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Diversity at reading uni

I was wondering if anyone students there could tell me how diverse and inclusive the campus is in terms of race, neurodivergence and being lgbt specifically. Reading is my top choice but I would hate to feel unsafe to be myself.

Reply 1

sophieee789

i went there, reading uni is mostly white middle class people, but the area itself is more asian. neurodivergence: no clue. lgbt: there have been quite a few candidates for the student union who are lgbt and campaigned for their rights. reading also hosted talks from 'transphobic' professors which was not kindly received.

Reply 2

UniofReading

Official Rep

Original post by Anonymous #1

Hi Anonymous,
Great to hear that you're interested in studying here at Reading! :smile:

Apologies this thread slipped under our radar slightly until now, but I'll do my best to address your concerns here.

Most of our students are home fee students so there is a large population of white students at the university, but its not as dominating as you may think - we have over 10,000 students who come from all over the world - 160+ countries - so its more diverse than it may first appear at open days etc that not everybody can attend, especially international students. I can't comment specifically on neurodivergence as obviously that's something many people prefer to keep to themselves, but in my experience students come from a multitude of different backgrounds with many different abilities and Reading has a number of different teams and departments to ensure that everyone feels supported and represented. We are super proud of our pioneering work towards diversity and inclusion you can find out about here, and this is something you could get involved with too if you like! Even in my undergraduate History degree, the programme was very much about challenging outdated narratives and decolonising the curriculum, and I'm sure that's something that you can see across all our disciplines.

Our Student's Union is designed to let students run for election themselves, and many of our recent full and part-time officers have been lgbtq+ and a range of ethnic backgrounds - its super important to us that all of our students feel represented and heard, so we've created a number of part-time positions for people to ensure this, such as lgbt+, minority ethnic group, asian, black, trans, women's, and international student officers. You can read way more about them here.

We also have a Disability Advisory service that supports people with any kind of disability or additional need, with bursaries and personal mentors available among other things if that is a service you want to access. You can find out all about them here! We also have an amazing Counselling and Wellbeing team who were voted one of the best in the country last year, and they are there to be accessed by anyone at anytime if needed.

Essentially, we do our best to make Reading a welcoming and supportive space, with plenty of different areas for people to get involved in our communities, whether through work and activities with our Student's Union, within your department, or working with our wider Student Ambassador scheme who further our work on diversity and inclusion. Over my four years here I've thankfully never encountered anyone who feels unsafe to be themselves, and I'm sure you would feel comfortable here too. In my experience, university is the perfect place to find and express yourself however you like - you'll see this in the number of different societies and clubs we have here too.

If you have any questions about anything- please ask! We'll be more than happy to help!

Kat :smile:

MA Diplomacy Student

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