Quality of teaching, undergrad physics

Hello everyone!

I'm thinking of applying to Durham to study physics. I have read many other threads on this matter but I wish to know more opinions of current physics students in Durham.

So...

1. How are the lectures done at Durham? (I dislike the whole 'projector-slides-laser-pointer' style of teaching and I prefer the old 'chalkboard pedagogy' )
2. What tends to be the size of a tutorial group? What are tutorials like? Are they just sessions where you learn how to solve the weekly problem set from a graduate student, or do we get to have frequent, meaningful discussions too?
3. How much weekly practical work is there really?
4. I am interested in both theoretical physics and experimental techniques, so will the program at Durham suit my tastes? In other words, how flexible is it?
5. How rigorous is it?
6. Do we get to have a life?

Thanks for replying! you mentioned that the tutorials are different now, have they changed for the better or for the worse, and in what way?

Well I can't say much because I don't know, but in my first year our tutorials were weekly meetings between a small group (half a dozen) of students with one academic, where we'd go through questions set centrally every week that were intended to be more challenging than the regular weekly problems (and not marked).

I'm told that now they have group problem-solving (not sure whether it's an addition or replacement) which I think is like I've had in more recent years - a large group of undergraduates in a lecture theatre, broken up into smaller groups of about half a dozen, each with a PhD student helping them through the problems set.