LSE is tough.

It adds up to 8? Wasn't A levels similar?

If you manage your time well you'll be fine

You're doing 4 hours of reading a day, but don't have enough time to leave your flat to explore London.

Do you sleep for 20 hours?

8hours sleep, 8 hours uni academic study and then you have 8 hours remaining

I sleep for 8, but I think you're missing out a lot of other necessities.

if only it were that simple.

I study medicine and we're told to do 1-2 hours a day, how can they ask for 5 that's mad

Sorry to hear you're having a tough time. It sounds like you're a 1st year and the good news is its totally normal to feel a bit overwhelmed - you've probably just moved out of home, to a new city, from a place where you were one of the smartest kids in class used to getting 90%+ to somewhere where everyone is smart and 60% is a good mark. Don't worry - it can and should get better.

A timetable is a great idea. Make sure you include at least one thing a week where you feel like you're getting that London experience - a walk down the river, a trip to the museum, seeing the changing of the guard. At the end of the year you should have at least 30 fun experiences to look back on.

With the life stuff, try to optimise. If your walk is longer than 15 minutes, buy a bike or a Boris bike key. If there's space in the fridge, batch cook. If you want to go to lots of public lectures try listening to some as podcasts (I watched a lot while doing the washing up). if there are days when you go into LSE just for one lecture and its recorded, consider just listening to that one on catch up, especially if it's a course you find pretty easy. Do set yourself a time to listen to it though, otherwise you'll never get round to it.

In terms of the academic work, if you're doing 4 hours a day and only doing the essential readings get yourself to LIFE for some of their reading training - you're doing it too in-depth. Personally for the courses I mostly "got" I didn't do the lecture reading (because it was all in the lecture) and just did the class reading. For the course I knew I struggled with I did the lecture reading before the lecture, then went to the lecture to see if that explained it better/to ask everyone else.

If you're trying to do all the essential plus all the recommended reading - stop. You (generally) don't need to learn everything, especially for the non-quant courses. You're only going to answer 3-4 exam questions per course, so only go into depth on the topics you enjoy. This will also give you time to go off the reading list for those topics, which should hopefully result in good grades.

Hopefully you're feeling a bit less stressed now reading week is here. Plan a few nice things to treat yourself. If your academic adviser is nice maybe book in to see them and talk it over, or just drop in to see one of the LIFE advisers. They should have some helpful advice, and even if they don't, you'll get more sympathy than you do on here.



You almost certainly have more than 8 hours contact time a week though.

Wait is that what they have? Only 8?