved in all sports, others ask you to pay for each sport you play etc. and prices depend on the college); university-level sport can be very costly to be involved in; though college food generally tends to be good, the standard is not always high and the options for dietary requirements (e.g. dairy free, gluten free etc) are not always good.