Soon to start as an LSE postgrad - having worries

I was very happy to get an offer for a master's place in a mathematical course at LSE this year, but I have read some off-putting things... And I just want to make sure that these are not as true as I've seen.

1) As a home student, I hear from some LSE students it has been hard to make friends, either due to international cliques (lack of home students?) or a lack of people being down-to-earth. Is this quite widespread across the university?

2) I hear the student night-life isn't the greatest, despite it being in London. This is especially important for me as it's the easiest way I've found to meet girls (not that I'm a casanova). Would it be just as easy to find a nice English rose with similar ambitions to myself (yes, I do want to work in finance...) as at any other good university in the UK?

3) Due to having to fund the course off my own back, I don't think I'll currently be able to afford to live in London. Will this be a huge disadvantage for meeting new people/having a good social life?

I'd be happy to hear any of your insights or anything else which is important, sorry if I have came across a big ignorant!

Reply 1

AlphaVsOmega

Hi, first of all congrats :smile:

Recently, I have finished MSc maths at LSE, so I guess I am in position to answer most of your questions :smile:

I am assuming that you have been accepted for MSc financial mathematics, right?

Yes, it is true that LSE is full of international students especially in MSc financial maths (& many other PG courses) or applicable maths mostly students are from China, EU and least are from UK. Most of them join LSE with an intention to work in financial sector as a trader or quant etc. Therefore, they are very focused, and studious (though most of them always complain about the work load) but it doesn't mean that they don't like to socialise. If you have a chance to live at one of university's halls then of course you will get more chances to do party because I don't think that it would be easy for you to travel 4 hours after a party/pub night. BTW, LSE is surrounded by many pubs and nice restaurants so you can enjoy a lot :wink:

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Except quant jobs, I don't know much about other paths towards city jobs. So if you want to work as a quant then you will have to take advance abstract probability courses such as stochastic analysis, measure theoretic probability etc and trust me some of the courses are really difficult (for example MA414 or MA418 etc ) therefore I don't think that you will get much time to enjoy social life :tongue: