Saturday meetings in the LSE MPA lounge
This post is only useful if you’re a 1st year LSE MPA, considering the LSE MPA or a dual-degree here. I’m currently completing the SIPA (Columbia)-LSE dual degree. That means:
-I’m new here, but I’m technically an LSE MPA second year, with a big fat Capstone project (i.e. a six-month consultancy project with a team of 5 students for an outside organisation) and a looming graduation date
-I also get to take GV478 Political Science and Public Policy, an intense 1st-year MPA core course on analysing Downsian models (“rational choice approaches in political science”) amongst a plethora of fabulous theories.
This also means working on group presentations with my favorite 1st-years throughout the year. These presentations feel like mini-presentations compared to the Capstone ones, and I think they are designed as preparation for 2nd year. As such, at our meetings, I’m constantly relating the work to the Capstone project. I’m constantly saying, “I really wish someone had told me x, y and z about Capstone/2nd year/graduationg…”
- Informational interviews. You have a year left before you graduate, so now is the best time to call up every one you–or your friends or your friends’ friends on LinkedIn–know with a cool job. Now, not later, because now you can honestly say, “I’m not asking for a job, I just want to learn about you and your job.”
- GV478: Don’t hate it. Our Capstone was all qualitative work, no OECD data crunching, just a corporate think tank asking us to explain some of what they had been seeing and connect it to any academic literature they might have missed. One of my teammates took a theory from GV478 on lobbying in politics and applied it to the competitive tendering process for government services. Our clients loved it so much they want to publish it. You’ll have to wait for the final report for the details, but the point is that this was our greatest “added value.” If you are running regressions on Eastern European states next year for Capstone, perhaps this will be useless, but the point is you never know.
- Capstone, no.1: Get your draft done before Christmas. Editing in a group is far more painful than individually just hammering out a chapter; this is not a paper you can write the night before after letting all your theories and thoughts coalesce because everyone will have their name on it; everyone will have to agree with what and how the report says. On that note, contrary to popular belief, it is much easier to add written work than to cut it later. Once it’s on the page, it’s hard to detach from it. Overall, I’d schedule much more time for the editing than for the writing itself.
- Capstone, no.2: Interviews before Christmas. Interviews/data analysis/whatever you need to do has to be scheduled before Christmas, as much as humanely possible. This seems obvious if you’re aiming for no.1, but try to hit the ground running. Before your team has even come to grips with what you’re actually supposed to be doing and the best approach to take, just start. You’ll learn along the way.
- Eat good food. Listen to good music.
Eat this here, just once (because it’s expensive): http://www.dinings.co.uk
Sea bass carpaccio @ Dinings (photo from dinings.co.uk)
… after you hand in that just-under-20,000 word Capstone final report. It is the only restaurant to which I’ve been where I felt pure gratitude for every bite. Everything was remarkable, even if it looks like a hole-in-the-wall in the middle of nowhere.
Before that sweet moment, however, listen to this: http://lukeslott.bandcamp.com/track/barefoot-tango.Luke Slott used to rock up to friends’ homes in New York with his guitar leaving the women in tears and the boisterous men silent. Barefoot Tango was the best track to get through long days of editing.
Very nice
Thanks!
Thanks ! Tips noted.
But.. I don’t know if I’ll wait for the completion of my capstone to visit this amazing restaurant… (:D)