Past Review
By Allen W (Economics and Philosophy, Austin College) for
IFSA: London - London School of Economics
Definitely a worthwhile experience. I gained alot of understanding about economics and learned how much your group of friends matters in defining how you experience your life. So the biggest lesson I learned was that the people you are around can completely change an experience.
Personal Information
| How much international exposure did you have prior to this program? | 1 month - 6 months |
Review Your Program
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* Overall educational experience
Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc. |
Great depth to the courses. Definitely more rigorous than economics at my home institution (or most American undergraduate degrees it seems). Great reading lists and stimulating academic environment with lots of extra public lectures that touch on themes from many of the classes. The classes also push you to jump into material that seems out of your reach, but which definitely forces you to learn more than you would otherwise (or at least learn to cope with technical papers). The academic environment was in a way a very coherently unstructured. There were two very strong currents of thought oriented towards solving socioeconomic problems and making money, apparent in most conversations you have with students and lectures you hear from professors. I found this very stimulating, and if you can tap into these currents they can definitely take you somewhere. One complaint though is that there are not enough resources directed towards students. Although the classes are well designed, teaching is definitely not a priority at LSE, and the amount of feedback and contact hours ought to be improved. Although some class teachers go out of their way to help, in ways that most undergraduates need, they are being supererogatory. Fortunately, I went in my last year, when I was prepared to do most of the work without much guidance anyways, and when I already had had feedback on my writing from before. I can see why some students can go through an education here without learning how to write well because few people ever take the time out to tell them what they need to look for. |
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* Host Country Program Administration
On-site administration of your program |
The IFSA program did not provide much that was useful, besides finding a group of people to kind of get to know as friends before the start. Wish that the start time would have been earlier, with maybe a trip out of London before school begins. After school began, those trips were mostly a distraction from making friends in London, although it was good to get out every once in awhile. |
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* Housing:
How satisfied were you with your living arrangements? |
Wish there were kitchens, but overall a very nice location (by king's cross). Met some interesting people, glad to be in an intercollegiate dorm b/c I met alot of different people. Too bad many were first years. Clean shared bathrooms, although a bit anal on the overnight guest policy. |
| * Food: |
Dorm food was not very good at times. Also very short dinner times made it difficult to be there for dinner, problematic for a social life too. Wish there were kitchens so that there would be a lower cost alternative to cafeteria food. |
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* Social & Cultural Integration:
How integrated did you feel with the local culture? |
Didn't feel steeped in English culture, although it was a great cosmopolitan environment with lots of international people. Experience of culture mainly from making friends from other cultures, which definitely happened alot. |
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* Health Care:
How well were health issues addressed during the program? |
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| * Safety: |
British health system was great. Lived in a safe neighborhood. |
| If you could do it all over again would you choose the same program? |
Yes
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Finances
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* Money: How easily were you able to live on a student's budget?
(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost) |
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Other Program Information
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* Where did you live?
Select all that apply |
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* Who did you live with?
