Is LSE soulless and toxic?

I can promise you that the workload is significantly higher at Cambridge, but we don't have a low satisfaction rating.

How are the societies at LSE? Which ones are you involved in and how are they? thanks

There are over 200 societies at lse so there is something for everyone I guess. Since they are all run by students, obviously the quality of them depends on the individual society. The biggest societies like investment society, business and finance, economics, raising and giving are really well organised and so are most of the smaller societies. I'd say the societies are probably the best thing about the university experience. I'm part of the investment society, business and finance group, and students for children among a few others. The investment society is the best in my opinion. There are so many different parts of the society you can get involved in, like the investment fund and the macro research group and there are a lot of social events and career networking events put together by the society. They also do a career mentorship programme where they invite summer interns and graduates to speak about the application process and how to succeed in it. It's really useful stuff. Many of the societies are actually sponsored by firms like JP Morgan and others.

Oh wow thats sounds great.

If you were to be involved in many stuff, would you say it's hard to manage social life, studies and societies? Also what course do you do?

Ah someone at LSE actually offering me help, thanks 🙂

1. -Do you get support from your lecturers?
2. -Do you personally think the social life is limited? Or is it down to the person?
3. -I’ve heard many people don’t even go to lectures they just watch them all online, is this true?
4. -Do you genuinely think it’s a nice or even enjoyable place to study? (Be honest I would appreciate that)

Thanks!

I've numbered your questions so they're easier to answer.

1. You tend to not get support from your lecturers at any university, but lecturers at the LSE are always open to questions. They stick around at the end etc, some even invite students for an hour post-lecture to discuss any points.

The support system here comes from class teachers and your academic advisor. Class teachers are generally quite busy but will always make time for a 1:1 meeting, referred to an office hour. They will generally be available for 1-2 hours a week, every week. You can choose to see them every week, or never. It's up to you. Your academic advisors meet with you once a term to discuss your progress, but you can meet with them as much or as little as you'd like. There's a growing focus on mental health support, but thankfully I know little about this.

Essentially, the support is there if you want it, and it's not particularly difficult to get. Equally, if you don't want any support, you don't have to speak to any academics outside of your termly academic advisor meeting. In meetings with academics, you can go through a particular topic, ask for exam advise, go through an essay to see what went wrong (or right) etc.

Many of LSE's lecturers are incredible, but I'll return to this point later.

2. The social life is not limited. This is a myth. It amazes me that people genuinely believe that in London - one of the busiest, most diverse cities in the world - there's not enough things to do socially. If you like to drink, you can drink. I'd qualify this with a reminder that the halls you live in matter a lot; Passfield, Carr-Saunders, Rosebury and Bankside are generally considered the good ones. They're not 'party halls' in the sense that people are doing stupid **** every night, it's just that people here generally enjoy clubbing etc.

If you want to go an debate for fun, there's a debating society. If you want to play sports, there's sports societies. I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this, because you know that there are such societies at the LSE; just like every other university in the country.

I've had a great social experience at the LSE thus far. I know others who haven't. If you're willing to go out and speak to people (particularly during freshers' you'll make friends.

3. Whether or not you go to lectures depends on whether you want to. Theatres are generally full-ish unless there's an essay due in or there was a social event the night before. You can be tactical about going to llectures; if you don't like the particular style of a lecturer, it may be a better use of your time to not attend and do something else instead.

That being said, I would say that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of my first year lecturers have been outstanding. Their CVs are incredible, but most importantly they're able to explain things well. I doubt there is much difference between the lectures at the LSE and Oxbridge, but this is speculative. I make this claim because many of our lecturers have worked at Oxbridge before. Same goes for a few of my class teachers.

4. Whether or not you'll find the LSE enjoyable depends largely on whether you want to be pushed. While I've no doubt that many top unis push students to their limits academically, but I think that the LSE is unique in the sense that you'll generally be pushed further outside of your studies too. Extra-curriculars, work exp, volunteering etc is all part of being an LSE student, despite it not necessarily being a part of your degree.

