Queen Margaret University Residences

The teaching itself has been frustrating: some modules feel irrelevant, and others lack clear or necessary criteria for completing the work properly. With so few staff relative to students, getting timely guidance is difficult. More broadly, I’ve found QMU demoralising and isolating as an LGBT autistic woman. There’s a lot of ignorance about traits I didn’t choose, and the LGBT community here doesn’t feel welcoming if you don’t fit its narrow, superficial idea of what an LGBT person should be like. Bullying and mismanagement are widespread, while people not directly affected can be coldly indifferent. Staff and the Student Union don’t listen to concerns or try to fix things, and problems seem to get swept under the rug. This is categorically not worth nine grand a year. I don’t regret going to university, only choosing QMU. If you’re considering it, please take my warning seriously, especially if you’re neurodivergent or part of any minority group. At this point, graduating matters less to me than getting out with my dignity and mental health intact.

If you drive to study here and depend on your car to get to work somewhere the buses don’t serve, parking near your accommodation can cost £120 a month. That’s brutal. The setup is scandalous for an out-of-town university with such basic public transport. Parking costs £6 whether you stay all day or just 30 minutes, with no hourly option. Students pay the same, and prepaid permits aren’t available unless you have a disability blue badge.

New students weren’t given much guidance beyond being told to go to the library and study. In physiology lectures, the PowerPoint slides had no explanations of the topics, and everything was explained verbally. Anti-bullying measures are never discussed, even though bullying seems so common here.

I lasted five months on a master’s course at QMU before dropping out. I was studying therapy, and the irony is that I ended up depressed. The campus and its location felt incredibly uninspiring and ugly. The people on my course were kind and reassuring, but most of the lecturers didn’t seem to care how I was feeling or what I was coping with, except perhaps one or two. A dire experience. I wouldn’t recommend Queen Margaret.