Edinburgh - any negatives

[Teenageromance]

Been to the open day and quite impressed. But quite a bit of negativity online from student forum about the support for students academically here. Any thoughts?

I'm the PP who was posting about bunk rooms for not-first-choice. It's not just what I was told at open day, it's very clearly stated in their documents!
www.accom.ed.ac.uk/for-students/undergraduates/undergraduate-accommodation-guarantee scroll down to the box "undergraduate accomodation guide 2018 entry" and open the pdf. Screenshot of page 3 attached.

@Teenageromance - ds2 graduated from Edinburgh last year - he read Applied Maths, and was very happy with the course, the teaching and the overall experience. He really loved living in Edinburgh, too - it is a vibrant city, with so much going on - but it is not a huge city, so it is still easy enough to get around.

Ds3 is at Heriot Watt at the moment, and he too is loving living in Edinburgh.

A close friend’s dd is also studying at Edinburgh, and as far as I know, she is very happy too.

bringonthescience thanks, that seems fairly conclusive - and often bunks!

Do many people who know this put Edinburgh as an insurance, I wonder? Really would have thought it would put students off these days. But perhaps the new accom they're building will address it for next year.
Thanks for sharing your ds' experience still, hope your ds (and you) are doing well now.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.
I know Edinburgh as a city quite well so think it would be a great place to live. Surprised there are few student jobs though. Thought that would be one of the perks.
Still have some concerns about the uni - does seem a fair few mixed reviews of it.

Ds3 had no problem finding jobs there - he's just spent the summer working in a pizza place on the Grassmarket, and did really well with his wages and tips over the Festival.

Ds2 also worked for Edinburgh University Students' Association whilst he was there - staffing their shops during the Festival.

Dd found a job within a month of starting in Edinburgh in a high street cosmetic store!...she was able to work her shifts around her lectures no problem...and got great staff discount
Yes it gets dark earlier in the winter but that shouldn't put anyone off applying- ...I studied at a University ever further North and loved the crisp winter days on the east coast ...just invest in some cosy clothes!
It's a relatively small capital city and easy to get around and there are loads of things to do for free!...many of my dd course mates were from Asia and they loved the compactness of the city
As soon as she put her CV up on a website related to her degree , she was offered over a dozen jobs abroad....Edinburgh still has status symbol to rest of the world it seems

It just goes to show how some places are like marmite!
My son did find a job, but working weekends, so not easy for trips home, and it is a very expensive city rent wise, without a commensurate weighting.

I went to Edin many moons ago. In those days shared flats were given to the students who missed out in halls. I lived in one and we had a riot (after I’d moved to a flat where I wasn’t the only vegan.)

I did an arts subject and it sounds similar to the MFL example in that I had no idea the entire time what I was doing right or wrong but that self-awareness must have counted for something as I got a 2.1

Since then everyone has been impressed I got a degree there and I did a masters somewhere else (uni of London) which was awesome in a totally different way.

It sounds like Edi isn’t for those who want to be spoon fed - but if you like figuring stuff out for yourself, to muck about for 4 years and still get a decent degree from a uni that still holds weight you could do worse.

I have studied at Edinburgh university as an MSc student and have been involved in teaching there when doing my PhD, so know a bit about the university from both a student and a staff perspective. Edinburgh, like most of the other top/RG unis is a research intensive university. When hiring new academic staff, generally the main priority is their research ability/potential, not their teaching ability. As a result Edinburgh is full of very talented researchers, but these are not always the best people for conveying their knowledge to 300 first year students in a lecture theatre.

Having said that, Edinburgh is not unique in this regard. What I think at least partly explains the low score for student satisfaction and support is that some students arrive with impossibly high, and sometimes incorrect, expectations, or compare their university experience to friends who are at Oxford, Cambridge or Durham, where there is more/different types of support through either 1-to-1 tutorials and/or the college system.