Physics with foundation year info?

Has anyone done this or have an idea of how the course is?

Hello! I had a few questions.

I dropped an e-mail to Durham but I was asked to contact the Physics department instead. If you could answer that for me then I'd appreciate that. The physics with foundation year rolls onto the BSc programme but I was interested in an Mphys with a year abroad instead. Is it possible to switch?

I had some questions specifically about the teachers too and it may be a matter of opinion. In certain stem subjects -even at some fantastic universities- teachers aren't always equal with females. I've had that with most physics and maths classes I've taken so far because it was male heavy. Would you happen to know the female to male ratio for the subject?

Thanks for your response!

That is fantastic to hear! I am rather excited now. Some of the other universities I spoke to said the same about transference of courses. Yes, I was honestly a little more worried about the teacher than the composition. 😊 I tried to go onto ratemyprofessor.com but couldnt find what I was looking for.

Many thanks!

I hope you are right but I held worries relating to the teachers. School environment matters. My friend had an unfortunate happening in north wales in ICT and was quite upset for much of her school year. Her teacher wasn't very fond of her because she was a female. I am trying to avoid that but I don't think I need worry if the class is composed so largely of females. I am just trying to be careful.

Keep in mind you won't have 'teachers' as such anyway, and people can be quite shocked by this. You have lectures where the material is presented to you, but it isn't taught. The onus is on you to understand the content and seek help if necessary, at school they tend to spoon feed you; that won't happen at university.

I see! Are the lecturers not readily available to seek if you have any quieries? Do they solely come in for the lecture and the end of the lecture concludes their working day? Are they "form tutors" or groups at university for general aid?

Hello! I had a few questions.

I dropped an e-mail to Durham but I was asked to contact the Physics department instead. If you could answer that for me then I'd appreciate that. The physics with foundation year rolls onto the BSc programme but I was interested in an Mphys with a year abroad instead. Is it possible to switch?

I had some questions specifically about the teachers too and it may be a matter of opinion. In certain stem subjects -even at some fantastic universities- teachers aren't always equal with females. I've had that with most physics and maths classes I've taken so far because it was male heavy. Would you happen to know the female to male ratio for the subject?

Thanks for your response!

For maths/physics the gender ratio is about 50:50, it would only be male heavy in subjects like computer science or engineering which very few female students elect to take. In any case, it really shouldn't be a problem.

I see! Are the lecturers not readily available to seek if you have any quieries? Do they solely come in for the lecture and the end of the lecture concludes their working day? Are there "form tutors" or groups at university for general aid?

So, you should be able to swap onto other courses up until the end of your second year (subject to your grades). The year abroad thing is pretty new actually (wasn't offered when I applied) but from what I gather it works in a similar way, although you probably should contact the department as sometimes student finance can be funny if you try and swap the number of years you are studying for too much! I can't see it being an issue though - most programmes offer the chance to sign up for a year abroad during your degree so it shouldn't be any different for you!

As a female I have probably a better idea about the gender balance I'd say generally the teachers are fantastic - I mean there have been a couple of off hand comments when people have tried to make jokes, which haven't always been well received, but I definitely wouldn't say there is a significant issue of sexism in the department. In fact, a lot of the leading staff members are female. I'd say Durham has actually been better than from what I hear of my friends experiences at other unis - here I have always felt judged on merit alone, not my gender. If anything I've had more of a problem with people my own age - occasionally you get some idiot who feels the need to make sexist jokes but most people here are great and will quickly make those idiots shut up! :P



^ Haha lol. It's definitely not 50:50 :P For some reason all my male friends have this idea it's 50:50 - it's really not. If you look at the admissions statistics it's still about 70:30 male:female, although as there are Natural Sciences students who also take physics modules the gender balance varies between modules quite a lot (one of my modules this year had a female majority!). It's never been a problem for me though - pretty much everyone is really nice and you don't really notice the difference after a while!



Lecturers are pretty much always happy to help, at the end of the lecture, via email (or make an appointment) or they hold dedicated office hours. As someone else has said though, most people don't seek them out, there is much more of an emphasis of teaching yourself, you only really go to the lecturer if you're really stuck and your friends/ the textbook/ the internet can't help, or you think their notes are wrong :P They're active scientists as well as lecturers, doing real research, so whilst they're happy to help most of their working day is not spent thinking about undergrads! In first year you have a tutor (one for maths and one for physics) who you see in small groups, who are great at helping if you're having any problems which in first year is useful as you adapt to a new way of learning. Each year after that you get less and less direct contact in small groups, mostly because most people are happy enough getting on by themselves, but there are always people around to help. You also get an 'academic' advisor who you see once a term for the whole course of your degree who can advise on module choices, help with questions you may have, give advice, check your marks are going ok and offer guidance if you're struggling and write references. For more pastoral support there is the college welfare teams - both staff and student run (ie. you can go and see a member of staff if you want advice/ help or you can go and see another student trained in basic counselling if you want to talk to someone your own age), there is counselling offered by the university for any student who might want support and there are various other services offered by the students union. Durham does support well I must admit

So, you should be able to swap onto other courses up until the end of your second year (subject to your grades). The year abroad thing is pretty new actually (wasn't offered when I applied) but from what I gather it works in a similar way, although you probably should contact the department as sometimes student finance can be funny if you try and swap the number of years you are studying for too much! I can't see it being an issue though - most programmes offer the chance to sign up for a year abroad during your degree so it shouldn't be any different for you!

