If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in my freshers’ week at London School of Economics, it’s that you guys love to queue. Whether it was queuing for registration, queuing to get into the post-graduate party (and failing), or even joining the virtual queue of students waiting to sign up for modules on LSE for you, I have to say that there was quite a lot of waiting around involved.
I can’t say my first day at LSE got off to a bright start. Firstly, it was raining like hell and I was five minutes late for my introductory lecture (really need to start honing those all-important time management skills). Following a welcome lecture by my department and the weird and wonderful Dr. Sunil Kumar, post-graduate students were forced to queue for two and a half hours to register for our respective courses. I’m sure this was a genuine mistake, but if LSE wanted to get their students meeting and talking to each other, this was definitely the way to do it. Whilst crawling up what seemed to be never-ending series of staircases to reach the beginning of the queue on the sixth floor (yes: sixth floor) was not exactly the way I envisioned my day concluding, this was actually a blessing in disguise (I definitely say this in hindsight). Because, as un-British as this may be, being forced to stand next to someone kind of makes it impossible not to at least attempt to sustain a conversation. As someone who doesn’t mind a bit of good, old-fashioned small talk, I actually really enjoyed chatting to those around me and managed to meet some people on my course who I’ve become great friends with.
Despite the madness of freshers’ week I was, and still am, genuinely looking forward to getting started on my MSc in Media and Communications this semester. After taking a four month summer off which consisted of a brief holiday and, for the most part, doing nothing particularly productive but always somehow being busy, I feel more than ready to dive back into the academic world of lectures, seminars, libraries and of course lots and lots of learning (sidenote: notice how I don’t mention essays. I can’t say I’m ecstatic about slaving away until the early hours in front of a computer screen and about ten mugs of abandoned coffee).
If LSE does one thing, it makes you excited about life here and opportunities in the future. Every single lecture I attended, no matter how mundane and admin-related the topic, was delivered with enthusiasm. I left the Freshers’ Fair with a bag laden with leaflets, a stomach stuffed with free food and a head full of dreams: consumed with thoughts about all of the fantastic things that LSE can offer both now and for years to come. I can’t wait.
