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Students on campus at Queen Mary, University of London
Queen Mary, University Of London
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Reply 80
Original post by Lami XX
Queen Mary Uni Of London I'm sure is a good one. I recently got rejected an offer for Computer Science and I'm predicted ACC so yeah, must be a decent uni.


What's the neg's for? :confused:

You think QMUL were harsh? Or are my predicted grades that bad??
Students on campus at Queen Mary, University of London
Queen Mary, University Of London
London
Reply 81
Original post by Lami XX
What's the neg's for? :confused:

You think QMUL were harsh? Or are my predicted grades that bad??


Did they say why you were rejected?
I think some people get confused with reputation and what would be a "like/dislike" button.
Reply 83
Original post by mir3a
Did they say why you were rejected?


Yeah, my predicted grades were too low...
Reply 84
Original post by ABCDemily
Oh dear God. I'm quite worried about going to Queen Mary (Note the lack of the S) if I'm going to be surrounded by people who can't even be bothered to type 'you'.
I'm doing Medical Genetics there anyway, for which it's well respected for, so, as far as I care, yes, it's a good uni and ticks off all the little boxes that it needs to.


yay!! finally someone for medical genetics at QMUL. After reading soo many posts, I finally find someone who's doing medical genetics. hehe.I have applied there too but as i applied via extra , i am still waiting for them to get back to me. I am hoping i will get an offer..(fingers crossed) but as intially i didn't intend to applyfor medical genetics. I havent been to any open days there. Have you been to any? What was it like? What did you think about the uni and the department ? It would be nice to keep in touch with you seen as i don't think they are many people on student room applying for medical genetics at QMUL. Well atleast i cant find any !:rolleyes:
Reply 85
I'm about to finish my first year of QMUL's International Relations course and I can actually tell you that QMUL is a good university. I think with the transition of moving from a sixth form college to a university, this was definitely a good move. If you want pros and cons for the university through my own perspective, I will list them here:

Pros (campus halls of residence): This is the only campus based university in London, apart from maybe Royal Holloway (which I considered outside London) and I think that must be one of the best pros for the university. Irregardless of the courses for the time being, the ability to live with a large group of students for your first year will definitely in my opinion help to nurture and encourage you to meet the right people and request for help and guidance much more easily than if you were living in Central London attending LSE, UCL, Kings or Imperial for that matter. The likelihood of attending those universities and also obtaining some sort of student life with the people you live with could be slim to none (most are Asian and are often more intellectually concerned and disregard many social interactions - I have several British friends who chose to attend those university and this is simply what I'm feeding back from). Queen Mary is like a little village for students and everything of necessity is within walking distance too.

Pros (IR course and teaching): As mentioned above, I am currently taking my International Relations end of first year exam. From what I can relay back to you, the education I received was as such as I expected from sixth form minus the extra interactiveness you would likewise get from your sixth form teachings. It is set up into lectures and seminars (compulsory) and I must admit that I may have attended roughly 75-80% of lectures and perhaps 60% of my seminars due to my lack of motivation and laziness. Hence, I will give you some useful advice here, try and get to the lectures because that is where you learn your course! The seminars for my IR course, I felt pretty much debates on pros and cons of political aspects and IR current affairs which could have been useful if I had attended more I'm sure. Anyways, what I am trying to say is that the teaching and research are told to you right at the beginning, if you are going to take up Humanities or Law, be prepared for lots of readings. This is relatively what your degree is! You have to read for these types of courses and if you don't you find yourself turning up to seminars with nothing to say or worse not turning up at all (this is what I did more than several times). But apart from this, my tutors and lecturers are more than helpful. I have sent several questions to my tutors and lecturers throughout my year about my essays (this year there was 12 essays with my 3 Politics and IR based modules) and have had replies within the hour or round about. I think the School of Politics and International Relations here is second to none and the majority of its administrative and academic staff are friendly if you are sincere and willing to work hard. QMUL in 2010 when I applied was also ranked 3rd or 4th for IR as well I think, so I knew I was attending classes with intellectual individuals even before I met any of them.

Cons (London is distracting): Living in London, even East London can be distracting for anyone. I found this out quite early on in my first semester. I think the social aspects of university life took the better of me, but I still don't regret my actions as without these, I think I wouldn't have enjoyed my time at university as much as I would have. Being a female and living London, I also found that I needed a job to keep up with my many reckless spending and this too, took much time from my studies. So as a precaution, make sure you know how to manage your time before engaging in job within London (I worked in Selfridges and the travel to and from alone took nearly an hour out from my time). Nevertheless, there are many other employment opportunities within the campus itself - student shops, draper's student bar etc. I didn't follow with this as I thought it was better to for me to build a networking opportunities for future aspects outside of the university.

I can't really think of many more to lists as the pros and cons were quite descriptive. To answer the first question of this thread: I do believe that Queen Mary is overall a good university. But that is purely my opinion. I rejected UCL's offer last year in fears of being pushed too hard too suddenly and I still feel like that was the right decision. QMUL might not be the best leading university within the UoL but with the ratio of UK and international students being accepted into the better universities, I think QM is the best choice in relation to overall scores. The location is rough, but transport means that the tubes are not more than a 5 minute walk and there are central buses which stop immediately outside the university. East London is also relatively cheap with market stalls of Whitechapel minutes away on the bus or 10 or so minutes walking.

However, I'd just point out what really surprised me when I came to QMUL. There are a lot of London base students attending the university and a lot of ethic minorities, mainly asian students. Often they cling to their groups but are nevertheless friendly.

To answer a few questions as well: during my IR course I took two outside modules. One was an Economics module taught by the head of department and yes, many of the Economics lecturers and tutors are foreign and have difficultly relaying certain phrases nevertheless, the methods of teaching worked so far as you attend both lectures and in the School of Economics and Business, their tutorials to go through the work. I didn't attend many of the tutorials because I was simply too lazy as my set time was Friday 9am and I wasn't a morning person then! Although I wished I had. The other outside module was Geography. I must admit that although I liked my School, I felt that the Geography school was so much more hands on than the Politics, often teaching with more clarity. However it lacked the presence of seminars (although there are discussions within the two hour lectures).

So yes, this is basically what I think about QMUL having been here as a student and residence in the Pooley House halls. It is enjoyable and hard work at the same time. In my opinion, you can't really classify a university simply from a league table as LSE, UCL, Kings and Imperial receive much more funding for their research and hence are more widely recognised on this more than other London based universities. What you should compare the university on is the fact that you are going to spend 3 or 4 years there - not on the results from the large masses of international students' results from better universities. QMUL is grounded and takes care of their students and I wouldn't have changed my choices even if I could rewind time.

Hope this was helpful, I do apologise for the length and lack of structure of this response and it is probably too late for your answer. However, if you do have further questions that I can assist with, please don't hesitate to PM me as I don't frequent the site much and I only came on today to check out a University for my boyfriend who wanted to switch courses and move to London.
Reply 86
Original post by suchitata

So yes, this is basically what I think about QMUL having been here as a student and residence in the Pooley House halls. It is enjoyable and hard work at the same time. In my opinion, you can't really classify a university simply from a league table as LSE, UCL, Kings and Imperial receive much more funding for their research and hence are more widely recognised on this more than other London based universities. What you should compare the university on is the fact that you are going to spend 3 or 4 years there - not on the results from the large masses of international students' results from better universities. QMUL is grounded and takes care of their students and I wouldn't have changed my choices even if I could rewind time.


King's actually recieves about the same amount of funding as QMUL does these days thanks to QMUL outranking it in the RAE last time around. King's just has the longer tradition of being a top university to fall back on. There's really not that much difference between Kings and QMUL aside from King's better rep. That being said great post.

I wouldn't say Mile End was particularly rough either, it's just rundown. Although there's been quite a bit of development around the campus of late and once those buildings opposite the new Arts building are finished next year it'll look quite tidy around the campus before you hit the Ocean Estate.
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by suchitata

Irregardless of the courses for the time being, the ability to live with a large group of students for your first year will definitely in my opinion help to nurture and encourage you to meet the right people and request for help and guidance much more easily than if you were living in Central London attending LSE, UCL, Kings or Imperial for that matter. The likelihood of attending those universities and also obtaining some sort of student life with the people you live with could be slim to none (most are Asian and are often more intellectually concerned and disregard many social interactions - I have several British friends who chose to attend those university and this is simply what I'm feeding back from them

I can't really think of many more to lists as the pros and cons were quite descriptive. To answer the first question of this thread: I do believe that Queen Mary is overall a good university. But that is purely my opinion. I rejected UCL's offer last year in fears of being pushed too hard too suddenly and I still feel like that was the right decision. QMUL might not be the best leading university within the UoL but with the ratio of UK and international students being accepted into the better universities, I think QM is the best choice in relation to overall scores.

However, I'd just point out what really surprised me when I came to QMUL. There are a lot of London base students attending the university and a lot of ethic minorities, mainly asian students. Often they cling to their groups but are nevertheless friendly.

To answer a few questions as well: during my IR course I took two outside modules. One was an Economics module taught by the head of department and yes, many of the Economics lecturers and tutors are foreign and have difficultly relaying certain phrases nevertheless, the methods of teaching worked so far as you attend both lectures and in the School of Economics and Business, their tutorials to go through the work.


