Thoughts on LSE?

Hey all. I am a Year 12 student interested in doing Maths and Economics at LSE. I have done some research (primarily from older TSR threads) and have been fairly discouraged from previous student feedback. Is such feedback still relevant today? I am a fairly average guy who likes Mathemetics (and Economics), and while I am definitely a huge procrastinator for essays and things in my AS level subjects, I often spend hours at a time doing Maths because I find it so damn interesting. I will probably end up with something like AA*A* or maybe even triple A*. I am used to a "competitive" environment as I go to a well known grammar school, but my school is full of great, calm people so I do have (somewhat) a social life. I do like to have a social life and am concerned about complaints I have seen previously.

Such complaints include:

- Cutthroat environment, borderline toxic. Competing for internships.
- Not much of a uni community, the only thing that is representative of a community is people flexing the status of LSE
- E.g. no events like balls, only emails about mental health that don't really do much.
- Hardly a campus, you need to go out in London to have the uni experience.
- Very expensive (same as all London Unis)
- Inconsistent quality of teaching. Most work is therefore independent and fairly unguided.
- Quite hard to initially make friends because of international students already knowing each other. But at the same time everyone knows the “LSE hard to make friends thing” so people actually overcompensate so it’s not as hard as it used to be
- Quite left wing?
- Most people know the downsides of LSE and most people think they can suck it up. But not everyone can.

Are such complaints relevant today?

Reply 1

JOSH4598

There is one YouTuber who I recently came across who is a first year at LSE. She does lots of great videos on all aspects of LSE and student-living in London.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2nxhoN1jtslVcUC0M7ifxg

London School of Economics

London

Reply 2

VigoWilliam

What you mentioned are mostly stereotypes. They are not wrong, but that's not too much to worry about.

1. Yes your colleagues will be competing for internships, but it's your choice to join them or just have fun.
2. Again, it's true it lacks community due to small size, but you can go up to Bloomsbury to join the UoL community, which is large and vibrant.
3. There are balls. One or two each term. I know that's not many, but other universities don't have too many either.
4. Actually the campus is nice (though not really a campus). I would say it looks much better than the KCL campus across the road (which only has a bunch of ugly 70s industrial buildings if you exclude the Bush House). The new Centre Building is one of the coolest among central London universities.
5. It's expensive. we can't question that...
6. To be honest, contact time of most British universities are the same. You need to go to American LACs to get education that's dedicated to teaching. In LSE, at least you know your teacher are really qualified in their subjects.
7. Same as 3, I recommend you to visit Bloomsbury for friends. It's only 15 mins walk and you can use all the faculties.
8. Uh... I don't really know any major universities that's not "left-wing" (more liberal). Maybe Exeter is the only one?
9. Even if the downsides you mention are downsides, you only need to spend a few years there in exchange for an excellent education, let alone they are not really downsides. It's hard to feel happy if you choose a random party university and then struggle to decent jobs.

Ultimately it depends on your other choices, but I would argue there are very few choices to turn down LSE.

Reply 3

KarunK4

Thank you for your detailed response! Has definitely reassured me. Most of the information I saw was fairly doom and gloom so it’s nice to have a more positive outlook

Reply 4

Anonymous #1

If you search for LSE Marshal building, that’s a new addition to the LSE campus from 2021, and would be the biggest building for students starting this year, providing sports facilities etc.

Reply 5

Anonymous #1

Original post by Anonymous

If you search for LSE Marshal building, that’s a new addition to the LSE campus from 2021, and would be the biggest building for students starting this year, providing sports facilities etc.