Where best to do Maths and Physics degree? Oxford/Warwick/Durham/Lancaster+???

Daughter studies physics at Lancaster uni. Its not a big city, and the campus is about 15-20 mins on the bus to the city. She's not a fan of a big city either, so Lancaster is ideal . The physics course, staff have all been amazing and considering her first year has been affected by covid and restrictions, Lancasters done pretty well compared to some other unis.
Its very good for physics internships too.
The maths has been great. Its a good integration from A'level into degree level, and so far she's found vector calculus at the end of the year the most challenging.
If you want a place that's not a big city, still is pretty decent nightlife (not hardcore every night clubber), lots of bars, a uni thats very respected in physics, close to the sea, and campus that feels pretty safe at night, Lancaster is a good one.

Thank you very much. I saw your post elsewhere and found it really helpful. I was hoping with this post to get a 5th option (Lancaster already being the 4 chosen although I do not understand what happened to their league table result this year as it moved dramatically down for physics and maths).

What other universities have you already chosen?

Thank you very much. I saw your post elsewhere and found it really helpful. I was hoping with this post to get a 5th option (Lancaster already being the 4 chosen although I do not understand what happened to their league table result this year as it moved dramatically down for physics and maths).

Welcome not sure why it moved down the league table, as facilities wise it has some of the best. Only thing I can think of its covid. With covid there was not as many internship opportunities and networking chances, and students had to leave early last year. It has been challenging, especially as the only in person contact this year has been lab sessions, but as far as I know from daughter and her friends, the online teaching has been great. Dr Sobral, Sergey, Bertram, Ross are just a few that have been excellent and Shirley the physics co-ordinator always answers emails, even at weekends.

As for other unis, there are high ranking unis that have not let their students back on site for Jan until April 2021 (where lancasters been less strict) so likely they might go down on next years table. Ratings at the moment will be forever changing because of how each uni as handled covid recently, so its really hard to gauge.

Thank you so much, you are incredibly helpful and that makes sense. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

This is tangential to your question - but why maths & physics over a straight physics degree? you seem a bit hesitant on the maths side. Bear in mind maths is a lot different at university, and if you don't much fancy maths for maths sake you might be better off on a straight physics degree.

The maths department at Warwick is excellent but never had the impression that its physics department was quite as good, I may well be wrong in that though. (I haven't looked at physics degrees) You would directly benefit from the strength of the maths department since you'd be taking modules straight from there.

Thank you and we originally only looked at theoretical physics and astrophysics degrees but as the whole school career was highly maths dominated and a number of teachers recommended a combination degree as they said that it is very helpful to do further maths to understand the more complex physics, we moved on to look at combinations. They ask thought this would make it more flexible in case either is found not to be so interesting after all.

I get the flexibility point and agree that this is valuable. I am not sure that you cannot get the required maths though in the actual physics degree itself. I went to the Bath open day and that suggested that the maths is simply taught separately by the maths department (even though it is sold as a joint degree). That makes less sense to me as learning maths for maths sake and not to apply this to physics seems strange.

Practicals are not a favourite so straight physics degrees are not so great. Particle physics, relativity, cosmology etc (anything really except waves and electricity) all seem so fascinating. Space and astrophysics looks great. CERN as an institution would be wonderful to work for.

Anyway, still deliberating…

Thank you and we originally only looked at theoretical physics and astrophysics degrees but as the whole school career was highly maths dominated and a number of teachers recommended a combination degree as they said that it is very helpful to do further maths to understand the more complex physics, we moved on to look at combinations. They ask thought this would make it more flexible in case either is found not to be so interesting after all.

I get the flexibility point and agree that this is valuable. I am not sure that you cannot get the required maths though in the actual physics degree itself. I went to the Bath open day and that suggested that the maths is simply taught separately by the maths department (even though it is sold as a joint degree). That makes less sense to me as learning maths for maths sake and not to apply this to physics seems strange.

Practicals are not a favourite so straight physics degrees are not so great. Particle physics, relativity, cosmology etc (anything really except waves and electricity) all seem so fascinating. Space and astrophysics looks great. CERN as an institution would be wonderful to work for.

Anyway, still deliberating…