For the official QERM website, go here. What follows is my opinion, and my opinion alone.
QERM is an interdisciplinary program that brings together quantitative students and faculty from a variety of disciplines including fisheries, forestry, statistics, biology, and many others. It is foremost a quantitative program where a student acquires the tools to think and work in mathematics and statistics, but also lends itself toward use of these methods in ecological problems. It is a rigorous course of study that requires a series of coursework in involving applied and theoretical statistical and mathematical methods, and qualifying examinations on this material. Preparing for and taking these exams is very stressful. However, this significant hurdle is not without its reward. If one wants to do serious work in nearly any field of ecology, QERM has the resources to enable you to do just that. In QERM, students have the opportunity to obtain the statistical and mathematical skills that are often lacking in students who work strictly within their field of study (such as fisheries, forestry, social sciences, etc.) Therefore, students in the QERM program are attractive to key faculty at the University of Washington within these fields, due to their enhanced quantitative capabilities.
Another aspect that is perhaps unique to QERM is the self-guided nature of the program.. QERM has numerous affiliated faculty in a variety of disciplines at the University of Washington (go here to see them). Midway through the first year, a student is expected to establish contact with faculty and decide on a desired research area and topic, which will guide their degree progress. Students who do not have a good sense of what they want to do prior to beginning the first year often find this to be an arduous process. I began with somewhat narrowed idea of what I wanted to do (environmental statistics--in a very broad sense), and it just so happened that my instructor for the first quarter's seminar was an environmental statistician, and it turned out to be a great fit. A student typically contacts faculty that work on problems interesting to the student (assuming the faculty member has room for new students), and the student and faculty member meet to discuss the possibility of working together. Often a student will contact many faculty members. Part of the difficulty associated with this process is that students are taking difficult coursework, and faculty are very busy--it can be difficult to arrange meetings. QERM faculty are currently working hard to make this an easier process, beginning with changing the first quarter's seminar to a format that will introduce the students to faculty members in a manner that will facilitate this process.
After the first year's coursework which is typically set in stone (unless exceptional circumstances make one or more of these courses unnecessary) the student's coursework is dictated by their interest and guided by their chosen faculty adviser, and the department in which the adviser has appointment.
There is a lot of moral support from fellow students who have endured this first-year, but there is great responsibility placed on the individual student to learn and absorb the material in this difficult first year, as it forms the basis for all future work.
Subsequent years of work are varied across disciplines. Requirements for individual students are typically dependent on the department of the faculty member with whom they choose to work. My faculty advisor has an appointment in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, and in the course of my PhD work, I have taken classes mostly from the Department of Statistics, and have just recently completed a rigorous general examination process to advance to PhD candidacy.
Much of the work we do is facilitated through the use of a statistical programming package called R. It is becoming less common for incoming students not have some experience with R. If you are interested in QERM (or if you're not, but want to do quantitative work in ecology), it is no less than essential to gain R programming skills, and it will be an important part of your development as a student in quantitative ecology.
You can find other students' opinions by visiting their websites, or visiting the QERM Wiki.