Asians? Foreign lecturers? Oh good god no!
:rolleyes:
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 88
From what I've read over time and seen, I'd consider it a good university. Particularly, it seems, for humanities subjects. :smile:
It's a really good uni, NOT mediocre!
ive firmed QMUL :biggrin:>..i hope i can get the grades!! ...but im not staying in halls so i feel like im gonna miss out on loads :frown:

edit: wth why the neg rep?? :s-smilie: lol
(edited 12 years ago)
It depends on what you are looking for. Check out the RAE scores. http://www.rae.ac.uk/

Academics peer-rank research institutions in the UK every few years.

The Times, Guardian and World Rankings are not as important, if you are looking at the quality of academic research, which will influence the quality of teaching material you are exposed to during your studies. QMUL did very well and in some subjects better than rivals (e.g. #1 for Geography, over UCL, despite UCL being #4 in the world). Keep an open mind!!
Reply 92
Original post by heartskippedabeat
Asians? Foreign lecturers? Oh good god no!
:rolleyes:


Yes, we get foreign lecturers from MIT, what's wrong with that? :P
Original post by Guateca
Yes, we get foreign lecturers from MIT, what's wrong with that? :P


Nothing, I was being sarcastic as I'd quoted someone who suggested it was a bad thing.
Reply 94
Is the Msc Computing & Information Systems any good? I got an unconditional offer..
Reply 95
Yes, it is and it is currently improving every year!!! (Haha I might be biased though :colone:)
Reply 96
Why biased, did you do that Msc at Queen Mary last year??
Gosh the trolls really are out.

Let me give you all a snapshot of where a degree from QMUL can take you. I'm a recent grad (2009) and this is where some of my peers have gone:

1) Econ/Politics graduate - studied a masters at Sciences Po and now works for the U.N in New York
2) Business Management (first class) - works for a top stockbroker in Sri Lanka in Equity Capital Markets
3) Business Management - works for Bank of New York Mellon - Asset Management
4) Politics Graduate (first class) - full scholarship for MSc + PhD
5) Law Graduate - Consultancy at a Big4 firm (Technology Advisory)
6) Law Graduate - Training Contract - Freshfields
7) Law Graduate (First Class) - currently studying for the BCL at Oxford University
8) Politics Graduate - 2 years of investment banking at RBS and now works at Lazard in Advisory
9) Econ/Politics Graduate (first class) - offer to work at Deutsche Bank Equity Sales, currently studying for a masters at LSE
10) Econ/Politics Graduate - GDL/LPC passed and now has an offer to work at Lovells
11) Law Graduate (2.2) - is a private banker at Coutts
12) Econ/Politics Graduate - Full scholarship to Oxford St.Johns College to study Comparative Politics

The rest are still studying at the following Universities for masters: Sciences Po, LSE, Cambridge, Oxford, Columbia, Warwick amongst others.

So yes, this apparently average university will leave you with the above 'average' graduation prospects. Oh and btw, we all graduated into one of the worst recessions at the height of the crash by starting our final year in September 2008.
Original post by suchitata
I'm about to finish my first year of QMUL's International Relations course and I can actually tell you that QMUL is a good university. I think with the transition of moving from a sixth form college to a university, this was definitely a good move. If you want pros and cons for the university through my own perspective, I will list them here:

Pros (campus halls of residence): This is the only campus based university in London, apart from maybe Royal Holloway (which I considered outside London) and I think that must be one of the best pros for the university. Irregardless of the courses for the time being, the ability to live with a large group of students for your first year will definitely in my opinion help to nurture and encourage you to meet the right people and request for help and guidance much more easily than if you were living in Central London attending LSE, UCL, Kings or Imperial for that matter. The likelihood of attending those universities and also obtaining some sort of student life with the people you live with could be slim to none (most are Asian and are often more intellectually concerned and disregard many social interactions - I have several British friends who chose to attend those university and this is simply what I'm feeding back from). Queen Mary is like a little village for students and everything of necessity is within walking distance too.

