The Beaver: Week of November 6th, 2012

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INACCURATE AND SENSATIONALIST JOURNALISM | WHAT DOES EUROPE NEED NOW? | A MOUNTAIN CINDERELLA STORY

TheBeaver Beaver

06.11.2012

Newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union FREE

Record turnout in elections Hayley Fenton

Thursday evening saw the announcement of the results of the London School of Economics’ Michaelmas Term Student Union Elections, where Sophie Count, a Masters student in Social and Cultural Psychology was announced as the new PostThe hotly contested position of Postgraduate Students’ Officer was announced at the tory hush descended over the Quad as Rachel Quah, Returning Officer walked up on stage an exhaustive eleven round process fought by fourteen candidates, Sophie Count emerged the most successful with 347 votes over the runnerCount expressed her happiness on Facebook after the elctions, saying “Got the position :) Continued on page 3, col 1.

The jury remains out on LSE100 Nona Buckley-Irvine and Hayley Fenton

LSE100 has been at the centre of recent debate concerning both its usefulness as a course Over the past two weeks, second and third year students responded to a survey set up by the Beaver, where they were asked to rank LSE100 based on factors such as enjoyment, improvement in career prospects, quality of lectures and whether or not they thought survey question asked for com-

survey results, the Beaver interviewed Dr Jonathan Leape, Director of the LSE100 course,

cent saying they felt there had

In terms of satisfaction, ed that LSE100 ranged from being extremely to occasioncent stating they would not recommend LSE100 to other

only 19 per cent of students voted for “scrapping LSE100,” said they would keep the modcent who felt it would be best

One of LSE100’s marketed

In the comments section, most students acknowledged the potential for LSE100 to be

that will improve job pros-

year BSc Government and Eco-

they felt LSE100 has made no

can wrote; “one of the most valuable aspects of LSE100 is having access to some of the

It was also felt among certain students that LSE100 was important in raising a general awareness that extended beyond the constraints of the One student, who wished to remain anonymous, commented “I absolutely think it (LSE100) should carry on and be compulsory to avoid LSE students

BSc Government and History student Sally Bonsall commented, “(LSE100) sounds great in principle, but the reality is that we have chosen our degree subject because that is Certain students went on to state that if they were interested in having an interdisciplinary degree, then they could quite easily take an ‘outside’ One of the key issues raised in the survey was the content

of LSE100, which many students felt had room to be vast-

LSE100 is when we have to analyse graph data (not exactly

Firstly, large numbers of students commented that rather than focusing on the methodologies of subjects, it would

The notion of LSE100 being a subject that doesn’t offer enough intellectual stimulation was a further concern

broad insight into the social sciences such as economics, law and international relations

Of the students responding, of lectures were average or ment student, Chloe Wether-

cerning the content of LSE100 was that it was aimed at students doing heavily quantitative degrees more so than mentation and essay writing, which are heavily emphasised in LSE100, were skills that many students taking qualitative subjects felt to be “too dent commented, “I would argue that just as many people need a decent understanding of quantitative areas but it seems the only time any numerical questions are raised in

from slides has never made me think about things less in my Second year BSc International History student, Jamie Pelling, commented; “if it was more academically strenuous then the subjects up for discussion would become much In the interview, Leape dispelled some of what he considered myths surrounding the LSE100 course and inContinued on page 6, col 1.

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