It's enjoyable in the sense that you feel yourself doing a variety of things either at a higher level then you've previously done them, or doing things which you haven't done before. I think this personal growth is something which is encouraged at the LSE.

Another factor to consider is how much of an independent person you are. Studying (law) at the LSE can almost be seen like a guided period of extended study, with a debate session once a week per module (if your class is chatty enough). There's further guidance (as in 1) to help you along the way, but most of the emphasis is on how you can cope on your own.

For me, personally, I've enjoyed being at the LSE. The two most negative aspects of being here for me so far have been some classes (style of teaching, atmosphere) and some of the people. There's this thing about LSE being cliquey, which is true in one sense but false is in the other. If you go up to a group of people speaking a different language than English and try to engage with them, you can't expect them to change what they're doing to suit you. This makes sense when you consider the fact that, at the LSE, some people are far from home and like to feel comfortable in what can be a daunting city. It's untrue in the sense that not everybody is cliquey, and it's very easy to make new friends if you want to. But again, this is like most unis.

I think the thing that sets the LSE apart from other universities is a 'what else?' test. When you tell some people - perhaps an old school mate - you went to a good university, they'll be impressed with that alone. Other people - the people that really matter; employers, other top graduates etc - will say: 'cool, what else did you do?'. I think that LSE students have the potential to do really well in the latter test, and that's what makes the LSE quite an exciting place to be.

TL;DR:
1. There's academic and pastoral support there if you want it, it's not forced on you.
2. The social life at the LSE is good if you want it to be and if you select a good hall.
3. Some people don't go to some lectures some of the time.
4. The LSE is an exciting place to be if you're independent and want to build on all aspects of yourself beyond academics. The academic side is great, but you can and should get more than that here.

Again, I've only been here for a term but I've done a fair bit. This is just my opinion. When I was writing this, I was generally just writing out my thoughts; I hadn't really thought much about my last term.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

I presume you're referring to these?

-Do you get support from your lecturers?

It depends on who you include within your definition of a lecturer. The people delivering lectures can only deliver the material through the slides, and stick around for 5-10 minutes at the end to answer your questions. That means that you get very little contact with them, if you don't make a habit of chasing them down at the very end of a lecture while everyone else is packing up.

I've been fairly fortunate in getting a good teacher for all of my modules. To give you some background, I'm expected to sit the 7 qualifying law modules to make my degree a Qualifying Law Degree, with another 5 anthropology modules on top of that.

On the Anthro side, my teachers have been amazing - most of them were junior members of faculty eager to get top teaching marks, and boy did it show. I think the fact that Anthro has smaller classes on average than law, and people who are genuinely interested in everything they sit (as opposed to a lot of law students who seem to grind through their less preferred modules).

On the law side, I've had mixed experiences. Some classes were great - my Public law one had a young Fellow teaching about 12 extremely talkative students, and it was definitely intense. Others were mediocre - most notably my EU Law, where I missed out on the good picks and got a terrible postdoc who couldn't teach, which in turn made everyone else hate her and stop contributing to the less. Overall, my law impressions have been good, with a fair bit of variation.

-Do you personally think the social life is limited? Or is it down to the person?

Definitely not. Not only does the Covent Garden/Holborn area of London have a great selection of places to go for drinks/eating out, but LSE has a fairly strong set of clubs that are frequented by its students. These include Ministry and Saucy. I haven't been to Fabric yet but I'm planning to in the New Year. Zoo bar in Leicester Square became a somewhat unexpected hit in my first year in the Athletics Union.

If I had to give you one tip of advice, it would be to pick both a sociable hall, and be active in societies that do regular social events (this doesn't include those that focus on networking like Alternative Investments or Business and Finance). Personally, I found most of my friends from the AU, not my course, and sport was what kept us together through my studies. While I was active in first year, I had a great social life (at the expense of my grades). When I tried to fix my grades in second year, the opposite happened.

