Settling into a Routine

Apologies for the delay in posting. As you can imagine now that the semester has started, my hours of free time to blog, watch my favorite television episodes, and sleep, in some instances, has been limited. Now that week two is wrapping down, I can honestly say that I am settling into a routine of classes, homework, networking events, etc.  It doesn't go without saying that the first two weeks have been stressful enough already, but I love it. Being challenged is something that I've always wanted out of academia, and LSE sure does know how to do that.

As for a routine, it's important to note that for everyday of the work/school week, I'm up by 6:30/7 everyday and go to bed around 2/3. You and I can both do the math on that. It's clearly preparation for my future political campaign. Thank goodness for weekends and those occasional 10 minute naps on the tube.  Here's my class schedule:

Mondays: 

10:00-12:00 - EC455: Econometrics Lecture

14:00-15:00- EC455: Econometrics Seminar

with the option of a help-session in the evening for STATA, a statistical program 

Tuesdays:

9:00- 11:00- EC440: Microeconomics/Macroeconomics

13:00- 14:30- GV478: Political Science and Public Policy Seminar

EC440 help session in the evening

Wednesdays:

11:00- 12:00- EC440: Seminar

14:00- 17:00- MG419: Management Class

Thursdays:

Day off currently. This will be the day where I will intern the most!

Fridays:

10:00- 12:00- GV478: Political Science and Public Policy Lecture

All in all, I have a lot of free time to do work for my remote internship, read (a lot!), and go to Starbucks.  With having class in the morning, I feel accomplished by midday. It's been a bit different as I have never had class really before 9 or 10 at Syracuse with the exception of one or two classes.  The Starbucks on campus knows my order when I stroll in around 8 or 9 each morning to get a last minute review session before class each day. I've started to find my favorite areas to do work in. 

The homework load has been a lot. I expected it to be a lot, and it certainly met those expectations. We have problem sets for our main core courses with EC455 ones being graded randomly to make up a percentage of my final grade. We found the fun news today that EC440 problem sets will only be graded to provide feedback, and that the entire grade for the class will be based on the final. It's a lot to think about, but my goal will be to stay on top of everything as best as I can to save trouble come May and June when I'm studying. Back to the books, I go!

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.

Courses

After spending the last 17 years in American education including the semester I did study abroad in London (through Syracuse University), I'm going to be in for a big wake up these next two years.  There is still essentially a semester schedule (called terms), but the courses generally run for the entire year. Meaning, that I won't take finals in December and then in May. I won't have numerous papers, additional assignments over and over as I did when I was at Syracuse. I won't mind not having those weeks where I had three papers, two tests, and a project on top of everything else I did in college (yes, I know I was and still am an overachiever).  

I've spent a lot of team reading two blogs that I stumbled across while preparing for my adventure which starts in 59 days now. Wendy at Asian Polygot and Shannon at The Traveling Scholar have been invaluable with their past posts describing their transitions to LSE.  One of the things that I noticed from both of their blogs is the dedication to studying one your own as well as excellent time management. I'd like to think that having juggled numerous semesters taking 19 credits, two internships, etc. will help me with the time management. I'd like to also think that the dedication that I did to finish my capstone thesis will help me to stay motivated to work on my own. Yet, all in all, as part of my adventure for the next two years, the structure of the courses will help me to grow. I'm in a professional program in order to prepare me more for the challenges of a hard work world and economy. 

At the moment, I know three of the courses that I will be taking as part of my first year. I'm on the Public and Economic Policy track, but as with all incoming MPA students, there are three essential courses. 

1. GV478- Political Science and Public Policy
2. EC440- Micro and Macro Economics for Public Policy
3. EC455- Quantitative Approaches and Policy Analysis

I've ordered the book for the political science course to read ahead of time. As for the economics and what is perceived to have some math, I've started to review basic economic principles and math concepts.

I arrive in London two weeks prior to the general courses starting as I also have to take a pre-semester course to prepare for the academic rigors.  The other unit (must equal one) for me, will most likely pertain to political science. Some of the past courses I've noticed dealt with international institutions, the US legislative process, and the European Union. I'm really excited to see what other course I'll sign up. Registration occurs in person- something entirely different than Syracuse.

Stay tuned for more updates!