Alongside not even knowing what course or subject I wanted to study, when applying to university I had little knowledge of how higher education even worked.
So how did I decide that LSE was the one for me?
When the first talks and discussions around applying to university arose, the only top universities I knew were Oxford and Cambridge neither of which were in my best interest. Like many people I made a beeline for the university rankings and spent ages comparing ratings across different departments and different places, as I was stuck between choosing a sociology course or a psychology course, I made two separate lists. When choosing universities, I looked at their ranking alongside their entry requirements as I didn’t want to apply for somewhere where I had no chance of getting in or if I did get in I’d feel out of my depth.
For me the ranking wasn’t necessarily important, whilst the idea of going to a prestigious university sounded appealing, it wasn’t a priority, and the course content was what I was looking into the most, as well as feeling comfortable whilst doing my course.
Location was a significant factor for me when I was choosing where to go, attending somewhere within commuting distance would allow me to save a large amount of money as the difference between train fares and student accommodation is large. To many people this may not be an ideal situation as there is a fear of missing out on nightlife, but not everyone is into partying 24/7.
My final 5 choices were all within London and Surrey, meaning they were all accessible from my own home however, it must be said that LSE was the easiest to access from Waterloo station though this didn’t cross my mind until term started.
As I mentioned at the start, the course content was the most important. When reading the BSc Sociology course information certain aspects of it stood out to me, particularly the second-year ‘researching London’ module as I thought this was extremely unique and interesting, especially as it would give students the chance to apply their new knowledge and skills to the city that they’re studying in.
The ability to take outside options also struck my interest as I believed this would be a good way to broaden my outside knowledge of a different subject which I may not have had the opportunity to previously study, as well as the flexibility within choosing more sociological-based modules in the second year but also still having that opportunity to choose a module from a course that is different from your own.
