November - December Recap

It’s been more than a month since I last wrote here. You can definitely conclude by the delay that LSE has kept me very busy in the last month of this term. This is indeed true.

For the past month, I have had quite a few essays to write, problem sets to solve, and tons of academic papers and books to read. However, I don’t complain. This was a great opportunity to read De Tocqueville, Hegel and Marx first hand, to learn about public economics from one of the leading professors in this field – Doctor Jonathan Leape, to understand the debate about the future of the European Union and its institutions, and to deepen my knowledge of finance in the lectures of a prominent academic scholar in finance – Doctor Mongo Wilson of LSE and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

At the same time, my busy academic life was nicely balanced with a very rich cultural life. The last week of the Michaelmas term was filled with thrilling last-minute public lectures, two of which I attended with much enthusiasm and excitement.

On Tuesday, December 9, LSE hosted David Cameron who is currently the leader of the Opposition, i.e. the Conservative Party, and who is believed to challenge Gordon Brown in the next elections. To summarize, in his one-hour speech, David Cameron spoke about the current economic crisis and called upon the Labor Party to make responsible long term, as opposed to short-term, economic recovery decisions. He encouraged the Prime Minister and his party to make decisions in such way that would reduce the budget deficit, at least after a couple of years, instead of continuing to increase it.

In his concluding remarks he noted that "every week ... the mortgaging of the future gets greater. Every week the debt gets larger. Every week the burdens on our children mount up higher. We urgently need a change of direction, not more of the same." And, this is very true. How far do we go with borrowing? How much will we, the young generation, have to pay for the mistakes and recklessness of the current financial managers? Indeed, exponential government borrowing has to end at one point.

His speech was truly fascinating and if I interested you, please watch an excerpt of his speech below.

And here are some pictures that I took:

Then, on Friday, December 12, LSE invited Michael Chertoff, the current US Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and an LSE alumnus, to deliver a speech before a small audience of students, including myself. In his very eloquent and thoughtful speech, Secretary Chertoff spoke about different ways of managing and diversifying risks (terrorism, national disasters, financial crises) including the essential role of the government as a regulator. He drew upon various examples such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the most recent attacks in Mumbai, Hurricane Katrina and many others.

One of the most surprising and shocking conclusions that Secretary Chertoff drew upon was how easy it could have been to prevent or dramatically reduce the consequences of Hurricane Katrina. All it was necessary for was a simple engineering structure or barrier to prevent water flowing into the channel. Shockingly, it wasn't that managers and engineers did not think of this before Katrina struck. Instead, they failed to act on it because of numerous objections from the residents that the barrier would obstruct the picturesque view of the lake from the houses nearby. It is shocking that a naive reason as such resulted in so many lost lives and devastating consequences that continue to be felt to this day.

And, again some pictures:

Michael Chertoff (left), Howard Davies - Director of LSE (right)

Both speeches were truly fascinating and inspiring, and I feel very honored to have attended them last week.

My time here in London was marked by another two significant events that are very dear to me. At the beginning of November, I had the great privilege to attend the reception on the occasion of the accreditation of Her Excellency, the new Moldovan Ambassador, Natalia Solcan to the United Kingdom. Her Excellency will serve a four-year term, during which she will continue to promote the bilateral relationship between my home country of Moldova and the United Kingdom. I would like to wish her once again the best of luck and many prosperous achievements throughout the tenure.

Her Excellency, Ambassador Solcan

Then, on Friday of the last week, I was honored to attend a reception co-sponsored by the Moldovan Embassy in the United Kingdom and the British-Moldovan Business Association. I had a great time meeting some phenomenal people while eating Moldovan traditional dishes and tasting some delicious Moldovan wine. To my pleasant surprise, the Moldovan community in London is actually quite large and growing. Needless to say, this reception was a extraordinary rendezvous in my last night in London before my departure early next morning for a promising winter break!

Happy Holidays to all of you & come back to my blog in January!

Her Majesty the Queen visits LSE

Today, my experience at LSE was marked by another historical event – the visit of Her Majesty, The Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.


Her Majesty The Queen participated in the opening of a spectacular new building, commonly referred to as the New Academic Building. The new edifice is home to eight floors of teaching rooms, four lecture theatres , a debating chamber and offices.

