Most of the key tips for your life as a student are contained in the LSE Students’ Union Guide 2008/9. This section just pulls out a few key tips for your immediate stay in London, and provides answers to a lot of questions we’ve been receiving by email or Facebook!
Quite a few people do a language course in LSE’s Language Centre on top of their degree.
This does mean a lot of extra work. You need to ask yourself a couple questions before doing it:
1. Do you know the language a bit already? How much effort do you need to put into learning and improving?
2. Do you want to explore LSE, the SU, London and different activities in your first year, and does doing a language affect that or not?
A lot of students have done both language and their usual four modules and get a lot out of it – and still do well! It’s really up to how you answer those questions, and whether you think you can manage your time.
Black and white printers are available at LSE in the Library, most computer rooms and some Halls of Residence.
Students don’t have a printing card, but you do have a printing allowance. You top it up at Value Loader machines, which can be found in the Library and C120 (computer room on 1st floor of the Clare Market building).
You add as much money as you want. There is no monthly allowance – it is a rolling thing you add to when you need it.
It costs 4p a sheet to use the black and white printers. Colour printing costs 30p a sheet (these are available in the Library and again in C120, with instructions about how to print to them).
Some students have their own printers too. Nonetheless, most students manage with the School printers and you should try your best to avoid having to pay lots for your own printer, cartridges and paper!
The following is a taken from Page 98 of the Guide book:
With the increase to the costs of studying at University, many students find it necessary to take up part-time jobs in order to fund their studies. It can de difficult to balance work and study, ensuring you do not over-commit yourself.
It is recommended tht you avoid working more than 16 hours a week during term time so that it does not affect your study.
The Students’ Union is committed to employing students as part-time casual staff in the Bar, Shop, Advice and Counselling Centre, Entertainments, the Cafe and elsewhere. Please ask at SU Reception (Ground Floor, East Building) for information about vacancies, or look out for posters. The jobs are worth having because the LSE Students’ Union pays its casual staff more than any other university’s Union in the country!
There are jobs available at LSE for its students. Some of these will be advertised through posters; some Departments send emails to their students looking for workers. If you’re interested in a job in a particular place, go there and ask – you will be told what’s available.
There are some excellent, well paid jobs open to LSE students within the School, including Conference and Events (working as a steward on high-level public events), bars (George IV and in Halls), jobs within Halls (including reception work), jobs with the Office of Development and Alumni Relations (ODAR), work showing prospective students around at open days and more. The Careers Service Job Shop is a valuable resource for finding part-time and temporary work in London. It is used by employers to find LSE students, and employers specifically tailor their advertisement to our students. You can use its search function to find jobs at the right time (morning, afternoon, evening or weekends), of the right type (from care work to telephone sales) in a specific area and with key words relevant to the kind of job you want.
Check out the Careers Service Job Shop at www.thecareersgroup.co.uk/lse/jobshop/Page23.asp for more.
If you work outside the Union, be careful! Students can get a raw deal if you are not vigilant, so you should know your rights, particularly if you’re in temporary or agency work. Advice on employment is available from the SU Advice and Counselling Centre or from Unite the Union’s Student Worker Campaign at www.uniteworkingstudents.org.
Simple advice is to:
1) Make sure you have a clear contract with your employers, and that they stick to it.
2) Make sure you are being paid at least the minimum wage – you should be paid a London Living Wage of over £7.40 per hour. Under the Employment Rights Act, you are also entitled to receive a fully itemised pay slip. Make sure you read yours carefully and question anything you don’t know.
3) Before you start working, ring the Inland Revenue and get them to send you a tax code . All local tax office phone numbers listed on the HM Revenue & Customs website at. Without the correct code, you will probably be put on emergency tax, which is much higher than most students should be paying.
Waiting to claim tax back is frustrating. Ask your employer to complete form P38(S) which means your wages will be paid gross.
4) Part time workers are entitled to holiday. Their entitlement to holiday is pro rata – so if you normally work three days a week, you get 12 days a year (the equivalent of four weeks’ working days).
5) Under the Working Time Regulations, you are entitled to at least a 20 minute break if you work more then six hours in one shift, and you shouldn’t be asked to work longer than eight hours in 24 if you work at night. However, there is no requirement under the minimum standards that your employer must pay you for this break.
6) Students are entitled and encouraged to join trade unions, who can assist you with issues of wages, taxes and conditions, bargain on your behalf, and protect your health and safety. You can join Unite the Union, the UK’s biggest trade union, for as little as £10. See www.amicustheunion.org/Default.aspx?page=3136 or www.uniteworkingstudents.org for more details.
Much of this information, and more about travelling in London, is found on Pages 117-119 of the Union’s Guide.
LSE students are entitled to a discount travel through purchasing a Student Oyster Photocard. Oyster Cards are little credit card-sized cards that you ‘load’ money onto and then use to pay for travel on buses, the Underground and other aspects of London’s public transport network. ‘Normal’ Oyster Cards give a discount but Student Oyster Photocards give up to 30% off the ‘normal’ rate!
