Two admin days at LSE

Thursday October 2nd

The first of two admin / departmental meetings today and the first early-start commuting run for me on the coach from Oxford. Now I have my student card I can get discounts on my travel, which feels a bit odd.

Our 10:30 meeting was for all the post graduates in the philosophy department and was mainly an introduction to staff, outlines of the different courses and their respective option choices, and some bits and bobs about things like the library, the careers service and councilling services. Apparently the latter includes a number of lectures directly relevant to MSc students, such as how to start your dissertation.

So this was the first time to see my fellow MSc students. First surprise is how many there were - maybe 45? Most seem to be doing the Philosophy and Public Policy course, but there are about 10 or 12 doing my course. Mostly guys from what I could tell off the tutor list. As expected, my supervisor is Miklos Redei who was tutor for this course last year. The male / female ratio is about 70:30 in the department as a whole - that is probably about the same as it was when I was last here.

After a couple of hours of presentations, we have 30 mins free before a department lunch in the Shaw Library. I just have time to wizz round some of the Freshers' Fair, joining the LSE Hedge fund society on the way! This seems to be run by some of the Asian students and does seem to have developed some good links with industry people - e.g. Man Group sends speakers to it.

This was only the second time I have ever been to the Shaw Library. We all try to mingle and talk to a few people. It turns out that I am not the oldest student after all. There is one guy in his fifties and a women in her late fourties. But they are doing different courses to me. I do feel a bit better for having met them though! I had a brief talk with John Worrall, who doesn't remember me from the early 1980s (as expected), but was able to tell me where all the people were that I knew then. Peter Urbach and Elie Zahar have both more or less dropped out of the academic circuit - apparently they are both "gentlemen scholars" now.

So the lunch went ok - I found a few people to talk to. But this side of things will, no doubt, be quite difficult, and not just because I am older than average.

Just time to have a change of books in the library and then home. Starting to feel more like a student now!

Friday October 3rd

I was quite tempted to stay home and work today rather than trail up to London for another departmental meeting, but though I was correct in thinking there wouldn't be much at the meeting that I did need, there were one or two hugely important things.

Perhaps most importantly, Nassim Taleb is speaking at the LSE at some point very soon - maybe next week. The rather flaky organiser of the Philosophy Society (the student group) wasn't entirely sure about the details though. I hadn't seen this society at the Freshers' Fair but it does seem an interesting one and they publish a regular magazine featuring the best essays produced by students - I thought that was pretty slick.

Hopefully Taleb will be on a day I am planning to be at LSE anyway, but I definitely want to see him regardless of when it is.

And so to the department drinks in the Underground Bar under the Three Tuns. This was awful! I only know one or two people from yesterday and I wasn't sure that any of them were there. So I'm afraid that I only managed about 30 minutes in the bar and then made a quick exit. A slow walk back to Marble Arch via a noodle bar in Chinatown and that was that. I was even able to sleep a bit on the coach home - the first time I've managed that so far, and a very important part of being able to cope with commuting again.