St Andrews: Not a Place for Vegetarians or People Who Like Spending Time in Class Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

I was bored! I only had class two days a week, and felt completely unchallenged and unengaged in the two classes I took. I was also sort of offended by the British conception of American students as lazy and in need of a lot of hand-holding at the university level. British students are no more focused than their American counterparts, as far as I could tell, and as far as hand-holding goes, I appreciate the challenge of taking for than two classes, having more than one writing assignment all semester, and actually spending more than 2 hours a week learning in class. I don't pay all this money for university to just get handed a long reading list and to have my work evaluated twice all semester. I wrote my two papers at the last minute and did fine (and better than the full-time students I compared grades with), and I attribute this to all the practice I have gotten as a W&M student. To be fair, I suppose the above is exactly what a lot of people want out of a study abroad program. However, I chose St. Andrews for the academics, not to spend all my time drinking beer in a foreign country.

On-site administration of your program

It wasn't really a program; I was directly enrolled.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

Eh, I've been living off-campus at W&M since my sophomore year, so going back to dorms was sort of a drag. However, I did get a single, which was really nice. My real problem with the living arrangement has to do with hall food, so I'll address that below.

Oh my, the food was terrible. I expected the hall food to be as unremarkable as Aramark tends to be at American schools, but this food was practically inedible. I'm sorry. Most people seemed to handle it okay, but I'm a vegetarian, and the hall options were super limited. (To be fair, their was always a vegetarian option--it was just frequently unhealthy and/or pretty untasty.) Part of the problem, I think, is that each hall at St. Andrews pays for its food individually. In any case, eating bread and potatoes and maybe cheese at every meal made me feel terribly unhealthy, so I ate out frequently, which was expensive in its own right, but especially costly when I consider the money already spent on hall dining for the semester. Ironically, the reason I chose to have a meal plan rather than do self-catering was that I didn't want to deal with the time commitment of cooking while adjusting to life abroad. As it turned out, I had such a ridiculous amount of free time that I could have very easily (and happily and healthily) found time to cook for myself. Instead I ended up eating a lot of Whey Pat nachos (only 4 pounds, hooray) and hummus and veg sandwiches from Taste (also only 4 pounds).

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

It was okay. As I mentioned above, the ceilidhs were neat, but St Andrews didn't really feel especially "foreign" to me. This being said, I really enjoyed being a member of the Philosophy Society. I don't know if this is the place to pitch it, but it's a really active organization that has frequent and interesting meetings and speakers, and even goes on a sweet weekend retreat to the highlands for a "reading party," which was great.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

It's a small, old town, full of students, retirees, and tourists (not unlike Williamsburg, really), so it feels really safe, even late at night. The local hospital is about a 20-minute walk from the center of town, and I went there once for a severe cold/possibly a sinus infection. Medicine is cheap, and making an appointment is easy, so my experience was pretty good, although I have heard of less positive tales, mostly regarding stubborn and unhelpful doctors.

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

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• Dorm

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• Americans
• International Students
• Local Students