Designed as an environmentally friendly structure, the New Academic Building is by far the most technologically advanced building on campus, which will continue to foster the teaching and learning scopes of LSE. The building cost £71 million (approx. $113 million.)

The students of LSE were reserved a prime-spot at the building’s entrance to greet Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on their arrival to campus, as well as watch them on their departure. And, I was one of them.

The honorable guests arrived promptly at 10.30am and were greeted by Howard Davies, the Director of LSE. The greeting ceremony was magnificent. Security was tight but nevertheless, the Queen walked about one meter away from where I was standing. The guests were then escorted into the building, where they were given a tour of the breathtaking facilities of the New Academic Building.

The Queen’s visit was an honor and outstanding success for LSE, and a memory that I will keep with me for the rest of my life.

Below, I present to you some of pictures that I managed to take on the Queen’s arrival and departure.

New Academic Building

Director of LSE, Howard Davies, right, waiting for Her Majesty

Arrival of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II

The new generation

The departure of Her Majesty

Change We Expected

Last night, LSE wasn’t much different from an American college campus.

Students of different color, religion, origin and nationality joined together and were eyes and ears on BBC to follow another historical presidential election in the history of the United States – an election that our children and many generations ahead will be reading about in history textbooks twenty years from now.

I choose to spend my night with fellow residents here in Carr-Saunders. Joined together in the common room, we cheered and watched the television for the most part of the night. Every new state that voted in favor of Barak Obama brought to the auditorium a loud cheer of “Yes, We Can.”

By 2am, the room was filled with hopes, happiness and much optimism. And, once the projected results were announced, one could even see tears of joy in the eyes of Obama’s supporters and occasionally, tears of sadness in the eyes of McCain’s voters.

The tears were well justified... We witnessed history.

God Bless you, Barack!

My experience in pictures

Main Entrance

Entrance to the Old Building

LSE's main quad

The closest subway station to LSE

A look at the British system of education

It's been almost a month since I first came to London, but it feels as if I just arrived last night. Only now I come to understand what my academic tutor and LSE advisor, John Brown, meant when he said "... and, Eugene, make most out of London and LSE. It will be over before you know it." He was right. As I continue to discover, time is a major constraint in this very cosmopolitan society and never-sleeping city.

What seemed like the hardest challenge so far is now over. After much exploration and inquiry, I am finally decided on the courses I would like to take this year at LSE. They are:

1. Public Economics
2. European Economic Policy
3. Principles of Finance
4. Intro to Political Science

What is nice about LSE is that it give students, for the first month of the academic year, the opportunity to mingle around and "shop" for courses. You may sit on lectures, speak with professors and explore the material before committing to taking a certain course. It's a very convenient set up, especially for general course students who are given much flexibility in their course choice (however, this is not true for the rest of the LSE students who must follow the course requirements of their degrees and hence, have very little flexibility.)

I assume that those of you at Clark who are following my blog are probably curious to know about the difference between Clark and LSE in terms of classes and the educational system as a whole. To anticipate this question, I shall state that both systems are quite different and yet still somewhat similar (if they weren't different though, there would be little purpose in studying abroad, right?)

Each week, you have one lecture and one seminar per each course you take. Both will last about 50-60 minutes each. Lectures usually bring together anywhere from 100 to 600 students (so, for instance, my finance course has about 600 students..give or take. Our lecture is held in a theatre and, to give you an idea, the theatre is about twice the size of Atwood Hall.) Classes are much smaller (they are similar to the T.A. sessions back in the States) and LSE caps them at about 15 students each. Unlike lectures, classes are in fact compulsory when it comes to attendance (especially for gen. course students.)

When speaking about the difference between the two educational systems, one of my professors at LSE (who just finished his doctorate in development economics at MIT) put it this way. At LSE, he said, you are entirely responsible for your education and you make of it as much as you want. And, this is very true. For instance, most of the government courses will require that you read literally hundreds of pages per week that includes both mandatory and optional reading. So, if you are keen to deepen your understanding of the subject, you may go above and beyond to read everything on the list about the week's topic, or you may be easily satisfied with simply reading the mandatory books/articles. This is also true for quantitative courses, although in addition to reading, you are also expected to write-up exercises.

