These online essays were written by students on the VIP: History of the University. Some of them focus on individual students, or small groups of students; others focus on aspects of the University’s teaching and research activities. You can use the tag cloud to explore.
Today, the University of St Andrews is undoubtedly international: it is estimated that 49% of our current student body is international.[1] But the presence of international students is perhaps not as new a phenomenon…
Today, the humanities – including subjects like Classics – are sometimes criticised for their apparently low employability prospects. Yet the career pathways of Classics graduates at the start of the twentieth century…
Today there are typically more women at university than men, and here at St Andrews, the ratio is currently 59 women to 41 men.[1] But almost one hundred years earlier, the demographic picture was vastly different. In…
It is 1901, and you are going to university. What do you imagine you will study? Greek and Latin were the traditional basis of much education, or you might choose something like medicine, so you can work in a…
From 1905, would-be teachers in Scotland were trained under the auspices of the Provincial Committees for the Training of Teachers. In this article, I explore St Andrews’ role in teacher-training, through a study of…
On the 22nd April 1915, chlorine gas was first released in a small village in Belgium. Its impact would be felt in St Andrews, where its use would change the trajectory of countless lives, including those of Walter…