The Student Room Group

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Reply 1
anyone that knows something about it can answer too.
scary as ****
Reply 3
confused?
All the good points and bad points from personal experience?

It is not a good place for study.
Reply 4
rb211524
It is not a good place for study.



what is it a good place for?
Reply 5
confused?
what is it a good place for?



It is a good place to study, maybe it's just not the best place to party (lse parties are really nothing special). but then again, party venues is one thing London doesn't lack...
Reply 6
its allll goood when your slaughtered. better than i expected for LSE
Reply 7
confused?
All the good points and bad points from personal experience?


school is school--right? its downtown in the financial district, so there is literally NO experience of community whatsoever. people here are very studious (now im in the grad program) and extremely ambitious. So be prepared to work hard to keep pace with them, or you'll stick out in your classes.

dont overrate it though. i have a masters in the States and the work load is no different. come here, study, learn, read, get the damn degree!
coolio
school is school--right? its downtown in the financial district, so there is literally NO experience of community whatsoever. people here are very studious (now im in the grad program) and extremely ambitious. So be prepared to work hard to keep pace with them, or you'll stick out in your classes.

dont overrate it though. i have a masters in the States and the work load is no different. come here, study, learn, read, get the damn degree!



Downside: not for the fainthearted..people can be rude and abrupt..time and space are limited and there are very few spaces, mentally or physically, in which to hide and or recuperate..

Upside: the sheer buzz of being somewhere so lively, so intense..
Reply 9
Confused,
I'm studying in the MSc Fin/Econ right now...I'm sorry to say I'm quite unimpressed with LSE..From the lack of IT facilities to the extreme left wing student body, it's really has been a stressful experience. I find that classes are too large and there is simply not enough space for all of these students. For 16,500 pounds (including board at Passfield) this is an utter ripoff. My American school puts LSE to shame in all of these respects. I am disgusted at what LSE is offering for the money.

Despite the so-called "elite reputation" of LSE I have yet to secure an interview in the US despite my strong academic record. LSE's support of their North American students is non-existent. Don't they realize that most students coming from the US will want to go home? Ironically, with my US undergrad (Not a so called "Elite school) I'd had more success on the job front...So, as of yet, this has been a complete waste of time. I will strongly advise you to consider Oxford or Cambridge. If you're from North America, I wouldn't bother spending the $$$ to come here. From a pure monetary point of view, it's not worth it.

SV
Reply 10
sv7887,

What kind of jobs are you applying for in North America? I heard that LSE graduates are very highly regarded even in America and that many get hired by i-banks (but as analysts not associates unless they have prior work experience) ... How do you find the quality of the student body and the difficulty of the course..?
to the extreme left wing student body


You think? If anything, I was expecting a far more left wing student body. If you are talking about anti-Americanism, then that is not a soully left wing thing.
feedtheflamingo
You think? If anything, I was expecting a far more left wing student body. If you are talking about anti-Americanism, then that is not a soully left wing thing.


According to the Beaver the LSE Conservative Asscociation is the largest political party group at the LSE!! So much for left-wing...
According to the Beaver the LSE Conservative Asscociation is the largest political party group at the LSE!! So much for left-wing...


Well that is a little unrepresentative. There is only one right-wing political party society whereas there are 3 or 4 left wing ones. I should imagine that the sum of the left-wing political societies is greater than the single Conservative party society membership.
Reply 14
Hi All,
To deny LSE is left wing is crazy. It's blatantly obvious, try reading the Beaver.. How many Jewish organizations do you see there to counter the pro Islamic attitude? Why is it that LSE makes concessions to Muslim students, but refuses to do the same for Jewish and Hindu students? (Special meals in halls, etc etc) I come from Massachusetts, which is liberal as it is, but this makes MA look like North Carolina. I find the Beaver's tendancy to drum on controversy over small issues like fire procedure at Passfield Hall lame. It's far too activist for my liking.

I'm applying to the I-Banks in NYC and practically any finance related company in the US..The other American students in my program haven't had much luck either, so I'm not a special case. Only 20-30% of our class have offers at this point. In contrast Harvard has a placement rate of 87% (that's even in last year's bad economy) The teaching is good, but not great. One course, Financial Economics is quite rigorous, but the rest are okay. My US counterparts who have attended grad school in the US say it's not much different.

Overall, I'm not impressed. For the $$$ being charged it is definitely not worth it. So far I've heard plenty of marketing hype, but LSE has yet to live up to its so called elite reputation. I certainly will not recommend LSE to any North American student. For the money you can do better in the US.

