Friday, July 10, 2009

First Day Of School at the LSE

The world renown London School of Economics & Political Science. For three weeks, I get to be a full-fledged student, swipe card access to every building of this esteemed institution, my own library account, my own LSE email address, and a chance to sample a truly world-class education.

I am not a full-time LSE student for obvious reasons. One, I am not smart enough to get in. People here seemingly possess a more powerful processor chip in their brain. Secondly, London is so damn blardy expensive! More on that in a bit.

So, my first day of school was really good. I have made some new friends from the world over who stay in the same hostel. And peer pressure even amongst new friends is quite a powerful tool. I wanted to take the bus to school everyday but this group INSIST on walking. It is a 25 minutes walk everyday, but given the excellent summer weather, sun shining and cool temperature of approx 15 celsius, it is not bad.

We had to attend a welcome session by the Director of the LSE, Sir Howard Davies at the Peacock Theatre, and following his 2 minute address of the summer school students, there were some other professors who briefed us and the usual do's and dont's, what is expected of us, how to behave bla bla bla.

The welcome session ended around 10.30am, and my class are from 2pm to 5pm everyday! With so much time to spare, and with no material to study, given I haven't gone to class yet, I decided to just explore High Holborn. I walked to and from the Holborn underground station at least 3 times, just looking for a 3 Network SIM card.

The UK has 6 major telcos, and 3 Network specializes in 3G technology. They offer free 3-to-3 calls, and if your phone is a smart phone, you can make free Skype calls using their 3G network as well! I finally managed to buy two SIM cards, and since Skype also had a promotion that offered free calls to Singapore mobile phones and land lines for July, as long as I am in a wireless zone, i.e. school or hostel, I make free calls back home!

I am now an expert in overseas phone calls, given my disaster in Brunei haha. It started pouring really heavily and I cursed myself for not bringing my Gortex or an umbrella with me. The weather here can be really unpredictable.

The first lesson was very interesting. My lecturer is Greek, and he is really humourous.

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/finance/people/profiles/KostasZachariadis.htm

Basically, I am doing an advanced undergraduate level course in alternative investments. As the name suggests, it refers to alternative assets that not many people are familiar with e.g. hedge funds, private equities, commodities, managed futures, art, some real estate, and more exotic investments like football clubs. Pretty interesting topic, but we have a one hour morning tutorial everyday where we crunch numbers on Excel.

I really regret not paying more attention during my ICT class in poly. It was so useful, now I struggle to do regression, find covariance, R-squared and all these terms which still sound so foreign to me!

My textbook cost £60, which times 2.4, is roughly S$150. I actually shared the cost with another girl from Singapore, Jasmine, but she just informed me this morning that she cannot take it and has changed course. Now I owe her 30 quid.

After school, me, Jasmine (SG), her bf Tommy (SG), Aisyah (SG), Chen Ye (USA), Tim (China), Xinxin (UK), and Michael (USA) went in search of food. We just walked aimlessly and ended up at the National Gallery and in front of it, Trafalgar Square. After some photo taking, we walked up further to Leicester Square, home to some of the most famous theatres in the West End, and Chinatown.

It took us one hour to decide on a restaurant to eat, going to every individual restaurant to check the menu and price. When we finished eating, the sky was still bright but it was 9pm!

So the first day of school was interesting, the school library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science, is second to none. 1000 PCs available for use, nice Victorian-style exterior, very modern interior. I am enjoying every bit of my time here in London. After 1 year in SIM, I know 0 new persons. In 2 days here, I have shaked no less than 50 hands and EVERYONE was friendly.

Pictures for now, next post will be on the world premiere of Harry Potter!

The New Academic Building, opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II last year. Kingsway entrance

NAB main entrance

16th century building still standing in the middle of the LSE campus

The Old Curiosity Shop is a novel written by Charles Dickens



Trafalgar Square



The National Gallery



National Portrait Gallery

Very Chinese group, one ang moh only haha

(L-R)Tommy, Jasmine, Aisyah, Xinxin, Tim, Chen Ye, Michael