If you’ve spent more than 20 minutes in Glasgow lately, you already know the vibe: Permanently damp, aggressively windy, and cold in a way that feels targeted. But for Glasgow Uni students, this winter is hitting on a whole different level. The general consensus across campus?
Your flat is freezing, but the library is somehow colder.
Every year, we tell ourselves it can’t get worse. Every year, the weather says: Challenge accepted.
Flats in the West End: ‘Have you tried putting on a jumper?’
Ah yes, the timeless wisdom of landlords who charge £690 a month for a bedroom the size of a large wardrobe. Most student flats in the West End were clearly built in a time before insulation was invented. They have windows that might as well be made of tracing paper, radiators that haven’t worked since the first lockdown, and ceilings designed to let cold air “circulate,” which is apparently healthy for you.
Student accom residents have reported waking up to see their breath in the air. Students in West End have resorted to crocheting blankets out of old Primark bags. One West End student told The Glasgow Tab her kitchen was “so cold I genuinely considered storing my milk on the counter instead of in the fridge because it’s warmer.”
The library: A climate-controlled tundra
Inside the library, conditions approach Arctic research-station levels. You walk into Level 3 expecting a warm academic hug. Instead, you’re hit with an icy blast so strong you can feel your degree shiver.
Gloves on. Scarf up. Hood up. Laptop at seven per cent because your fingers are too numb to plug it in.
The person next to you is wearing a North Face puffer—not outdoors, but indoors. A girl in the Reading Room is typing with fingerless gloves like an 18th-century poet. Someone on Level 4 has wrapped themselves in a blanket scarf so big it should legally count as bedding.
And yet, if you stand under the vents for too long, you will die. Not from cold—just from rage.
The Fraser Building: Always slightly too cold, always slightly too expensive
You enter hoping for warmth. You leave £5 poorer with a lukewarm hot chocolate.
Your core temperature? Unchanged.
The subway: A brief, sweaty reprieve
Let’s be honest: The Subway is the only warm place in the entire West End right now. It feels like stepping straight into a boiler room. A tropical microclimate. A humid oasis of accidental comfort.
Every student travelling from Hillhead to Kelvinhall this winter is basically doing it for heat therapy.
Why is this happening? Official explanations include:
- “Energy costs.”
- “Ventilation.”
- “Environmental targets.”
- Possibly a secret university initiative to see which students survive the longest.
Unofficial explanations include:
- Glasgow landlords doing Glasgow landlord things.
- The library air con having a personal vendetta.
- Some kind of curse. Probably.
So what are students doing to cope?
- Bringing hot water bottles to seminars.
- Studying in cafés purely for the heating..
- Wearing two coats and three jumpers.
- Sitting in the Learning Hub pretending it’s acceptable to work in a hat, gloves, and full thermals.
- Sleeping with socks on (which many consider a war crime).
- Spending an obscene amount of money on those little heat patches from Boots.
One student summed it up perfectly: “You leave your flat freezing to go to the library freezing. At that point, why even leave bed?”
Glasgow winter will always win
Look, we signed up for this when we chose a uni where daylight ends at 3:40pm and all weather apps simply say: “Feels like –4°C (emotional damage).”
But somehow, every year, we’re shocked.
Every year, our flats betray us.
Every year, the library vents remind us who’s boss.
In the words of one third year: “My flat’s cold, the library’s colder, and my student loan is gone. I didn’t realise survival skills were part of my degree.”
Welcome to winter in the West End: Where the cold is constant, the heating is optional, and students are—once again—questioning all their life choices.
