Undergraduate

If you have not been receiving our post-offer emails, please contact the Undergraduate Programme Support team at socialpolicy.ug@lse.ac.uk who will be more than happy to help! 

We will be adding the post-offer emails that have already been sent out for your reference below.

The Programme regulations for your degree can be found via what is known as the ‘LSE Calendar’ which is a webpage which contains all the various degree regulations for each programme which runs within the School. Programme Regulations will show you what each year of your study will look like, for example, which core (compulsory) courses you will take and which optional courses you may choose from. Below, are the links to the programme regulations for the 2024/25 academic year.

BSc International Social and Public Policy

BSc International Social and Public Policy and Economics

BSc International Social and Public Policy with Politics

Preliminary reading over the summer is not essential and reading lists for your courses will only be confirmed on your arrival in September. When you arrive you will have access not only to the LSE Library but also the vast number of electronic texts available to you by virtue of your LSE registration. For this reason we discourage you from purchasing texts which will later become freely available to you once you have registered. However, we appreciate that some of you may wish to gain further insight into social policy and therefore may be interested in some of the Department podcasts. You will receive guidance on how to approach readings as a university student once you arrive and start your learning as part of the Academic and Professional Skills programme, linked to your SP100 core course. Additional advice on reading for your course can be accessed via LSE LIFE – the School’s place to discover and develop skills you’ll use as a student and beyond. 

As a first year undergraduate student in the Social Policy Department, you will have no optional courses to choose for your first year of study and all of your courses are compulsory.

However, you still need to go into the course selection system (LSE for You) and confirm your ‘diet’ of courses.

The range of choice you have in your course selection increases as you progress to years 2 and 3 of your degree.

You will be able to start confirming your courses in September 2024.

You will find more information here.

For each course you will usually undertake both formative and summative work. Formative (non-assessed) work is designed to help you prepare for your summative (assessed) work. You can see it as a ‘practice run’ for your summative assessment, on which you will get feedback to help you produce your best summative work.

Your summative assessments for each course count towards your final degree.Some examples of different types of summative assessment include: a 'take home' (online) assessment, essay, presentation, group assessments, quiz or a combination of different assessment methods. You can find information about how courses are assessed on the course guides which are available through the School calendar and also the programme regulations. 

Formative and summative work will take place throughout the academic year and further details about your assessments will be shared with you by your Course Convenors and Programme Support Team via Moodle (LSE’s virtual learning environment).

Social Policy run 'take home' (online) assessments taking place in Spring Term, which is also when the School runs most of its centrally-organised exams. If you are taking courses outside of the Department, you may be sitting centrally-organised exams which take place as hand-written exams in a exam hall setting. This is different from the 'take home' assessments run by the Social Policy Department, which take place as virtual, remote assessments.

The Spring term exam timetable is published mid-way though Winter Term each year. If you are taking courses outside of the Department we would recommend consulting the course guide as to when assessments will take place for those courses. Some courses for example, Economics courses, will have exams both in the January and in the Summer exam periods.

You can find out more about School assessments here.

You will be taught by faculty and researchers who are at the forefront of their fields. You can find out more about all the staff in the Department at Social Policy People

You can find the School’s term dates here.

Lectures and classes are scheduled on weekdays and there are no classes at the weekend. Lectures and class timetables are available here so you will be able to see what days and times courses are timetabled for.

Once you are enrolled as an LSE student and enrolled to classes, you will also receive a more detailed, personal timetable to help you plan your week.

You will be allocated to your class group by our central Timetables Team. You should expect to remain in the class groups to which you are allocated unless you have particularly exceptional circumstances such as recurring medical appointments, caring arrangements, or religious commitments. Under such circumstances you may be able to apply to change class group. 

Class group changes are not guaranteed and are subject to constraints such as class size. Whilst we do our best to accommodate those who have exceptional circumstances for a request, this may not always be possible. You are expected to organise other commitments such as work commitments and extra-curricular activities at times that do not clash with your timetable. 

Yes, certainly.

Not only do you get the opportunity to work in smaller groups during classes and on some group-based assessments (e.g. poster presentations) but we also assign small groups of students to the same Academic Mentor. This means you will be in a small group as soon as you arrive, and this will become your Academic Mentor Group. You will learn more about Academic Mentor Groups and how you can get the most out of this system during Welcome.

The Department will allocate your Academic Mentor (also usually your dissertation supervisor) at the start of Autumn term. Due to resourcing considerations across the whole Department it is not possible for students to request a specific mentor or to be assigned to areas of research interest. It’s important to note however that you are not restricted to meeting only with your Academic mentor and you will still be able to meet with members of faculty even if they have not been allocated to you as your Academic mentor. In fact, in relation to subjects of specialism we would encourage you to speak with any member of staff in the Department (and the whole School for that matter) via faculty's Advice and Feedback Hours.

Your Academic Mentor is there to guide and assist you in your learning and development and is also available to help you with any personal difficulties you may experience. You should make arrangements to meet with them at least twice each term (or more frequently if you are experiencing difficulties). We will give you more information about this at your Welcome Induction!

Social Policy is a very multidisciplinary subject and therefore, no matter which degree programme you enrol on, you will receive an education that is broad and encompasses aspects of a number of different disciplines and subject areas (including- but not limited to- Economics, Politics, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology).

On the single honours, ISPP programme, in your first year of study, you will take four compulsory Social Policy courses. These will include a foundational course on understanding international social and public policy, an introduction to research, a course on social economics and finally, a course introducing you to policy-making.

On the joint programme with Economics, you do not have any optional courses in the first year of study. You will take courses in economics and quantitative methods (mathematics) and quantitative methods (statistics) alongside your core Social Policy courses.

On the joint programme with Politics, you do not have any optional courses in the first year of study. You take introductory political science and political theory courses alongside your core Social Policy courses.

As you progress through each year of the degree programme you will have some option courses available on each programme so there is an element of choice and ability to shape your degree programme according to your interests.

You can find further details of each of the programmes via the LSE Calendar here.

The School offers some opportunities for students to study abroad during their time here. You can find out more about this by visiting Global Opportunities

As a department, we're very happy to support students who are interested in taking part in  these opportunities

Absolutely! One of the best aspects of your Social Policy degree is its interdisciplinary nature, which means it lends itself to a wide variety of career paths. Previous undergraduate career destinations range from work within NGOs and charities, public sector and government as well as private sector, such as accounting. Getting involved with our Social Policy alumni via Career talks will give you a great idea of some of the many fields our students go into.