Five on Friday!

The weeks fly by so quickly anymore, don't they?

This was my last full week at home as next weekend I fly back to London to begin my second year of graduate school. It's crazy how the summer has flown by! More on that later though...let's get to my Friday favorites! Some of these are actual things while the rest are just moments that I'm loving reflecting on this week!

  

1. Can we talk about the Newsroom Season Finale? I was surprisingly pleased with the way Sorkin wrote this season finale. I'm used to his writing style from the West Wing, and I am so happy he let the characters play out....the way that I think most viewers were hoping for!

2. Fall Television Shows are coming back! I know I posted last week about the sneak peak of the season premiere of the Mindy Project. The season premiere of New Girl was on this past Tuesday. What fall shows are you loving? 

3. This is sort of a thank you one. I'm loving and appreciating the numerous comments I've received from so many numerous readers of my blog this week!

4. For those of you who don't know, I'm an avid fan of Yelp. I achieved Elite status earlier this year based on my reviews. Anyways, I received the weekly email this week for London which was all about my neighborhood, and one of my tips was included! Some might view it as silly, but I'm hopeful that even if one person can grab a tip of of what to do at Portobello Road based off my experiences, I'm happy! And for the other tips in the email for my neighborhood, I've put those on my list to check out.

5. And, last but not least...I'm super excited to get to know the incoming class in my Master's program.  It's hard to believe that it has been officially one year since I registered, attended orientation, and started math camp.  The incoming class attends registration today, and I've been emailing my first-year buddy with tips and answers to her questions. Let's just say that the MPA program rocks! 

Final Week of Michaelmas Term

Time flies when you are in grad school. 

I always thought that phrase was true for my four years at Syracuse, but I find myself wishing time would slow down even more now, that I'm at LSE.  I landed in London on September 17th, and next week, December 17th, I'm flying home for winter break. It literally feels like that I just moved in the other day- with lugging my numerous bags full of purchases to make my flat "me." Yet, here we are. The final week of the first term of grad school under my belt, well almost. 

I've been going to school for 12 weeks straight now. Most other programs have been only going for 10 weeks, but since we had our pre-semester math camp, life hasn't slowed down since September 24th. Hard work pays off. I find myself much more confident approaching math related solutions in my courses, econometrics has become my favorite course, and I'm not as stressed as I was at the beginning. Friendships have been solidified, the main bartender at the George knows me, and I have my usual daily routine worked out.  

But, I've got to say, I need a break. 

Over break, I plan on doing a lot of review for all four of the courses as well as begin to work ahead and look at past final exams. Without taking finals this semester, I've only had some work graded with much it being formative. STATA problem sets have helped me wrap my head around concepts of heteroskedasticity, collinerarity, B subscript zero, and omitted variable bias, but mastering still has to come. Break will also be good as I can see my family, attend a basketball game as an alumni, sleep, and just relax. 

Yet, before my head and body officially agree that it is break time, I've got to get through this week. Here's the schedule for the final week:

Looks fairly tame? Huh?

I've got two group projects due this week. One that is presented in class and graded on the spot. The other, we present, receive feedback, and submit the final project after making changes. I'm going to see Mumford and Sons this week, juggle a group dinner, attend two holiday parties, and get to one birthday bash. All of that is in addition to STATA, weekly economics homework, meetings and sleep. 

But, you know what? Why not finish with a bang?

Courses!

Now that the school year has officially started, we can get down to business discussing what I will be taking for the next year. Unlike the United States, our semesters do not mean I get to take different courses each semester. Instead, the concentration of the classes are spread across both the Michaelmas/Lent terms with exams falling in the summer term. Most grades for all courses are decided on those exams in the summer term. The advantage of this is I will not have as many assignments as frequent- no weekly blog entries, no papers every two weeks, etc. I will also get a month or so off following the Lent term. One of the hardest things that I am facing is that without a lot of continuous assignments, or midterms,  it'd be easy to forget about a reading assignment. I'll be using time management to its fullest these next two years. 

My program requires us to take four units during our first year as a student. All of us have to take three basic courses. Micro/macro economics, Econometrics, and a political science course.  My stream is the only one that his the required course for the stream to be taken in the second year. My required course is more economics, and it would be foolish to try to take it without a solid background. Thus, my choice to fulfill my last unit was a little hard. I could take two half-unit courses, or I could take one of the other streams' required courses.  In the end after a lot of thinking, talking to my advisor, and going to the newly founded MPA course fair, I chose to take a class on public management. Ideally, it should be a base for further work in the government. 

I've copied the course descriptions from the LSE website! Take a look!

(All of these are taken directly from the LSE website here: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/study/units/IPA/MPA_PEP.aspx. No copyright infringement or lack of source.)

GV478: Political Science and Public Policy

• In this course we develop tools to analyse important political phenomena including elections, legislative bargaining, lobbying, bureaucracy, civil conflict, and international relations. We focus on game theory as a way of understanding strategic interactions among political actors. Students will learn basic game theoretical concepts and apply them to a variety of political contexts; these tools should be useful both for explaining existing political outcomes and for designing interventions to achieve desired future outcomes.

