How Do Durham Semesters Work?

First of all, sorry, I meant to post this in the Durham forum but I'm not sure how to move this post...

...If there are any Durham students out there, Law students in particular, I have a few questions;

1. How many modules do you take per semester?
2. Is your first year schedule created for you or do you get to arrange it yourself?
3. Do exams take place before or after the Easter/Christmas breaks?
4. Is it beneficial to have three semesters instead of two?

It seems to have ended up here now!
I'm not a law student, but having a quick look at their course summary I think I can answer these questions
Durham doesn't actually work on a semester system really, we have 3 terms but for most modules there's essays due throughout the year, then exam(s) in the summer term. We only have teaching in term 1 and 2, and then revision beyond that.
On a typical course you'll take 6 modules per year and you'll take them over both terms. Some courses, such as maths, do half modules which only last one term, but it doesn't seem like law does.
In first year you'll be on all core modules, so everything is scheduled for you. In future years you choose some modules beyond the compulsory ones, but your schedule is set by which modules you choose.
For almost all modules, exams will take place in the 4 week exam season in May/June, some modules may have exams outside that period, but it's not typical. When they're outside that period they can be pretty much any time though, which isn't very helpful I've had some just before the Christmas break, some just after, and this year we have one in April, so after Easter but before the main exam season.
As I've explained, we don't work on a semester system really, so it's difficult to compare. There's advantages and disadvantages to having all our exams at the end of the year, but I think doing a module across an entire year allows you more time to understand it and actually go into depth compared to maybe quickly touching on lots of things in little depth. It also means you tend to have less revision over Christmas, which no one complains about!
Hope that answers some of your questions

Thank you so much for explaining all of this, that makes a lot more sense. I looked at the course summary but wasn't exactly sure how the modules were divided up. So just to clarify, there are 3 terms, term 1 and 2 are used for teaching and you take the same 6 modules throughout, term 3 is used for revision and exams take place towards the last month of this third term?

That definitely sounds beneficial to me, right now my current university works on a 2 term system and we take 5 modules in term 1 and 5 courses in term 2, each with exams at the end.

I appreciate you taking the time to write this out