Select all that apply |
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A Look Back
| * What do you know now that you wish you knew before going on this program? | Try to get involved in the school's social life as much as possible, without necessarily committing yourself to one thing |
Individual Course Reviews
| Course Name/Rating: |
Principles of Econometrics |
| Course Department: | Economics 221 |
| Instructor: | Marcia Shafgans and Tatiana Komarova (lecturers) Jungyoon Lee (Class teacher) Tang Srurisma (supplemental lecturer) |
| Instruction Language: | English |
| Comments: | Probably my most challenging course. Teachers very knowledgeable and presented material in a very logical and easy to learn manner (compared to the textbooks in my opinion). Wish that the lectures were recorded so we could review them though, because the course kind of took off to a flying start. Definitely learned more in this whole year course than a semester course in econometrics, although the second semester could have covered a bit more material. Also wish that there was more time spent on the trinity of classical testing at the end of michaelmas term. Great balance of external workload to lectures. I found the support lectures extremely helpful, because Tang has a different approach towards explaining the same material and can cover any puzzles we may have after a lecture (more of a problem in Michaelmas term) |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | n/a |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Public Economics |
| Course Department: | EC 325 |
| Instructor: | Jonathan Leape and Henrik Kleven (Lecturers) Matthew Skellern (class teacher) |
| Instruction Language: | English |
| Comments: | Overall the course covers what at first seems like many topics but in the end boil down to the two topics of market failures and the areas that justify government intervention, and taxation. Does a pretty decent job covering both topics, although I found the beginning of the semester to be a bit unnecessary and with issues of social justice poorly explained compared to how they would be in most political philosophy courses. I also thought one of the topics, lottery finance, was completely unnecessary, poorly explained, and seems to me to be logically flawed. Not enough required coursework in my opinion. Needs maybe 1 more required essay and more exercises to ensure that people are keeping up with the course material. Also, I kept on falling asleep in every single lecture. Not sure if it was just the time of day or the lecturers' fault. Nevertheless, the course does a great job covering the rest of the topics, with plenty of examples and great emphasis on how effective empirical studies are conducted in economics and the assumptions that underlie them. Present a very intuitive way into many of these topics, and I found the classes by the class teachers to be highly instructive, with usually good exercises and very good explanations. Public economics is generally just interesting because it seems to have a variety of applications outside of the purely public sphere. It also plays a large role in topics of contemporary public debate, so it's great to learn some economics that you can use to argue with ("educate") laypeople. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | not yet completed |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Philosophy of the Social Sciences |
| Course Department: | Philosophy 230 |
| Instructor: | Jason Mckenzie Alexander |
| Instruction Language: | English |
| Comments: | Compared to philosophy courses at my home institution, this was a disappointment. The department here is very focused on philosophy of science, but I found the treatment of philosophy of social sciences to be a bit disappointing, especially considering the school is a social science school. Perhaps part of the problem is that this is a large area to cover, with many important topics and new problems that ought to be solved, but I found that we spent too much time on evolutionary explanations and not enough on different epistemological problems with the modeling of complex systems. Also I found that the lectures followed the readings too closely, without integrating the material or explaining how the readings solve specific problems in the philosophy of social science. I thought we spent too much time on Donald Davidson without it having the kind of impact that Dr. Alexander thought it might (and many philosophers of social science think it might on the social sciences generally) The classes were good and had great direction of discussion, but were definitely not long enough. Also, I found that sometimes jumping on the bandwagon was encouraged by the lecturer and class teacher (most likely inadvertently), but this is a fatal flaw for a philosophy course. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | n/a |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Economic History |
| Course Department: | Economic History 101 |
| Instructor: | Albrecht Ritschl and Tim Leunig (Lecturers) Sarah Merette (Class Teacher) |
| Instruction Language: | English |
| Comments: | Covers an immense time period, in terms of what is of interest to most economic historians and contemporary economists, both for its richness in data and its gigantic economic upheavals. Definitely the course has taken too big a bite to swallow, and most of the time you feel a bit like you're lost in the woods without a bigger picture of what's going on (especially in the readings) and where things are going, except when you go back and listen to the lectures a second or third time later down the road. The lectures are surprisingly entertaining, easy to follow, and deceptively packed with information. In the end, the course does a pretty good job swallowing such a chunk of history, although most students will be left in a tizzy of information overload. Also, not big on the critical thinking, as this course rewards more for brute memory than for critical thinking than in my other courses (which isn't all that bad a skill to learn). Although Albrecht Ritschl's lectures are less entertaining, they are also extremely well put together and contain tons of information. I found that many students kind of stopped listening /started complaining because they weren't as entertaining and definitely missed out big time. I also feel sorry for Albrecht because they really are very good lectures. The classes are designed to cover waay too much material. The reading lists are poorly thought out, because they let you choose 2 out of 4 or 5 readings for the week. This is supposed to make class discussions more stimulating b/c people have read different things, but mostly it just makes the students talk past one another. Also, some of the readings are way beyond the depth of a first year student, while others are very good overviews. But you don't know which is which until you have read them, so some students get lucky and some don't. Some readings should be mandatory. Class teacher had a very high standard for the class, which was good because it pushed people to work hard. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | n/a |
