Why Study at Queen Margaret

Friendly and Supportive
QMU is a fantastic place to study. Most importantly, if you choose to study at QMU, you'll be much more than just a number. As a smaller university level institution you won't get lost in the crowd and you will find our staff extremely approachable and supportive. Our campus, which opened in 2007, which brings all our students together on one site, giving you plenty of opportunities to meet and make friends with students with a wide range of interests.

Edinburgh - the perfect place to study
The other wonderful thing about QMU is the opportunity to enjoy Edinburgh's beautiful capital city. Edinburgh is jam packed full of historical sites, the most popular being Edinburgh castle. The city is never quiet. Its bustling atmosphere attracts people from all over the world and its entertainment and opportunities for fascinating cultural experiences are second to none. It hosts the famous International Festival, The Fringe, Hogmanay Street Party - one of the largest New Year street parties in the world, The Book Festival and the Film Festival. For students Edinburgh has lots to offer - countless tourist attractions, libraries, cinemas, clubs, pubs, restaurants, concert venues, theatres and a wide range of fantastic shopping and sports facilities. You really couldn't choose a more interesting city to study in.

New campus
Our new purpose built campus on the east side of Edinburgh, by Musselburgh features high-tech facilities including an innovative learning resource centre combining IT and library services, along with a great variety of learning spaces. There are also on-campus sports facilities and en-suite student accommodation.

Courses to fit in with your lifestyle
Whether you're in your teens or are returning to education after a long gap, staff at QMU will endeavour to provide an environment which will support your learning while also providing enough flexibility to study around career, social and family commitments. QMU therefore offers full-time, part-time and distance learning courses that can suit different lifestyles. Our staff are well aware of the demands of modern living and you will find them extremely approachable and supportive throughout your studies.

Great employment prospects
With a specific emphasis on vocational education, our courses up-to-date and relevant to the needs of society. As a result, QMU has an enviable employment rate for its graduates - 92% of them find work or go on to further study within six months of graduating.

Keeping teaching up-to-date and relevant
In order to meet the changing needs of society, lecturing staff are activity engaged in ongoing research and collaborative work with external agencies, businesses and academics from other institutions. This helps to ensure that their teaching is up-to-date and relevant which means that you benefit from the latest thinking and developments in the field. As well as the involvement of teaching staff in research, we also have a strong community of full-time researchers, whose work is often cutting-edge. Again, this helps to ensure that the information being communicated through teaching is extremely progressive.

Research strengths
As well as high quality teaching, we have a strong reputation for our research excellence. Our research activity is internationally recognised, and informs and adds value to our teaching at all levels.

As with all UK universities we are scrutinised on our research performance. QMU achieved a significant improvement across the majority of its strategic research areas in the last Research Assessment Exercise. QMU achieved a 4 rating for its groundbreaking work in the field of Speech and Language Disorders, demonstrating that research in this area achieved levels of national excellence and also showed signs of international excellence.

Staff at QMU were particularly pleased with performance in specialist areas such as the professions allied to medicine (including speech and language sciences, physiotherapy, dietetics etc) which do not have a long research tradition. The institution achieved a 4 in Speech and Language Disorders, 3a in Social Sciences and Health; 3a in Nutrition; and 3b in Physical Therapy. Our demonstrable research expertise in such a wide range of health professions makes us unique in Scottish higher education.

Another good indication of our research performance was clearly recognised in 2002 when our Speech and Language Sciences won a prestigious Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education. It is the only university department of speech and language therapy in the UK ever to have won this award which clearly recognises the institution's commitment to improving the quality of life for people with communication disorders.

Enhancing quality of life and serving communities
Behind all of QMU's postgraduate courses is a strong philosophy of enhancing quality of life and serving communities. Today, graduates of QMU have used their skills and knowledge to make improvements to the lives of many different people - whether that be through the development of better business practice for improved customer service, breakthroughs in healthcare, the development of creative arts and culture for people's enjoyment, helping communities to fight for environmental justice or working with people in third work countries to rebuild their communities after years of destruction. The list is endless. Whatever you choose to do with your postgraduate qualification, there is little doubt that the skills and knowledge you develop while at QMU will help you to achieve success in your own right while at the same time have a positive impact on society.

We wish you every success with making your choice of study.

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