Durham Postgraduate Applicants/Offer Holders 2015 entry

What do you mean? Do you mean Colleges will be kinder with late rent or something?

Ah. The big scholarship at Durham I applied for never actually told me whether I'd been awarded it or not? Or when you say Tuesday do you mean it has been confirmed?

Departmental ones. AHRC prep masters scholarships are even rarer than PhD ones so I wasn't even waiting - I think humanities at Durham allocate 1 or 2 per year across some 800

Hey guys, I'm from Malaysia and I will be starting my MA in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Durham this October. Have been accepted at Hild Bede.

I'm still on the fence about college accommodation vs living out. I've been spending (far too many) hours looking at available rooms to rent; not quite sure whether the best ones are already taken by now, or it is in fact still a bit early to look for rooms at this point. I'm looking at getting the cheapest (but sensible) rooms at Claypath or Elvet, coz that will be between Hild Bede and the lecture halls and the shops, but I'm not sure that it makes sense to find what looks like a good place just based on photos and some emails with the landlord and to sign a contract without having visited it (I won't arrive at Durham till late Sept at the earliest), in which case I may just be forced to choose college accommodation for the simplicity of it. But I'm looking to see what other plans people have regarding accommodation.

Did you have to pay the whole rent upfront?

No definitely not. I paid a deposit up front which is about a months rent, but so long as you leave things in good condition you should get that back when your tenancy is up. Other than that I just pay monthly at the beginning of the month. Do keep in mind though that as an international student, setting up a bank account when you first get here takes a little bit of time and though I hesitate to use the word hassle, it takes some work. So for your first month you may need to find a way to transfer the money internationally to your landlord, and though it's not a good idea to travel with a lot of cash, you'll need to think about how to have a bit of money with you when you first get here to hold you over until the account is set up.
It was a bit more difficult for me because I arrived a month before term began and you need a letter from your college to set up a bank account, a letter which they don't tend to give until term starts. It worked out in the end, but getting the letter and setting up a meeting with the bank etc. took some time.

Hey man, thanks so much for that info. I was asking one of the rental agencies who informed me that their busy period was November to January, i.e. that's when the undergrad students are searching for and locking down their accommodation out of college. So from there I understood that postgrads coming in to Durham as a first-year are inevitably at a disadvantage.

Where are you currently staying at the moment? I've enquired about a bunch of properties – about half didn't reply though – but I did see one on Claypath that seems almost ideal; good proximity to both college and department (I assume that's at Elvet Riverside?), cost ain't too high, looks decent in photographs, shops galore nearby. Claypath wouldn't be a noisy place to be, would it?

For your friends at Hild Bede, are any of them living in college halls? If yes, what are their opinions about it?

Questions about MA: did you find the course demanding? How many students are there in your batch?

In my experience larger rental companies who have offices in many different cities tend not to email back, they would usually expect you to call them or go in and see them which is obviously hard for international students. I'm staying in the Elvet area at the moment, it's a great location but it can be pretty noisy. Then again that depends on the individual flat, how sound proof it is, how close it is to the road etc. I don't know from experience but I would guess that Claypath would be a bit quieter. I know a couple of people in halls at Hild Bede and they seem to like it. As far as halls go I think it sounds pretty normal. I think the postgraduate accommodation is quite close to the college and campus so that's good, whereas the University College (my college) postgrad accommodation is a good 30 minute walk outside of town. The only problem one of my friends had is that she was told she could self-cater at the Hild Bede postgrad site and for some reason it turns out that she couldn't, so she has to walk to the actual college for all of her meals. I'm not sure if that's the same for everyone or if her situation is unique.

Is the MA demanding, I would say yes and no. It is demanding in that obviously a higher quality of work is expected of you than what you might be used to in undergraduate study, but that goes for any postgraduate course. So it does challenge you. In the first term though, I had pretty much nothing to do other than do readings and go to class. We had no assignments due until January. That would be different if you enrolled for any optional modules in first term, but the ones I chose were all second term. We also were not given clear guidance of what we were to do for our assignments until maybe a month and a half (depending on the assignment) before they were due, so it was pretty hard to get a head start on anything. The result is that I have pretty much everything other than my dissertation due between mid March and mid May. That's been pretty stressful, and a lot of work. It's doable, but not so fun. I would have liked to spread the work out more evenly.

Since it's a taught programme there's no requirement for you to have chosen a dissertation topic before you arrive, and I didn't. Looking back I wish I had, or that I had at least a good idea of what I might like to do. Even though it's not a requirement, once I arrived it was sort of expected that I would have a plan for my dissertation and I didn't. As a result I was really rushing around trying to come up with something, and that's not fun. So I would suggest giving it some serious thought before you arrive if you haven't already. Oh! And there are currently 10 students on the programme. One of them is doing it part time over two years, so I guess you'll see him around next year.

Thanks, that's good to know. I asked one of the Hild Bede students about what he heard from postgrad students there and he said the comments ranged from 'it is okay' to 'it looks as austere as a prison', haha.

As for your friend, what I understand about Hild Bede is that everyone who stays in college is catered; there is generally no self-catering option there. However, the majority of HB postgrads would be allocated halls that have at least a basic kitchen, because catering does not extend beyond term time and postgrads are on 50-week lets.

Question: have you heard of horror stories from fellow international postgrad students where they arrived at Durham only to find that their room and/or living areas aren't what they expected?

I guess that gives me an idea about the workload: pretty much what one would expect from a typical postgrad course. It'll probably be just a tad more work for me, as I would be coming into the degree with no background in history, let alone the medieval period. (It's just an area of interest that I've been cultivating in recent years; up till now I work in the media industry.) Good tip about having ideas for a dissertation topic early, will definitely keep that in mind.

May I ask what optional modules are you taking and what is your opinion about them? (Hope I'm not peppering you with too many questions!)

I did the Palaeography module and another one in the history department called "Negotiating life in the early modern period". I would recommend both if they suit your interest. Palaeography was just amazing, to be honest. Richard Gameson is a genius, and he's hilarious and friendly as well. It's not even THAT difficult, so long as you attend the sessions and take in what he's telling you. The collections that we got to work with were amazing. There's nothing like looking through several manuscripts worth millions of pounds every Friday afternoon to get you excited. The summative assignment was admittedly more work than I thought it would be, but again it's not that it's difficult, just requires a good chunk of time and a lot of attention detail. I would definitely recommend that course to anyone. It runs in first and second term so it covers samples from antiquity to the early modern period. There's something in it for everyone.

Hey! My name's Olivia, I'm 24, from yhe US and entering the MA of Medieval and Early Modern History 2015! Just hoping tp connect with some other post grads before I head over!

That's great. I'm definitely interested in the Palaeography module. A thought just occurred to me though ... How many of the modules seen here are actually offered in your year?

https://www.dur.ac.uk/mlac/postgraduate/ma-mrs/optmodules/