Aims of the blog

This blog is designed to provide an answer to the question 'What is university like?'. It's something I wondered from time to time until I experienced it for myself- even though my dad was a university lecturer and I went to work with him a few times in the school holidays when I was little, I still couldn't quite work it out. During my undergraduate degree (maths at UCL), it didn't even occur to me to write anything more ambitious than emails about what it was all like- I was too busy finding my way through living away from home for the first time and getting to grips with the new way of studying, not to mention getting involved with the various events and activities that surround you at university, and besides as a newbie I didn't really feel qualified. Now that I'm about to do a masters in statistics at LSE, it seems like a great opportunity to provide a window on my life as a student in London- and I realise that actually a newcomer's perspective is in some ways the most appropriate, since they notice things that those who have been there longer take for granted. In my case it will be informed by my previous time at university to give what I hope will be a combination of what it's like to experience everything right from the beginning, and knowledge gained from what I learned the first time round.

Although it's a postgraduate degree, I'm anticipating that, as it's a taught masters, life will be fairly similar to my time at UCL (allowing of course for the change in college)- and thus that this blog will be relevant to anyone interested in the undergraduate experience. In any case, I intend to comment on any major differences between the two as I encounter them.

Of course, as well as providing information and a sense of looking out through a student's eyes the idea is that this blog will be entertaining, interesting and amusing for the general reader. Well, I can only promise to try! But university life is engaging and varied enough to give me quite a helping hand.

I'm not planning to start posting regularly until the academic year actually starts- probably from 24th September when I move into halls. So don't expect a new entry every day, but I'll probably write again a few times before then to give a bit of background information!