Technical skills are becoming less of an extra and more like a must in people’s CV. The truth is, you will hardly stand out for knowing how to use Excel or PowerPoint because these are skills that most employers consider as a given for their hires to possess even before applying for a job. But there’s no reason to panic in case you’re not a spreadsheet master or a presentation guru. The good thing about being an LSE student is that you’ll have plenty of opportunities to tap into your most technical side. Of course, a basic knowledge and intuition around these programmes might help. But for the things you still don’t know or that you’re uncertain about, LSE’s Digital Skills Lab will most definitely have a workshop or offer a drop-in session with one of their specialists to help you navigate your way through the most common software packages and the most popular technical skills out there.
On a personal level, I can vouch for the helpfulness of the events organised by the Digital Skills Lab. During Winter Term, I attended an Excel bootcamp that was quite helpful in showcasing all of the things one can do with a spreadsheet. Over an entire weekend, attendees were taught how to use Excel to uncover patterns in data, generate business insights, and summarise findings when preparing useful recommendations. The bootcamp was very dynamic, which helped students to grasp Excel formulas and the general rationale behind them. With a hands-on approach, they were encouraged to adopt a trial and error approach to learning. In case there were any doubts, there were members of staff readily able to help with all sorts of things, ranging from technical difficulties to coding issues. The bootcamp was quite helpful for a lot of reasons, but one of its biggest merits was introducing students to usual business settings in which Excel might be used.
As students, it can be difficult to visualise how some of the skills we’re developing can be used outside academia – so these bootcamps provide a valuable opportunity to connect technical skills with relevant career prospects. LSE’s Digital Skills Lab offers several workshops, bootcamps, and sessions throughout the year, and they operate on a “first come, first serve” basis. So you need to make sure to check out their website to see the Lab’s upcoming events and book your place for those you’re the most interested in before they run out of spots. From Excel and Power BI to R and Python, the Digital Skills Lab will definitely meet your demands and help you develop the technical skills you need in order to help you become your most technical self.
However, there are other ways to hone your technical skills at LSE. Instead of relying solely on the Digital Skills Lab’s support, students can also choose to take courses in the Department of Methodology that focus on developing the intuition rather than the technicalities behind softwares. For example, Applied Regression Analysis and Social Network Analysis teach students how to use R to drive insights about regression models and social network analysis, respectively. These are not courses in R, but they are a great way to introduce students to how coding languages can help social scientists in their understanding of the world. These courses – and many others in the Department of Methodology – will not teach you how to become a master in R or any other software because they are more interested in the applicable side of what these programmes can do. But they are nice ways to get students to think about developing their technical skills. And for those who decide to take technical training at LSE, the School also sponsors online courses with external partners to help students learning a new technical skill.
The key point about these skills is that even though they’re not necessarily something you need to have, it’s a good thing to at least know your way around them. If that’s your case, I thoroughly recommend the applied courses from the Department of Methodology. If you’re a self-taught tech-savvy individual interested in specialising in a specific software, the Digital Skills Lab is a great place to shout for help when you feel like you hit a dead end. Either way, LSE will be there to assist students in their journey to become the best and most complete professionals and researchers in their respective fields.
