 However, he instead decided to study Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, matriculating in 1866 and graduating 1869.He then undertook practical training with the chemist Thomas Anderson and then went to study in Germany at the University of Tübingen with Wilhelm Rudolph Fittig where his doctoral thesis was entitled "Investigations in the Toluic and Nitrotoluic Acids".Ramsay went back to Glasgow as Anderson's assistant at the Anderson College.