Pros (IR course and teaching): As mentioned above, I am currently taking my International Relations end of first year exam. From what I can relay back to you, the education I received was as such as I expected from sixth form minus the extra interactiveness you would likewise get from your sixth form teachings. It is set up into lectures and seminars (compulsory) and I must admit that I may have attended roughly 75-80% of lectures and perhaps 60% of my seminars due to my lack of motivation and laziness. Hence, I will give you some useful advice here, try and get to the lectures because that is where you learn your course! The seminars for my IR course, I felt pretty much debates on pros and cons of political aspects and IR current affairs which could have been useful if I had attended more I'm sure. Anyways, what I am trying to say is that the teaching and research are told to you right at the beginning, if you are going to take up Humanities or Law, be prepared for lots of readings. This is relatively what your degree is! You have to read for these types of courses and if you don't you find yourself turning up to seminars with nothing to say or worse not turning up at all (this is what I did more than several times). But apart from this, my tutors and lecturers are more than helpful. I have sent several questions to my tutors and lecturers throughout my year about my essays (this year there was 12 essays with my 3 Politics and IR based modules) and have had replies within the hour or round about. I think the School of Politics and International Relations here is second to none and the majority of its administrative and academic staff are friendly if you are sincere and willing to work hard. QMUL in 2010 when I applied was also ranked 3rd or 4th for IR as well I think, so I knew I was attending classes with intellectual individuals even before I met any of them.

Cons (London is distracting): Living in London, even East London can be distracting for anyone. I found this out quite early on in my first semester. I think the social aspects of university life took the better of me, but I still don't regret my actions as without these, I think I wouldn't have enjoyed my time at university as much as I would have. Being a female and living London, I also found that I needed a job to keep up with my many reckless spending and this too, took much time from my studies. So as a precaution, make sure you know how to manage your time before engaging in job within London (I worked in Selfridges and the travel to and from alone took nearly an hour out from my time). Nevertheless, there are many other employment opportunities within the campus itself - student shops, draper's student bar etc. I didn't follow with this as I thought it was better to for me to build a networking opportunities for future aspects outside of the university.

I can't really think of many more to lists as the pros and cons were quite descriptive. To answer the first question of this thread: I do believe that Queen Mary is overall a good university. But that is purely my opinion. I rejected UCL's offer last year in fears of being pushed too hard too suddenly and I still feel like that was the right decision. QMUL might not be the best leading university within the UoL but with the ratio of UK and international students being accepted into the better universities, I think QM is the best choice in relation to overall scores. The location is rough, but transport means that the tubes are not more than a 5 minute walk and there are central buses which stop immediately outside the university. East London is also relatively cheap with market stalls of Whitechapel minutes away on the bus or 10 or so minutes walking.

However, I'd just point out what really surprised me when I came to QMUL. There are a lot of London base students attending the university and a lot of ethic minorities, mainly asian students. Often they cling to their groups but are nevertheless friendly.

To answer a few questions as well: during my IR course I took two outside modules. One was an Economics module taught by the head of department and yes, many of the Economics lecturers and tutors are foreign and have difficultly relaying certain phrases nevertheless, the methods of teaching worked so far as you attend both lectures and in the School of Economics and Business, their tutorials to go through the work. I didn't attend many of the tutorials because I was simply too lazy as my set time was Friday 9am and I wasn't a morning person then! Although I wished I had. The other outside module was Geography. I must admit that although I liked my School, I felt that the Geography school was so much more hands on than the Politics, often teaching with more clarity. However it lacked the presence of seminars (although there are discussions within the two hour lectures).

So yes, this is basically what I think about QMUL having been here as a student and residence in the Pooley House halls. It is enjoyable and hard work at the same time. In my opinion, you can't really classify a university simply from a league table as LSE, UCL, Kings and Imperial receive much more funding for their research and hence are more widely recognised on this more than other London based universities. What you should compare the university on is the fact that you are going to spend 3 or 4 years there - not on the results from the large masses of international students' results from better universities. QMUL is grounded and takes care of their students and I wouldn't have changed my choices even if I could rewind time.

Hope this was helpful, I do apologise for the length and lack of structure of this response and it is probably too late for your answer. However, if you do have further questions that I can assist with, please don't hesitate to PM me as I don't frequent the site much and I only came on today to check out a University for my boyfriend who wanted to switch courses and move to London.


I disagree with this.

Having gone to LSE, a social life is unbelievably easy to acquire because people do not have deadlines. You are completely left alone all year. This is why you will find alot of LSE students working full-time or on some pet project extra-curricular or running several things on the go like societies. They also party far far far harder than any QMUL students I met but I suspect this is largely down to having their studies bankrolled by mummy and daddy. However, irrespective of any financial benefit from their parents they tend to have better time management skills and a sense for what they want than most people I met at QM. That is not a comment on the university, look for a separate post I made on another thread alot of my friends are in some extremely competitive/well-paid/prestigious jobs but they are part of the minority.

The same goes for UCL. My ex-gf invited me to god knows how many things in a week while we were dating despite studying for a very very demanding economics degree - one of the toughest in the country.

(Btw, I'm a politics graduate from QMUL)
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 99
So is Queen Mary mostly good for Law/Politics/Management? Because I got an offer to do an Msc in Computing and Information Systems and I hear most people in this thread talking about other subjects in QMUL and no one seems to mention QMUL's Computer Science department..

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