-I’ve heard many people don’t even go to lectures they just watch them all online, is this true?

100% true, particularly for 9 ams. LSE tried to fix the issue of many lecturers not having slides and speaking off the cuff with a soft requirement that lectures had some sort of interactive element. The result? A lot of lectures dumped all of their material onto the slides, meaning that you can stay at home, read through the slides, and know most of what was covered at the lecture itself. When this is combined with another student-satisfaction-boosting push to record all of the lectures and put them online at the end of each week, yeah...

I personally only go to my law lectures because Jurisprudence is a ****ing nightmare, as is Property II. I never bother going to any of the EU ones. My Anthro lectures were quite interesting (Social Anthropology in particular is highly rated), so I'd make a bit more of an effort.

-Do you genuinely think it’s a nice or even enjoyable place to study? (Be honest I would appreciate that)
Depends on what you're looking for. In terms of studying, my teaching experience was fine. What pissed me off (and continues to piss me off) is the poorly designed monstrosity of a library we have. In terms of social life, I can't imagine myself to have gotten anything better anywhere else in London.

If I had to point out an ambivalent issue, it's that LSE students will create a lot of pressure for you to do something for your CV early on. I found that great because, truth be told, I didn't have much of a CV prior to coming here (a few extracurriculars, solid grades, but that was more or less it). The pressure was therefore welcome, even if I don't have a job lined up right now. It'll benefit me in the long run. Others, particularly those who hang out with people going into similar jobs as them (e.g. I know a British Pakistani squad who have all got offers for Big 4 accounting), might find the continuous discussions about applications, interviews etc to be tedious and stress-inducing. But then again, it depends on who you hang out with, and what you talk about.

A last point- I read through the opening posts of the thread, and I fully agree with the idea that LSE students self-select. That doesn't affect the social life - from my experience, investment bankers and lawyers are social creatures at heart, despite their busy schedules. However, it does create a certain vibe as to the sort of extracurriculars people do, the sort of things they like talking about (either jobs or social/philosophical issues, both of which interest me, but may not interest you), and their overall drive and determination to succeed. If you're ambitious and both academically and career driven, then LSE suits you better than you think. If you're the sort of person who chooses a uni based on their ability to get drunk every night and get away with low 2:1s, then students at LSE will strike you as overly serious and straight-laced.

Thanks a lot for both of these detailed and really helpful answers. I personally am quite a determined person (Not in the finance sense but generally aspirational) with good grades that wants a decent social life. Judging from your answers LSE seems more suited to me than I originally thought, so I’m a bit stumped. I think the best way for me to resolve this is to re-visit LSE, because I didn’t really get to look around first time, it’d also be great to speak to some lecturers, maybe if they do a post-offer open day.

Thanks a lot guys, hope you enjoy/have enjoyed your time there.

Any of the current LSE students have any experience with commuting? Also what are the rent prices like

I've numbered your questions so they're easier to answer.

1. You tend to not get support from your lecturers at any university, but lecturers at the LSE are always open to questions. They stick around at the end etc, some even invite students for an hour post-lecture to discuss any points.

The support system here comes from class teachers and your academic advisor. Class teachers are generally quite busy but will always make time for a 1:1 meeting, referred to an office hour. They will generally be available for 1-2 hours a week, every week. You can choose to see them every week, or never. It's up to you. Your academic advisors meet with you once a term to discuss your progress, but you can meet with them as much or as little as you'd like. There's a growing focus on mental health support, but thankfully I know little about this.

Essentially, the support is there if you want it, and it's not particularly difficult to get. Equally, if you don't want any support, you don't have to speak to any academics outside of your termly academic advisor meeting. In meetings with academics, you can go through a particular topic, ask for exam advise, go through an essay to see what went wrong (or right) etc.

Many of LSE's lecturers are incredible, but I'll return to this point later.

