If you hadn’t been to LSE before you actually started studying there (like I did), the campus is one of the first things you see in September that makes you feel immediately at home. I remember commuting to campus on the first day of freshers’ week and finally seeing the big “London School of Economics and Political Science” sign on the building and thinking “Wow, this is it!”.
As a student, I may be biased, but I think that the LSE campus is quite special.
Having studied at Oxford before, I was used to a more decentralised university structure, with different departments and university buildings scattered across the city. By contrast, when you enter the LSE campus, you have everything within arm’s reach, quite literally – walking from one class to another will take you maybe 5 minutes, if not less.
When you take a look at the campus map for the first time, you may be confused – I definitely was. It is full of acronyms so having a list of them is vital to navigating the map. But don’t worry, you will learn all of them by heart quite quickly.
The academic facilities on campus are splendid, to put it simply. Not only are the classrooms and lecture halls modern and well-adjusted for teaching needs, but there are also plenty of convenient study spots everywhere on campus, from proper communal study spaces to small spots in all buildings. For those who prefer a more peaceful and quiet space, there’s also a library, of course.
The library deserves a paragraph of its own. The British Library of Political and Economic Science officially, it is full of relevant resources for all courses that LSE offers thanks to its specialist nature. The space and the process of borrowing books are both easy to navigate which makes the library a welcoming and accessible space. Importantly, the digital resources it has are vast, too.
What’s more, the campus is full of great non-academic facilities. There’s a bookshop, a store with LSE merchandise, a pub, several cafés and bars, etc. It makes socialising easy, for example, grabbing a coffee with a friend after your class. This means that the campus is not just an academic centre of students’ lives, but oftentimes a social one, too.
There are as many as eleven different places to eat and drink on campus, and all of them are cheap and affordable for a student budget. For example, you can grab a full English breakfast for just £3.10 in the Fourth Floor Restaurant in the Old Building.
Other facilities available for students on campus include gym and sports clubs, the faith centre, Saw Swee Hock Student Centre and LSE Student Union facilities. One of my favourite places that not everyone is aware of is the roof terrace at the top of the Centre Building which offers an amazing view of the skyline of London.
Last but not least, as the campus is conveniently located in central London, it will take you 15 minutes to get to so many world-renowned landmarks and other sites and attractions after your classes end.
