LSE

The London School of Economics and Political Science (more commonly known as the LSE) lies neatly tucked in a small space between the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand and Holborn Underground Station on Kingsway. The most convenient train station is perhaps King’s Cross (3 hours south from Newcastle), but most of the mainline stations are within fairly easy reach.

The LSE tackles everything to do with economics, politics, and the social sciences, but not much else, making it one of the strongest universities in the world to come and study those subjects. On campus you really get the sense that LSE students are going places, and they seem to know it too, giving the LSE a zealous and active vibe. About half of the student body is postgraduate, and perhaps that many again are from overseas, giving the school a real blend of age groups and backgrounds.

Former students include 15 Nobel prize winners, Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, historian David Starkey, and Cherie Blair QC.

"I was a postgrad at LSE, researching into the "Economic Effects of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway 1830-1846" for my MSc. However more modern events threatened to derail my efforts, as we had threats of sit ins and the like throughout the year. What startled me was the terrified reaction of some of the older lecturers, who were convinced that we would all be beaten up if the protesters entered, and that they would destroy everything in sight. So they had all the paintings in the boardroom taken to safety, then locked and padlocked the main doors. At Oxford (where I did my first degree) we'd have let them in and ignored them; they'd have left when they got bored. But those older teachers had been refugees from Nazi Germany, who had suffered at Berlin University from the blackshirts and the like. So maybe I should have been more conscious of modern history, and its effects on those still living with terrible memories." Edwina Curry, LSE