General Advice to Become a Beaver

Welcome to this Speakers' Corner, a space intended to freely inform and be informed about academy, leisure and culture as a whole in London.

May I introduce myself? My name is David, a binational MPP student at LSE from Chile and Spain. In this blog, I will be happy to share my own experience regarding the application process, the visa requirements, and the Master experience so you can receive first-hand information about this adventure. My purpose is to provide some useful tips I lacked when going through this process so, please, feel free to ask any specific questions beyond my comments.

First of all, I will begin by explaining why I chose this title for the blog. On the one hand, Condor-cet can be understood as a compound word from "condor", an Andean animal which is a symbol in Chile and CET as Central European Time, the time zone observed in Spain and common timetable for most of the continent. On the other hand, (Marquis de) Condorcet was a French philosopher who defended equal rights for women and religious freedom, as well as standing against slavery and death penalty. Besides, a lot of his theories about electoral systems are commonly applied in Political Science like the Condorcet Paradox. In short, I think this title embodies some of my values and explains why I am studying a Master of Public Policy in London, trying to acquire the tools to contribute to progress in our countries. 

Secondly, as an introductory entry I will give you some clues about this program before explaining the details more deeply in further chapters. At this point, you may be wondering the same I did one year ago: How can I be accepted for a Master at a Top University? If selected, is it worth it? How is it living in London? I guess the answer for all those questions is COHERENCE (sorry for the capital letters).

Related to your application, you must be coherent with your own profile and goals. What have you done so far? What do you intend to do afterwards? You should include all this in your personal statement. Remember there are two main type of candidates who apply for (and are accepted at) a Master: Young outstanding students who aim at completing their undergrads and (equally outstanding) early to mid-career civil servants who intend to make a leap forward in their professional careers. Depending on your profile, you may try to adjust your merits and underlying reasoning when introducing yourself. Believe me, even though my marks were not bad at University (Upper Second-Class Honours), they were not outstanding and therefore I was not accepted in my previous attempts. However, after complementing my background with some UK postgraduates and more than 5 years as a civil servant, I was indeed. So, my advice is keep on advancing and be honest in your application.

 

 

As regards the value of the Master, that also depends on your expectations. Is it well regarded in your country? Will you pursue an international career? Depending on your answers, you may choose an MPP rather than an MPA or the other way around. We will explain the main differences in our next posts, but the main idea here is you must be coherent with your own goals. I can tell you this MPP could meet most of your aspirations as you will learn from top policymakers, contribute to great debate of ideas,  strengthen your quantitative skills, and equally important, receive life lessons from your classmates, but all that will be meaningless without a clear purpose. Furthermore, you will have to decide accordingly since September as you will have to choose some optional courses, attend office hours and send applications for potential jobs or internships. This is well-intentioned advice from my own experience: Be active and responsible from the outset as this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. The university will accompany you for the whole year as there are several job fairs, alumni events and labour advice, but do not take anything for granted. The final outcome will depend on you. This experience can place you in front of several doors but it is only your own effort and right decisions that will ease you the right key.

In terms of living in London, you perfectly know this is an expensive town, but the context is everything as the students are from many different places, ages and social classes. Besides, you can have paid the program supported by a scholarship, a loan or your own savings. Again, be coherent with your own situation and try to adjust to a new reality. But, regardless of your personal position, remember you are a student now and life is not always easy as such. You will probably become familiar with discount vouchers, supermarket apps or national railcards. The best advice I can give you for the time being is "the sooner the better". Residence places are sold out very soon so you should decide immediately after you are accepted in order to get a nice bedroom as close as possible to your university. Once more, do not take anything for granted. Being accepted at a top university does not guarantee an affordable quiet place in such a competitive town. And be sure that you will have to spend a lot of time studying as the program is full of challenges. Although your compulsory lectures and seminars will not require more than 20 hours a week, the different assignments, presentations and projects will keep you really busy. As a result of all that, you will probably see less touristic venues in London in 9 months than in a fortnight trip. To make things worse, it is probable you will not be able to watch national TV as a fee is charged to all British households where the BBC is available. But remember, there are many types of London and you can create your own version. For my part, the perfect evening after a hard working day would include a pepperoni pizza slice at Leicester Square, a book at Foyles near Tottenham Court Road and a last-minute theater ticket at the West End. 

Last but not least, just do not panic! I told you some of the difficulties you can face according to my experience but that will not prevent you from enjoying an invaluable learning experience. Just be humble, resilient and open-minded so you can remember this adventure for years to come. You may not understand some of the advice and recommendations I am giving you but you will as you read the next posts. For now I will just ask you about some things you can learn during this course. For instance, do you know what kabaddi is? What is the national sport in India: Hockey or cricket? What is the origin country of the inventor of anti-gravity suit, the creator of “Saturday Night Live” or Superman’s father? What is the country with the highest fertility rate? And the country with the most cobalt reserves worldwide? Do you know an example of successful economic sanctions applied on a single country? And the opposite? How can we interpret the ongoing tariff war? What about the acronyms UBI, NEST or BATNA? These are just a few examples of concepts, knowledge and reasoning you can acquire in the framework of this MPP and I will little by little give you the answers and their interpretation. 

Remember the LSE motto: "Rerum cognoscere causas", translated as "to know the causes of things", something more and more useful in a changing world. So dare to go even further and read this blog to become a proud beaver.

 

 

Note: The beaver is the LSE official mascot and the student newspaper. Apparently, this animal was chosen to be placed on the coat of arms for LSE in 1922 by Professor Edwin Cannan as a symbol of industrious behaviour. 

Disclaimer: This blog is not sponsored by any company or institution so far, but exclusively my own initiative. It may not seem like that since the very idea of these entries is positive advertisement for LSE, and I will promote some specific companies that eased my life in London, but this information is only intended to make your life easier since the beginning according to my own experience. If I am offered to include some sponsors at some point, I will label them properly.