LSE is a great place for making connections. In your time here you will make lifelong friendships and you´ll meet future colleagues, co-workers or maybe co-founders of your next start-up. You never know! I´ll share with you 5 tips that have helped me networking in LSE.
Learn people´s names: This can be particularly challenging in a place like LSE where people come from more than 130 different nationalities and most names are unfamiliar to you. Make sure you pronounce the name correctly. Calling someone by their name is a great way of starting to make meaningful connections. Dale Carnegie says “A person´s name is to that person, the sweetest, most important sound of any language”.
Have a 1 to 1 chat with everyone in your seminars at least once. Seminars are a great way of meeting people. Try arriving some minutes early to the classroom and see who is around. Ask them what they think about the class. When the seminar is over don’t rush to leave the classroom. Stick around and ask people where they are going. You can walk with them or suggest getting a coffee before hitting the books.
Take the initiative for making plans. If you are in the mood for going out and don´t have any plans yet, take the initiative. In LSE we usually have WhatsApp groups for everything. You can make open invitations in a group and see who wants to join. If people don’t respond, don´t take it personal, they are probably busy reading.
Have a genuine interest in people´s background. LSE is a place full of very interesting people. Everyone has a unique story to tell. Your job is to figure out that story. I recommend that you ask questions about them, holding eye contact and being a good listener! One of my professors in LSE once told us that during our time here in London, we will learn more from our classmates, than from the readings!
Smile. This is the easiest tip, but one of the most useful ones. Smiling makes us feel good. It is nature´s miracle medicine, and it also makes us be seen as positive people. For making better connections with people, try smiling more!