SV
Reply 15
what are you basing the 20-30% placement rate on?
are you considering that only among the top i-banks?
it would really, really surprise me if you didn't get an interview with the big i-banks. getting offers is a different thing. they're not only looking for the name of the school or your technical abilities but also for interpersonal skills and specific answers to the questions they ask you (leadership, languages etc) and all that jazz which you may or may not have acquired in a north american school.

i agree with you that the beaver is in the hands of "left wing" people... however, the entire magazine is run by 10 people tops. have you actually attended their meetings? you are free to submit your articles and they'll most likely publish them.

have you been to oxford/cambridge? what makes you think that the quality of their research is better? LSE is cutting edge in the field you're studying.

having said that, you're right about the endowment. you should have gone to harvard if you wanted a nice campus, bigger library, nicer buildings and you do get a lot more bang for your buck. why didn't you enroll there?
With regard to the "is LSE left wing or not" debate, I think the center-right are a significant but largely silent group, although I'm not able to say whether they're a silent majority/ minority or not. I think the LSE Conservatives does a sterling job representing the center-right, (especially Daniel Freedman). Although there are more left wing organisations in LSE (Eg. the Labour Soc. Socialist Soc and Socialist Student Worker Soc.) I would strongly suspect the membership overlaps significantly, so there are probably no more members of left wing groups than right wing.

From what I've heard they'll be a new "capitalist workers society" set up soon to carry on the fight, a little tongue-in-cheek but it gets the message across I think.
sv7887
Hi All,
To deny LSE is left wing is crazy. It's blatantly obvious, try reading the Beaver.. How many Jewish organizations do you see there to counter the pro Islamic attitude? Why is it that LSE makes concessions to Muslim students, but refuses to do the same for Jewish and Hindu students? (Special meals in halls, etc etc) I come from Massachusetts, which is liberal as it is, but this makes MA look like North Carolina. I find the Beaver's tendancy to drum on controversy over small issues like fire procedure at Passfield Hall lame. It's far too activist for my liking.


SV


I'd like to stand up for our student newspaper. I consider myself as right wing as anyone I've met in my time at LSE, but don't consider the magazine left wing as such. Daniel Freedmans weekly column is always superb, (who also represents the Jewish angle on most things). With regards to the Passfield hall thing, if I was living there and fires were a common occurance and my safety was possibly being compromised I would want to know!
Greyhound01
I'd like to stand up for our student newspaper. I consider myself as right wing as anyone I've met in my time at LSE, but don't consider the magazine left wing as such. Daniel Freedmans weekly column is always superb, (who also represents the Jewish angle on most things). With regards to the Passfield hall thing, if I was living there and fires were a common occurance and my safety was possibly being compromised I would want to know!


By the current standards of universities LSE is not especially right wing. Historically, if anything it's produced more right wingers than most British universities (which tend to be solidly liberal/left in their composition) and the Beaver, which for years has been an awful rag, is certainly not representative of LSE as a whole.
sv7887
Hi All,
To deny LSE is left wing is crazy. It's blatantly obvious, try reading the Beaver.. How many Jewish organizations do you see there to counter the pro Islamic attitude? Why is it that LSE makes concessions to Muslim students, but refuses to do the same for Jewish and Hindu students? (Special meals in halls, etc etc) I come from Massachusetts, which is liberal as it is, but this makes MA look like North Carolina. I find the Beaver's tendancy to drum on controversy over small issues like fire procedure at Passfield Hall lame. It's far too activist for my liking.

I'm applying to the I-Banks in NYC and practically any finance related company in the US..The other American students in my program haven't had much luck either, so I'm not a special case. Only 20-30% of our class have offers at this point. In contrast Harvard has a placement rate of 87% (that's even in last year's bad economy) The teaching is good, but not great. One course, Financial Economics is quite rigorous, but the rest are okay. My US counterparts who have attended grad school in the US say it's not much different.

Overall, I'm not impressed. For the $$$ being charged it is definitely not worth it. So far I've heard plenty of marketing hype, but LSE has yet to live up to its so called elite reputation. I certainly will not recommend LSE to any North American student. For the money you can do better in the US.

SV


Your experience is certainly not typical of American students at LSE. I know plenty of them, and they seem to have no difficulty in getting jobs, whatever their studies. And this is in keeping with the School's history: a whole range of distinguished Americans are counted among LSE grads, ranging from politicians to businessmen and judges of the Supreme Court, ie David Rockefeller, JFK, Danny Moynihan, Paul Volker, James Rubin etc etc. That tradition and reputation are not going to disappear, however negative you feel your precise experiences may have been.

US alumni are by far the most generous and committed, amongst all the LSE's many overseas alumni, when it comes to supporting the School. The American LSE alumni association is so big and active it has several chapters. In fact they are arguably more generous and supportive than the home alumni - that does not suggest that they feel they wasted their time at LSE - and most of them were at the School when it was far worse funded and resourced than it is at present