As a female I have probably a better idea about the gender balance I'd say generally the teachers are fantastic - I mean there have been a couple of off hand comments when people have tried to make jokes, which haven't always been well received, but I definitely wouldn't say there is a significant issue of sexism in the department. In fact, a lot of the leading staff members are female. I'd say Durham has actually been better than from what I hear of my friends experiences at other unis - here I have always felt judged on merit alone, not my gender. If anything I've had more of a problem with people my own age - occasionally you get some idiot who feels the need to make sexist jokes but most people here are great and will quickly make those idiots shut up! :P



^ Haha lol. It's definitely not 50:50 :P For some reason all my male friends have this idea it's 50:50 - it's really not. If you look at the admissions statistics it's still about 70:30 male:female, although as there are Natural Sciences students who also take physics modules the gender balance varies between modules quite a lot (one of my modules this year had a female majority!). It's never been a problem for me though - pretty much everyone is really nice and you don't really notice the difference after a while!



Lecturers are pretty much always happy to help, at the end of the lecture, via email (or make an appointment) or they hold dedicated office hours. As someone else has said though, most people don't seek them out, there is much more of an emphasis of teaching yourself, you only really go to the lecturer if you're really stuck and your friends/ the textbook/ the internet can't help, or you think their notes are wrong :P They're active scientists as well as lecturers, doing real research, so whilst they're happy to help most of their working day is not spent thinking about undergrads! In first year you have a tutor (one for maths and one for physics) who you see in small groups, who are great at helping if you're having any problems which in first year is useful as you adapt to a new way of learning. Each year after that you get less and less direct contact in small groups, mostly because most people are happy enough getting on by themselves, but there are always people around to help. You also get an 'academic' advisor who you see once a term for the whole course of your degree who can advise on module choices, help with questions you may have, give advice, check your marks are going ok and offer guidance if you're struggling and write references. For more pastoral support there is the college welfare teams - both staff and student run (ie. you can go and see a member of staff if you want advice/ help or you can go and see another student trained in basic counselling if you want to talk to someone your own age), there is counselling offered by the university for any student who might want support and there are various other services offered by the students union. Durham does support well I must admit

Out of interest which module?

But yes you are right I checked the intake for physics, its 137 female, 428 male (and yes I admit I am not straight physics).

Its interesting that Biology and Psychology are massively female majority. But anyway it has never felt like a problem.

Off topic, how did you find that particle physics exam? Some stupid question about tetra quarks is all I can remember.

Wonderful! The year abroad sounds very interesting and a great opportunity to get some research done elsewhere. It'd be ideal to take the language of the place I'd like to go to too. I know that some universities do this already so you can integrate better but I'm sure one can make it happen if they care enough even if there isn't a direct route. I'll get in touch with the department for sure! I have far too many questions, thanks for putting me at ease though. I did look on the website to see quite a few female teachers but I didn't see that they taught physics!

The off hand comments are expected, there's no escape from it, even outside of school. Which universities were some of your friends from? I'm looking at York, Manchester, Durham and Leicester right now.

Thank you both for taking the time to answer my questions in such depth!

Thinking about it now it may not actually have a female majority in terms of who is enrolled on the module, but certainly more girls turned up to quite a few of the lectures - Advanced Physics though I think it's partly as it's more of a real life application of physics module, which seems to appeal to girls more. And yeah, it's fairly common that more girls do biology and psychology. I've actually been involved in a fair amount of research into why girls choose certain STEM subjects and not others, it's all very interesting but is also changing really quickly! But yeah, it's never really been a problem for me

And haha you mean NPP (from the 3A exam?) I thought that the paper was harder than previous years, I mean the short questions weren't bad although the particle physics feynman diagram one (last short question) seemed a bit harsh compared to other years - it seemed more like 2 short questions in one! I was more annoyed at the QM short questions though, they didn't seem to cover the course very well, tbh I can't really remember the long questions of either half very well although the first parts of both QM ones were fine. Overall it was ok I guess, harder than other exams but kind of to be expected!



Yeah, I know a few friends who have done year abroads and they've all pretty much loved it and reckoned it's the best thing they've done. As for studying a language, in your first year you have one free choice module and can pick a language module if you want, I did beginners spanish this year which was good (and a nice break from Physics!). You may be able to do more modules in it later in your degree depending on how the programme/ timetable works out, but the language school also offer courses in most languages in free time. For the ones in free time (ie. it's not part of your degree) you have to pay a fee, but people say they're generally well taught and better value than most other language courses.

I know people at York and Leicester. All of the ones you've listed I've heard good things about, although I didn't want to be in a big city so Durham was perfect for me! And no problems, if you've got any more questions give us a shout

Advanced physics seems like a pretty niche module, there are so many prerequisites to do it!

I agree with your analysis of the paper, although I must say I preferred the QM to the nuc+particle. Oddly I also thought this year was easier than the L2 modules; my results also reflected that.

It's not really a niche module, assuming you're a straight physicist. If you're a natsci I can see why not many people have done all the modules it requires, but the others are compulsory for straight physics.

And yeah, overall I think QM was slightly nicer, although it was just the fact he put in two questions basically on diatomic molecules in the short questions which didn't seem to match up with how much content there was on it in the course! And I took a year out so don't know what the L2 exams were like last year I'm afraid so can't compare! :P

I think you dodged a bullet, the theoretical 2 paper was everything you don't want in an exam. What I found about the QM is that the syllabus wasn't just the lecture courses, it was also the homework and (directed chapters) of the textbook. Personally I made sure to revise those topics, because I think they were pitched at a slightly easier level to the ones explicitly covered in the lectures so when they came up in the short questions it didn't bother me so much, however I agree that it could have been made much clearer than it was that the lectures were not the entire sylabus like they were in basically every other course!