Hi!
I totally get wanting to know a little more, when I was deciding I made pages and pages of info on word documents , making the choice is scary but honestly trust your gut instinct at the end of the day. Also any open days you can visit if possible really helps.
I just finished my first year at Heriot and while I'm not in the exact same field as you as I'm doing Computer Science & AI it's pretty close so I'll answer the best I can.
- In person lectures are everything! Most if not all lecturers put everything online so if you are ill or cant make a couple of lectures you wont fall behind but I find nothing is as good as the real thing. The lecturers I had this year would have anecdotes to go along with the material which didn't only help keep things interesting but also helped me remember certain things. As well it's just more fun going in because you get to hang out with everyone on your course.
- Yeah they were great, obviously I would of had mainly different lectures than you but I thought they were all really good. Of course you have favourites just because they teach more towards your style of learning but even when they taught in a way that isn't my preferred style I still understood what was going on fine. And I didn't mind it as I knew that some of my friends preferred that style of teaching.
- Definitely, I bombarded my lectures with emails and they never failed to answer me, depending on how many people are emailing them it might take a couple days for them to get back to you but normally I heard back within an hour, I also never felt that they were annoyed to be answering me - even when I clarify the same thing 3 times just to make sure im doing it right
- Students are great. I'm really lucky to be friends with almost everyone on my course and they are all so so nice. It's a mixture of students from Scotland, England and abroad (1/3 of our students come from outside of the UK) which is nice and no one is bothered where you come from. The only thing you might get not being from Scotland is some friendly teasing about having to pay for Uni
I'll also say that Edinburgh has quickly become my favourite city, one of the reasons being that the people are the nicest and all look out for each other.
- SO much food, while I haven't explored too close to campus as I normally get the bus into town for food I have explored a bit of Edinburgh's restaurant scene and it's good. I'm also a foodie myself. You've got everything, I have found my favourite Italian and Mexican restaurants of all time in Edinburgh and you also have the Edinburgh street food which looks amazing although I haven't managed to go yet (it's worth a google), also outside of St James they have mini food festivals sometimes, an example of one was a fish market they had a couple months back where there was about 10 different stands all selling freshly cooked fish in different styles. Edinburgh is a great city for foodies.
If you have any more questions about accommodation or what to take to Uni or anything, feel free to ask!
- Jessica
1st Year, Computer Science & AI