Students who choose to attend Aberdeen will become a part of a diverse and thriving community that includes five Nobel Laureates and over 12,000 students from all over the world. The University of Aberdeen has a gorgeous campus with first-rate facilities. On the main campus, you may find both historic structures and state-of-the-art labs, computer centers, and libraries equipped with the newest technological advancements. Over 150 sports groups and societies are available for students to join, and the campus’s social and sporting amenities are top-notch.
About half of the students at the University of Aberdeen specialize in medical, science, or engineering, however the arts and social sciences are also very popular. Aberdeen’s distant location attracts students from all over the world, creating a cosmopolitan setting with students of Scottish and English descent, together with those of 120 other nationalities, making for an intriguing multi-cultural milieu. Aberdeen, home to the University of Aberdeen, was recently ranked as Scotland’s by the Complete University Guide and offers its graduates some of the top beginning incomes in the country.
On 10 February 1494, William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, Chancellor of Scotland, and a graduate of the University of Glasgow, drafted a proposal on behalf of King James IV to Pope Alexander VI, resulting in a papal bull that established King’s College, the first university in Aberdeen. James seems to have wanted to provide Scotland the same number of universities that England did at the time, and for those universities to have the same perks as the illustrious institutions in Paris and Bologna.
Built in imitation of the University of Paris and designed primarily as a law school, the institution quickly rose to prominence as one of the most prestigious educational institutions in all of Scotland, thanks in large part to Elphinstone and his friend Hector Boece, who was named as the university’s first principal in the year 1500. It was established to educate civil servants for the Scottish Crown, including attorneys and government officials, as well as medical professionals, educators, and clergy to serve the people of northern Scotland.
It was a university with a staff of 36 people, including students, and it was enclosed by walls. The college created the first medical chair in the Anglophone world in 1497. Particularly at King’s College, the university grew substantially in the twentieth century. Throughout the 20th century, new buildings were developed on the site around King’s College.
New King’s lecture rooms and Elphinstone Hall are two examples of such structures that were originally created to resemble their historic counterparts. However, beginning in the 1960s, a number of these were replaced by brutalist-style buildings. In the meanwhile, in the 1930s, medical students were first trained at the Foresterhill site adjacent to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
After years of fundraising, in the fall of 2011 a brand new university library (the Sir Duncan Rice Library) opened on the King’s College campus to replace the ageing Queen Mother Library. It was formally opened by the Queen in September 2012. Today’s students spend the vast majority of their time in state-of-the-art buildings that boast cutting-edge classroom, library, and dining hall infrastructure. It’s important to note that King’s College is still making use of its older facilities as classrooms and offices for various departments.
University of Aberdeen accommodation services-
First-year undergraduates at the University of Aberdeen are assured a place to live. The university has recently spent £20 million on brand new dorms, and all residents have free access to wifi internet.
Depending on your preferences and finances, you can choose between catered and self-catered housing, and the Student Accommodation Office can help you find private homes in the city using its newly updated online database designed specifically for students.
