5 min read
A typical day as an LSE Summer School student
Making the best out of your experience
One year has passed since my LSE Summer School experience, but I remember it like it was yesterday. The feeling of getting on the airplane, knowing that I was leaving my country, family, girlfriend, and friends behind for a month over summer, is something that still sticks in my memory to this day. On the one hand, I would miss out on some amazing beach days in Portugal, but on the other hand, I knew I would have one of the best months of my life, because this experience would help me grow tremendously both on an academic and personal level. From what I know today, it surely did.
On a typical weekday, I would get up at 08:30, have a shower and eat breakfast before leaving home. Schedules can vary depending on the course you take, but in my case, I would have practical classes in the morning, either from 10:30-12:00 or from 11:30-13:00. Since I lived in Camberwell New Road, which is about a 45-minute walk away from the LSE campus, I had to set my morning alarm with enough time to get me to campus, as I had decided I would walk rather than take public transport every day. I can proudly say that during that one-month experience, I always moved around London by foot.
I would never trade the routine of walking to LSE in the morning while listening to my favourite music because it put me in the right kind of mood, allowing me to arrive at classes fully concentrated and re-energised.
After the morning classes, I always had lunch with my classmates from the FM230: Alternative Investments course in the LSE canteen. I would really recommend this to everyone since there was a good variety of dishes along with a great quality/price relationship. I recall I never paid above £8, even with soft drinks included.
Eating lunch here almost every day of the week really enabled me to get to know a lot of like-minded people and to foster some of the best friendships I made whilst in London.
For my course, the lectures were always at 14:00 and lasted about three hours, usually ending around 17:00. I remember that there were some days where I felt exhausted and just wanted to go home, but most days I still took advantage of being in the centre of London to get to know the most iconic and important attractions London had to offer, as well as to go shopping. There were days, though, that I joined the career workshops organised by the LSE Summer School Team, and these were all after the 17:00 classes.
I really recommend attending as many of these workshops as you can, since each one of them will give you invaluable skills for both your personal and academic “you”.
The CV & cover letter workshop was very good, as well as a workshop which focused on improvisation techniques when dealing with people you don’t know, or when you are a shy person in a public setting. There are a large number of Summer School activities on offer, ranging from running classes, to yoga and even Assessment Centre simulations.
After dinner, I would join my friends for some beers or just chill out. We went out to two different clubs in London - The Egg Club and Ministry of Sound - which were great opportunities for having fun with your friends while decompressing from the intensive and demanding workload at LSE.
Overall, I felt I managed to balance both the academic workload and the social part of the LSE Summer School experience well but felt I missed out on some interesting sightseeing and museums. I mostly used the weekends to keep up with my studies, since there was not much time during the weekdays to focus on and master the course material.
All in all, the one piece of advice I can give you is this: work hard but play harder!
LSE Summer School is intended to help you foster new friendships, new networking connections and have fun while studying interesting new topics.
Leave nothing unsaid but most importantly, leave nothing undone!
I wish you all the best of luck.
This blog was written by one of our 2022 Student Ambassadors, who are here to share their stories and help you understand the summer school experience at LSE.
Miguel Lopes Cardoso, Portugal
Instituto Superior de Gestão
My name is Miguel Lopes Cardoso, and I’m a current MSc in Finance student at Nova SBE in Lisbon, Portugal. I decided to attend LSE Summer School and study FM230: Alternative Investments to further enhance and develop my interest in finance. In my free time I enjoy cooking, playing tennis and watching my football team Sporting Clube de Portugal play.