2. The social life is not limited. This is a myth. It amazes me that people genuinely believe that in London - one of the busiest, most diverse cities in the world - there's not enough things to do socially. If you like to drink, you can drink. I'd qualify this with a reminder that the halls you live in matter a lot; Passfield, Carr-Saunders, Rosebury and Bankside are generally considered the good ones. They're not 'party halls' in the sense that people are doing stupid **** every night, it's just that people here generally enjoy clubbing etc.

If you want to go an debate for fun, there's a debating society. If you want to play sports, there's sports societies. I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this, because you know that there are such societies at the LSE; just like every other university in the country.

I've had a great social experience at the LSE thus far. I know others who haven't. If you're willing to go out and speak to people (particularly during freshers' you'll make friends.

3. Whether or not you go to lectures depends on whether you want to. Theatres are generally full-ish unless there's an essay due in or there was a social event the night before. You can be tactical about going to llectures; if you don't like the particular style of a lecturer, it may be a better use of your time to not attend and do something else instead.

That being said, I would say that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of my first year lecturers have been outstanding. Their CVs are incredible, but most importantly they're able to explain things well. I doubt there is much difference between the lectures at the LSE and Oxbridge, but this is speculative. I make this claim because many of our lecturers have worked at Oxbridge before. Same goes for a few of my class teachers.

4. Whether or not you'll find the LSE enjoyable depends largely on whether you want to be pushed. While I've no doubt that many top unis push students to their limits academically, but I think that the LSE is unique in the sense that you'll generally be pushed further outside of your studies too. Extra-curriculars, work exp, volunteering etc is all part of being an LSE student, despite it not necessarily being a part of your degree.

It's enjoyable in the sense that you feel yourself doing a variety of things either at a higher level then you've previously done them, or doing things which you haven't done before. I think this personal growth is something which is encouraged at the LSE.

Another factor to consider is how much of an independent person you are. Studying (law) at the LSE can almost be seen like a guided period of extended study, with a debate session once a week per module (if your class is chatty enough). There's further guidance (as in 1) to help you along the way, but most of the emphasis is on how you can cope on your own.

For me, personally, I've enjoyed being at the LSE. The two most negative aspects of being here for me so far have been some classes (style of teaching, atmosphere) and some of the people. There's this thing about LSE being cliquey, which is true in one sense but false is in the other. If you go up to a group of people speaking a different language than English and try to engage with them, you can't expect them to change what they're doing to suit you. This makes sense when you consider the fact that, at the LSE, some people are far from home and like to feel comfortable in what can be a daunting city. It's untrue in the sense that not everybody is cliquey, and it's very easy to make new friends if you want to. But again, this is like most unis.

I think the thing that sets the LSE apart from other universities is a 'what else?' test. When you tell some people - perhaps an old school mate - you went to a good university, they'll be impressed with that alone. Other people - the people that really matter; employers, other top graduates etc - will say: 'cool, what else did you do?'. I think that LSE students have the potential to do really well in the latter test, and that's what makes the LSE quite an exciting place to be.

TL;DR:
1. There's academic and pastoral support there if you want it, it's not forced on you.
2. The social life at the LSE is good if you want it to be and if you select a good hall.
3. Some people don't go to some lectures some of the time.
4. The LSE is an exciting place to be if you're independent and want to build on all aspects of yourself beyond academics. The academic side is great, but you can and should get more than that here.

Again, I've only been here for a term but I've done a fair bit. This is just my opinion. When I was writing this, I was generally just writing out my thoughts; I hadn't really thought much about my last term.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

What course are you doing?

Any of the current LSE students have any experience with commuting? Also what are the rent prices like

Yep completely agree. I sort of want to be rejected as I don’t think I’ll have the guts to reject them. But then I also want an offer because I hope I can make my experience at LSE different to the typical depressed students. Although my UCL and Durham offers are tempting me away.

Yep, it’s like everyone at LSE just wants to be the head of investment bank and don’t want to make any friends along the way. And if you ask them about LSE they become arrogant and defensive. I just don’t get why, it’s such a weird place.