Durham is the third oldest University in England and has a history dating well back before 1832 when it was granted degree awarding powers by the King. From the early days, the University had a General Degree which, in time, evolved into the BSc General Degree, then to Natural Sciences. The Natural Sciences course structure allowed students flexibility as abilities and interests and aspirations developed, and was designed to be more rigorous than the General Degree. Within the Faculty of Science, all Joint-Honours degrees were absorbed into the programme from 1997. The General Degree served as a basis from which single honours degrees could be taken, or students could continue on their General Degree. This has left a legacy in the structure of our degree programmes; there is considerable flexibility, and Natural Sciences students have the benefit of studying alongside single honours students.

The BSc and MSci Natural Sciences degree programmes allows you to combine subjects to design your own broad-based (two subjects or more) degree programme or follow one of a large number of Joint Honours degrees. Put simply, if you are a scientist and want to combine more than one subject at Durham University then you need to apply for Natural Sciences.

Great flexibility in programme structure brings the potential for great complexity in explaining it. To avoid creating an unfeasibly large site which would be hard to navigate, we provide here some examples of what can be done and what others have done. While reading these keep in mind that, within the practical constraints of timetabling, the components of your degree can be shaped by the direction of your developing interests.