To follow on from my previous post where I explained in great detail what you should not do at LSE, here is advice on what you definitely should do. LSE is incredibly diverse and central, and there is so much to do that it can be really overwhelming and it can be easy to hole yourself up in your room and watch Netflix. But there are so many opportunities to take advantage of, in addition to the normal university experiences no-one should miss.
1. Be gap year, not “gap yah”. I’d say about 20 percent of first-years took a gap year, so hearing about everyone’s amazing trips to Africa gets old quite quickly. Bring it up when someone asks, but don’t continually talk about how it “completed you”.
2. Eat at Wright’s Bar. It is an experience—a greasy, cheap, quintessentially student experience. You won’t get fries at £1.20 anywhere else.
3. Explore places to eat around the LSE. Café Amicci, just next to Subway and Wasabi, is an incredibly good place to eat decent, hot sandwiches for reasonable prices.
4. Cultural things. There are so many free exhibitions to take advantage of! Go see the Wellcome Collection near Bloomsbury, or drop into the Tate—just a twenty minute walk from the LSE. Facebook events can be really useful for finding out what is going on.
5. Make new connections. As a first year student in your first term, you’re very unlikely to ever have as little work to do. And your work is unlikely to ever matter so little. So go out with your friends, spend hours in the corridor talking about everything and nothing, talk about things that don’t matter and things that definitely do.
6. Visit the Shaw Library. On the 6th floor of the Old Building, this hidden room is an absolute gem. And it has the comfiest armchairs!
7. Sit in the Lincoln’s Inn Fields for a few hours during lunchtime. It’s amazing how many green spaces London has, and how comforting it can be to sit in the midst of nature and pretend you’re in the countryside when you’re actually in central London.
8. Chill sometimes. Sometimes you need to take a break from essays and assignments and deadlines and just sit in your room with the headphones on, re-watching Parks and Recreation. Don’t feel bad about it. Everyone needs their own space.