EC440: Micro and Macro Economics

• An introductory graduate course providing an economics background suitable for high-level public policy-making. The emphasis is on acquiring sound models and methods suitable for appraising policy-making issues and applicable in a wide variety of contexts. The first term (MT) covers microeconomics and the second term (LT) covers macroeconomics.
• MT: Microeconomics: Week 1: Demand and Supply in Competitive Markets. Week 2: Consumer Optimisation: Demand for Goods. Week 3: Consumer Optimisation and Labor Supply. Week 4: Firms' Optimisation the Supply of Goods and the Demand for Labour. Week 5: Monopoly. Week 6: Uncertainty and Insurance. Week 7: Markets and Asymmetric Information. Week 8: Monopolistic Competition and Game Theory. Week 9: Externalities in Consumption and Production. Week 10: Public Goods.
• LT: Macroeconomics: Week 1: Growth and poverty. Week 2: Institutions and economic performance. Week 3: Regulation and economic performance. Week 4: Human capital and growth. Week 5: Productivity and innovation. Week 6: Unemployment. Week 7: Finance and economic performance. Week 8: Openness and economic performance. Week 9: Economic fluctuations. Week 10: Stabilization and reform.

EC455: Quantitative Approaches and Policy Analysis

• The course introduces students to the quantitative evaluation of public policies with the help of regression based evaluation methods, cost-benefit analysis and computable general equilibrium modelling. The first six weeks of the course introduce students to basic multiple regression analysis including hypothesis testing, modelling of non-linear relationships, and dummy variables. From week 7 of MT the course covers a number of regression based evaluation methods to assess the casual effectiveness of policy interventions. These include the use of randomized experiments, natural or quasi-experiments, panel data, difference-in-differences estimation, instrumental variables, matching and regression discontinuity designs. The final part of the course provides an overview over cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis and an introduction to the use of computable equilibrium models to assess policy interventions.

MG419: Public Management- Strategy, Innovation, and Delivery

• The course develops the perspectives, knowledge, and intellectual skill required for rational discourse about intelligent practical action in the core public sector. In Michaelmas Term, the course focuses on the design of organizational strategies in public sector contexts. This general issue is subdivided into the design of organizational strategies for start-up, realignment, and success-sustaining transitions. In Lent Term, the course delves specifically into scholarship and teaching cases about the design and operation of practices whose logic is to perform three functions instrumental to sustained organizational achievement: strategy development, developing innovative capabilities, and delivery (encompassing both production and management control). Overall, the course provides a foundation for further coursework about management in the public sector as well as the ability to engage constructively and critically in the development of public management practice.

Math Camp.

My past week has been renamed as math camp. As my pre-semester math review course begins for the second week tomorrow, I must say that math camp has been both easy and intense. Highs and lows of remembering basic concepts from high school to those moments where I said, "I just had to choose taking language over math at Syracuse." Nevertheless, it's been a good review as these concepts we have spent numerous hours on in lectures, seminars, and problem sets are the base for the classes this semester. After all, it is the London School of Economics.

My week was pretty basic since I did spend most of time either in class or at home doing homework. Several nights, I was left frustrated because I never took calculus. And, I don't know if you have ever had to learn basic concepts that should be taught over a year in a week, but I have. I'm surviving, though. Our test is this coming Friday and will be used only for advice on harder level economics courses...

I did have some fun during the week.

After all, all work and no play, makes Katie a dull person. 

I was able to check out a lot of campus this week including a lot of the restaurants both on and off. I discovered the Fleet River Bakery with three girls in my program for lunch one day. Let's just say that you can't beat seven pounds for a fish sandwich, potatoes, and a huge hot chocolate.  Also finally made it to Lincoln's Inn Fields. It's a park on campus which has the potential for outdoor reading sessions when it isn't raining out.

Lincoln Inn's Fields

The highlight of Monday- Friday was my Thursday. After morning class and lunch, I headed over to Syracuse London! It was a weird and good feeling to be back inside Faraday. I spent an hour or so catching up with the director as well as a few staff members I really got to know while I was there. I'm going to be volunteering as a student guide and on some other events in the future as well as try to begin to form an official SU alumni group in London.

Thursday evening after a math seminar, I headed back to Syracuse London for an Encompass film event. For those who don't know, I participated as one of the US delegates in the Fall 2010 Encompass Journey of Understanding.  The film event was a new recruiting video to get more to apply to this life-changing experience. What was great about the program was that I was able to be reunited with two people who were a part of the program that I haven't seen in two years. Nicole was there as well- she did the program with me.

Aisha was still in high school when she participated in the program, but now she is interning with Encompass, and Ericka was the US/UK coordinator for 2010.  I was also able to meet the new Syracuse students selected for the amazing experience this summer.

I'm featured with Aisha on the Encompass Business Card!

And, the best ending to my Thursday evening was being reunited with my favorite professor, Wolfgang! I knew he was teaching on Thursday evenings, so I saw him briefly during a fire drill. We talked only for a few minutes, but it was great being able to talk to one of the biggest influences on my life. He provided so much support during the grad school process to my capstone, and when I was applying to be  a Remembrance Scholar. He and I are getting coffee in the coming weeks which will be great!

Wolfgang and I in Belfast, 2010.