The Official LSE Economic History Thread

lol I've just started Economic History at LSE so if anyone has any questions they wanna ask me, go for it and i'll try my best (no guarantee that the answers will be any good though!)

Oooo, I have a question for you (or anyone else). How geared towards economic history was your personal statement? Because I have one paragraph in a predominantly history PS on it.

Also, what modules are you doing and how are you finding them?

Sorry I've taken so long to reply, I've had a ridiculously busy week! Umm if you look in my sig, you'll see the courses I applied to and only one of them (LSE) was for Economic or any other kind of history! It was a tiny tiny part of my personal statement, but I did emphasise how I found it interesting to know whether social change was the catalyst for economic change or vice versa, and the book I read for my PS was "The Ascent of Money" by Niall Ferguson which is very focused on Economic History, so your predominantly history PS should be fine as long as you remember to talk a little bit about Economic and social change

I'm doing 4 modules:

EC102/Econ B which I'm finding ALOT better than A-level Economics, the lecturer is really good and although the concepts are quite advanced, the way it's taught makes it quite easy to understand

MA100/Mathematical Methods: This is easily the hardest course I'm doing, if you read the books and do the work it can be manageable but if you fall behind it becomes incredibly difficult to catch (I fell asleep in a lecture and consequently have no idea what to do now!). The one advantage is, unlike A-level maths where you have completely different sections, MA100 is pretty much cumulative in that what happens in the lecture from Week 3 is directly linked to what you learned in week 2, which derives from what you learnt in week 1, so rather than learning a ton of new material, you're building gradually on what you've learnt the previous week

HY116/International History since 1890: This is my personal favourite, if you have any interest in History or International Relations, definitely take this course, it's brilliant. There is a ton of reading to do but some of it is actually quite interesting, and if you've done history for GCSE, this'll totally change your perceptions about a load of stuff i.e. World War I.

EH101/The Internationalisation of Economic Growth: Like HY116, this is a completely different approach to looking at history and it's actually really interesting, there's a bit of anthropology thrown in every now and again, and the lecturers/teachers pride themselves on making this one of the best courses at LSE. Students tend to do quite well in this module and so far everything's been explained really clearly and it seems quite enjoyable

Hope that long-winded explanation clears things up

lol I've just started Economic History at LSE so if anyone has any questions they wanna ask me, go for it and i'll try my best (no guarantee that the answers will be any good though!)

I'm ONLY applying to economics history,,,,not combined with anything else...
But my mathematics is not particularly strong. even though econ history says it does not require HL math, will having a weak math score influence my chances?
also i didn't take IB econ because my school lets students choose between either history or econ (so you can only take one), and I took history. will not having taken econ influence their decision as well?

thanks!

can u transfer to straight econmics if u get a 2:1 or first in your first year?

Wow, thanks for that, your course descriptions make the course seem even more amazing and now I want an offer even more than I did before!
Another question, is a good proportion of the Economic History student body international or are they mostly from the UK? Also, I'm assuming you're doing straight Economic History without the 'with Economics' or 'and Economics' parts, so how do these 3 course options vary? Because from your course outline, it seems like those modules could have very well been studied under one of the other course options.
And FINALLY, is the course flexible with a good variety of module choices? (Not even sure why I'm asking this because I don't think it matters much; even if I had absolutely no choice in the matter, your modules sound great and it's LSE!)
I think that's the end of my rambling questions for today! Thanks again and I hope to hear from you soon

has anybody heard from the economic history department yet, anyone know of any offers having been given yet?

If they have, they've not posted about it in the main thread. I'm still waiting to hear for Economics and Economic History.

I've seen one rejection for econ history but that's it...econ history has quite small applicant numbers so whether many will be on here, I do not know.

do you have a gathered field email? (i don't lol)

I didn't get a gathered field email, but neither did anyone else from what I can gather from the main thread. I guess Economic History is one of the departments that doesn't bother with them

just out of interest, what are your grades? and how did you structure your personal statement if you don't mind me asking?

just interested in what other applicants have done, sorry if it seems nosey.

cheers.

I'm a mature student

I'm doing an access course with a maths A level on the side.

My PS was 45% economics (Black Wednesday and economic models/approaches), 45% economic history (parallels between the Mississippi company and the present) and 10% how my work experience will make me a better student than all you young 'uns

How about you?

same, I'm a mature student...well just turned 21, applying for straight econ history.

I have the relevant GCSE's, A-levels etc...I wrote my PS mainly about economic development, gap between rich and poor in developing nations, a little about austerity vs. stimulus.

still haven't heard anything though, i don't know if the economic history department has started to give out offers yet but the wait is starting to drag lol. have you heard anything, or know of people getting offers?

cheers.