Finally, because the lectures and the classes are only 50-minutes long and take place once a week, most of the studying is left to individual students. Lectures are, in my humble opinion, a means of giving you a flavor of the week's topic and stirring your interest. Then, classes are meant to provide the substance in a much smaller audience and address any questions.

Although the approaches to teaching may be different in the US vis-a-vis the UK, there is one similarity that unites the systems. Both of them vigorously challenge students academically in an effort to provide the best education.

The adventures of the first week

Throughout the entire day I was thinking about how to best approach today’s blog entry, so as to accurately and yet concisely describe one of the most exciting and memorable weeks of my college life.

I arrived at Heathrow Airport on the night of September 28th, an hour later than expected. It was my first time flying with British Airways and I shall give it an A+ for its exceptional service, fantastic airplanes and affable crew. It is a must-fly airline if you are ever in doubt.

While still in the air, I had a grasp of the marvelous view of the night city with shining lights and moving traffic all around. But the real picturesque view of London emerged only after I left the airport. As I discovered later, London represents a crossway of generations. It is a junction between history and modernity, between cultural heritage and elements of the twenty-first century. If I were to compare London to other world cities, then I would say it represents a mixture between New York – the never-sleeping financial, entertainment and shopping city – and, though I have never visited, Rome and Prague – both very rich in historical monuments with deep cultural significance. As I continue to visit places around London, I promise to come back in one of the next entries to describe the richness of the city.

I live in a single in Carr-Saunders, one of the LSE’s residential halls. My room, although smaller than my previous one at Clark, is slowly becoming like a home to me as I populate the walls with posters and other decorations. I have met most of my floor mates so far and I must say I am one of the youngest here, as 90% of the residents on this floor are post-graduates students. I have also started to greatly miss Clark’s meal plan service, as I am forced to cook most of my meals by myself this year. So, if you have any good and easy cooking recipes, please leave them in the comments section :-)

Last week was extremely busy. Besides attending the school’s induction, general course induction, economics department induction and many other events, I have caught myself in the midst of finding the right bank and opening a bank account, choosing a convenient mobile provider and subscribing, registering with the police and many other duties. Maybe this does not sound very exhausting to some of you, but now factor in the 25-minute walk from my hall to LSE, just in one direction. I must admit to you that finding my way to LSE seemed like an eternity in the first few days, though it does seem to take less and less time as days go by.

Last week was also full of exploration and socializing. The General Course staff organized a welcome boat party for all general course students, which came out as a tremendous success. On Friday, we also had the unique opportunity to have a half-day bus tour around London to see some of its most famous places. And did I mention that we had a brilliant tour guide?

Many more things of my first week at LSE were left behind the scene but I promise to come back to them in one of my next blog entries. Lastly, I hope the pictures below will reveal some more of the first week’s excitement that was not touched in this writing.

Arrival Preparations

Less than a week is left until my most expected arrival at one of the best economic playgrounds of the world – the London School of Economics (LSE.) However, before I tell you more about this upcoming study abroad experience, I would like to briefly introduce myself.

I am a junior and a Global Scholar at Clark with a double major in economics and management. Last year, in my free time, I enjoyed being an RA in Maywood Hall as well as serving on Clark’s Student Council and on College Board.

Now, back to LSE. During the course of the last month, LSE has kept us anxiously waiting for our arrival day. By now, I have received a multitude of emails with important pre-arrival information such as creating an university email account and signing up for courses. But, this information did not satisfy my eager character and I went above and beyond to research LSE, everything from creating a bank account and purchasing a cell phone to checking out the dining areas around Carr-Saunders, my new residence hall.

Not too long ago, the university has also published the list of events for the fall semester and, for those that do not know, LSE is very famous for hosting public lectures by very prominent speakers. With two or three public lectures scheduled per night, my evenings are close to be fully booked even before my de-facto arrival on LSE’s campus. For instance, I have already planned to attend a lecture by Mary McAleese (President of Ireland), another one by Thomas Friedman (New York Times columnist and author of the book, The World is Flat) and, among others, a lecture by Kristin Halvorsen (Norwegian minister of Finance.)

This is it for now. I promise to update you again at the beginning of October. Like most of the other general course students, I am already counting down the days until my departure to London. Five more days to go.