Unfortunately, due to Transport for London (TfL) regulations outside of the Students’ Union’s or LSE’s control, you can only get a Student Oyster Photocard after you register as a student.
We will be selling and procesing Student Oyster Photocards in the Students’ Union’s Quad Café (East Building) from Monday 29th September onwards. You’ll need to bring:
All you need to do then is fill out your details and send it off to the address on the form.
After that, you can use your Student Oyster Photocard to buy cheap Week Passes, Month Passes and longer passes that give 30% off normal Oyster Card passes. Sadly, the Student Oyster Photocard does not get you cheaper fares on single, daily or 3 Day tickets. For these kind of fares, you can ‘top-up’ your Student Oyster Photocard with money to use it as a pay-as-you-go card, or simply get a pay-as-you-go ‘Normal’ Oyster Card from any Underground station or Oyster-selling shops in London, and online.
For a Week, Month or longer pass to work out cheaper than just using a ‘Normal’ Pay-as-you-go Oyster Card, you need to be travelling quite a bit. TfL recommends that you should only really get passes if you plan to travel pretty much every day, or a lot on certain days along with a few journeys on the rest of the days. If you’re travelling 3 times a week or less, a pay-as-you-go Oyster Card will work out much cheaper. Many students in Halls of Residence or houses near to LSE do not travel that often, so they use a pay-as-you-go Oyster Card for the few occasions of which they travel.
Here’s a full list of travel costs
BUS/TRAM PASSES
Zones Day Monthly Annual
All £9.10 £35.00 £364.00
TUBE/BUS/DLR/TRAM/OVERGROUND TRAVELCARDS
Zones Day Monthly Annual
Zones 1-2 £16.90 £64.90 £676
Zones 1-3 £19.80 £76.10 £792
The new Mayor, Boris Johnson, promised to apply the 30% student discount to pay-as-you-go fares, so we hope that will come in soon – otherwise, Boris better look out!
Still, it is advised that you get an Oyster card for pay-as-you-go payments. f you are paying for your travel with your pay-as-you-go credit, the Oystercard has a nifty thing called ‘daily capping’. It means that however many journeys you make in one day (4AM to 4AM), you will not be charged more than the price of the Day Travelcard or Bus Pass for the zones you have travelled through.
To get even more out of this, present your Oystercard and your 16-25 Railcard (see below) to a ticket office at any tube station. They will then register your Oystercard for an additional 30% discount on the daily cap (off-peak only). Bargain! You can check the balance on your Oystercard and add more credit at any tube station, many newsagents and also (hopefully) the Students’ Union Shop in the NAB.
When travelling by bus and tube, every time you touch your Oyster card before travel, the remaining credit balance is displayed. If your balance is too low to make a journey, your card will be refused at the entrance and you will need to add more credit.
A lot of people have asked questions about Immigration and Visa issues. There is detailed advice available on Pages 82-83 of the Students’ Union’s Guide.
If after reading that you have specific questions about visa applications or other immigration issues, you can get advice the Students’ Union’s Advice and Counselling Centre, who have the expertise to deal with these cases.
Email current Students’ Union Education and Welfare Officer, Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang, on su.edwelfare@lse.ac.uk and he’ll forward it on to the relevant professional advisors.
Furthermore, on immigration, visa and other international students’ issues, see the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) at http://www.ukcisa.org.uk.
Many students are worried about being able to balance their studies and outside activities.
Society activity usually stops at the end of Lent Term. That means that the entire Easter holiday (6 weeks) and Summer term, the exam session, is clear of society activity (some societies have had the odd event here or there at the start of the Summer Term, but generally nothing more than a ‘welcome back’ before exams). There are usually 2 or 3 weeks in Summer Term before your exams start, so you have a very clear session to do revision. You won’t be overwhelmed with society work towards the exam session.
But societies are very, very active in the Michaelmas and Lent Terms. This is when the majority of your lectures and classes are, so you need to balance your time wisely.
There is no reason why you can’t join several societies, get involved with the Students’ Union and the UGM, be active in the Media Group, play a sport and do well at your studies. Often, you’ll have a fixed idea at the start of your year but that will change depending on which societies you’ve joined, which campaigns are operating and how your interests develop. You never know what you might end up concentrating on!
Remember, the first year counts less than the next two years, so it really is the year where you need to find out what you want to keep doing most. And, above all, it’s the year where you meet new people and explore LSE, London and beyond!
Check out LSE’s website at http://www.lse.ac.uk/accommodation/orientation/london.htm for more information on this. Halls of Residences Student Committees are coordinating activities for the week, so look out for them when you get to Halls!
There is a lot of detail on Renting on Page 116 of the Guide.
If you are looking for private accommodation in London, here are a few good places to look:
The University of London Housing Service, which provides only the best landlords and lots of information about buying. This is a good place to start.
London Student Housing Guide, which is a similar thing but might have some additional information.
Gumtree, which is a very fast and effective service for looking at flats/housing in London.
Find a Property – includes a search by postcode area.
That should get you started! Make sure you thoroughly check out the house before agreeing to anything, including making sure the contract/landlord is legitimate, whether you like the area, how easy it is to travel to LSE and other areas from there, etc.