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The Student Experience Office gathers feedback, monitors opinion, ensures that people are nurtured and that the experience itself is protected. Every student at St Andrews can offer a unique perspective on their student experience; staff engage with students on a regular basis and listen to their understanding of what life is really like. We know that this is a very special community and we do not take it for granted.

To focus this area, there are seven "Experiences" which follow the path of any student's time here.

• Expectations of the experience
• Settling in to the experience
• While here-
  • The Residential experience
  • The Social experience
  • The Life experience
• The Academic experience
• Reflections on the experience

Five other sub groups focus on students with particular background considerations. (International, Disabled, Independent and Mature, Postgraduate and Part-Time).

Please give us your comments on what your observations of the experience are so far. Your feedback will be treated in the strictest confidence and you will have the benefit of knowing you have helped us develop this university a little the way you wanted.  Email the studentexperience@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Expectations of the experience

Why do people come to St Andrews?  There are plenty of universities, so why this one? What would attract them?

Tell us what it was like for you?  What did you expect?  Were you happy with your contact?  What other information could you have been given? 

Settling into the experience

How do you get the essential information you need from the start?

How did you find it settling in?  Did you get enough information?  Enough Support?  What was good about the experience?  What do we need to change? 

The residential experience

Over 50% of our students live in the University Halls of Residence.  Each one is different and carries its own unique culture. What will fit the lifestyle of one student, won't suit another.  This site will tell you what you want to know about life in each one.  That still leaves many students living locally, commuting daily, or renting from local landlords.  There can be difficulties which arise from time to time and you need information on how to get help when these occur, how to claim for travel expenses etc. In return, we need to know what that experience is like.

What do you want to change?  What do you need more information about?

The social experience

Life at St. Andrews can be full socially.  There isn't a nightclub on every street corner, but we certainly make up for it with cultural and social opportunities organised throughout the whole environment.  In fact, with 105 Student Societies, we lead in terms of student led activity in Scotland.

What would you recommend to others?  What is great at St. Andrews?  What should be avoided?

What do you wish you'd known about before you came?

What do you want to change?  What do you need more information about?

Life experience

If the practical aspects of life are interfering with your life in a negative way, the minimum study will be achieved.  We aim to support you in your learning experience, addressing the key principles which underpin a quality of everyone's lives.

What else could/should the university be doing?  Who has really helped you?

What do you want to change?  What do you need more information about?

The academic experience

All you want to know about the reason why you are here in the first place!  Learning involves more than just fulfilling the coursework and we hope to give you the resources you need to clarify your path through the study experience. 

Do we need to adjust things?  What makes life difficult?  What would you like to warn others about before they start?

What do you want to change?  What do you need more information about?

Reflecting on the overall experience 

The acquisition of a degree should not be the sole target for your time at this university.  Throughout the process, you can be thinking on the future, increasing your employability, developing yourself by expanding your horizons and opening up your ideas.  There are resources within the university to help you consider this when the time is right.

And, once again, let us know, looking back, what you thought of the student experience here. If you are a final year student, why don't you write us a short narrative of what the experience here has meant to you - positives and negatives.  We collect many of these every year and they are SO informative.  Tell us what we need to promote more and what we need to fix.

What do you wish you'd known earlier?  What makes sense to you now, in 3rd or 4th year, which would have been better if you'd known earlier?

Student experience profiles with particular needs

• International
• Disabled
• Independent and/or Mature 
• Postgraduate
• Part time students

The Experience is not all the same.  Different students approach from different angles and with different perspectives.

What is it really like to be dealing with other issues in your life and still studying?  What can the University do to help?