- Percentage of First Year Students in Halls:
- If you live outside Greater London - guaranteed 100%
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- Accommodation Details:
- Try to make sure that you stay in halls of residence, you are pretty much guaranteed places in your first year and you will make a lot of good friends. The downside of this being that halls can be very noisy and claustrophobic. In general the halls of residence at the LSE are rather grand but are scattered all over the City.
Bankside - The newest, biggest hall, located on the Southside of the Thames, is equipped with all the following pros:
Big rooms, postgrads and undergrads on different floors, ensuite bathrooms, multigym, daily kitchen cleaning, good maintenance, computer room, shuttlebus service from outside and the best food at the School.
...and the following cons:
You have to pay for it - rent approaches £100 per week plus other costs for services, a history of wild parties means no more parties now - ever and the nearest supermarket is at least 15 mins away.
Over and above all that though the important news is that according to the best informed sources Bankside's bar, The Belching Beaver is great. Although the hall is behind the Tate Modern which is good the front looks out over a big construction project boring a tunnel under the Thames which is pretty noisy and at the back there's a massive site where the new IPC media HQ is being built. Scheduled for completion in 2007 this will mean a pretty noisy environment for a while.
Butler's Wharf - Very swanky hall on the riverside near Tower Bridge in Shad Thames. Decent local pubs and bars make up for lack of a hall bar, rooms are poky, but this in mind, you'll probably get more work done and spend more time getting out and about on the Town.
Carr-Sanders - The West End hall, completely run down - a bit manky but oozing atmosphere. It has a bar and a common room and a rooftop garden. Cheapest hall in terms of food, drink and rent. Close-knit community but not for those who miss luxury in life. You'll love it or hate it.
Passfield - Georgian Terrace in Bloomsbury. Costly rent - but this includes meals which have something to be desired apparently. Mainly double and treble rooms - so you will have to share here. You'll also be sharing the cosy hall bar. The bars at ULU and UCL as well as fast food restaurants are thus popular with Passfield residents. Gets very hot in the summer.
High Holborn - You'll save a fortune on transport costs if you live here. You are within walking distance of your lecture theatres and within stumbling distance of the Union's bars. Your extortionate rent pays for enormous rooms, new furniture and talking lifts. You will be comfortable here if you can tolerate the jobsworth security, hall management who fine you for leaving a cup in the kitchen sink, and cooking for yourself.
Roseberry - The 'Goldilocks' residence, not too expensive, or unsociable, or uncomfortable but just right. Roseberry is the compromise candidate.
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- Accommodation Prices:
- Catered - £66-90 per week.
Self-catering - £63-90 per week.
Students may have to pay for heating and lighting, some rooms may have telephones as well.
Private Accommodation in London varies enormously, and students can pay anything from £250 a month to upwards of £400 per month. Most students will pay around £290 and will have to pay bills on top.
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- Local Area:
- London is the pub, club and social centre of Britain. It would be impossible for unofficial-guides.com to give a comprehensive guide to London, simply because there is not enough room and that it is always changing. What we do advise is that you buy a copy of Time Out and Time Out, the Students Guide to London. They will give you a better understanding of what London is like...from a non-tourist point of view, and it will keep you at the cutting edge of the London social scene. From any angle just remember, 'when a man is tired of London he is tired of life' and Dr Johnson's been dead 200 years.
The London School of Economics is on Portugal Street just off Kingsway in Holborn. Nearby is the HQ of the BBC World Service, the Inland Revenue, the Theatre Royal, the Royal Courts of Justice and Kings College. If you're a film buff, the LSE Union recommends the Curzon in Mayfair to the more extravagant - it still has boxes, or the Prince Charles in Leicester Square for extremely cheap student prices. For theatre goers, check out the new Globe Theatre - go in the morning for better deals.
Halls of Residence are scattered all over the City, so you're bound to take in a wide radius of fun or long and fume choking journeys to lectures every day - depending on the way you think.
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