Sustainability, here I come!

Well, they accepted me for the 'Environmental Assistants aka Sustainability Champions' voluntary post (see here). On the plus side, this promises to be interesting and challenging and look good on all those application forms I'll be filling in*. On the minus side, it means I'll actually have to do something about it, and it all seems a little scary. Not least because, in true LSE style, they've omitted to mention (since it was a standard form email) whether all those suggestions I put in the 'How can you assist us with environmental initiatives?' box actually meet with their approval or whether they'd rather I didn't do some of them. Still, I suppose that doesn't stop me pressing ahead with them anyway- mostly it's the approval of the halls staff I need to get, not LSE's Environmental and Sustainability Coordinator. Besides, there will apparently be a briefing pack for me when I arrive at halls, and a meeting I'm supposed to go to in the first week (rather unhelpfully it doesn't say when, but maybe the pack has the details).

Meanwhile, I've just paid all my hall fees for the year- unlike my UCL halls, which required payment at some point in the middle of each term, these ones want it before you move in. You don't have to pay online- I imagine it'd be illegal for them to make it compulsory because they certainly give the impression that if they could they would. They practically tell you to in the 'How To Avoid Queues and Delays On Move In Day' email and subsequent ones, with barely a mention of the possibility that you could pay in person when you get there. However, I am in fact all for avoiding queues and delays so I paid up. Having received and deposited a cheque from my mother for the amount she's loaning me to finance this year**, I was able to take advantage of the option to pay all the fees now instead of just the first term's instalment.

This seemed like a good idea because I'm not always the best person at remembering urgent deadlines for paying bills and sending things off and so on, and particularly because I got the impression there wouldn't even be a bill. Although the halls are privately run***, they seem to share certain elements of organisational philosophy with LSE, who explicitly state that they Don't Do bills for tuition fees****- it's fortunate that I've already got those paid too. Personally I'd have thought that the little extra expense incurred by emailing, if not sending a letter to, all students would have been worth the hassle saved by a lot more of them remembering that now was the time to pay- but what do I know. I suppose again, the fact that you were supposed to pay in advance and basically could do so any time from getting your offer (and were informed of that at the time) did to a certain extent do away with the need for a bill- but there was the possibility to pay in instalments so it would be usefull there, and in spite of the discounts offered for paying various numbers of months in advance*****, I expect there were still people who put it off- I'm sure it would help them to have a reminder.

It reminds me of my experience in my first year at UCL, when the first I knew of them not having received my final hall fees (due some time in May) was when they were witholding my results for being in debt to the university at the end of July or beginning of August, and I had to ring up to find out what I owed and why. I was very surprised when I found out it was hall fees- I'd sent off the cheque pretty near the deadline, but I had sent it off, and as far as I was concerned I'd paid- it was a building society not a bank cheque, so the money went out of my account when I received the cheque from the building society to send on to UCL, not when they presented it, so there was no way for me to know they hadn't- especially as they Didn't Do receipts (unless specifically asked). Had they sent me a letter or email a couple of weeks after the deadline, if not on the deadline itself, I would have sorted things out a lot sooner, they could have got their money much quicker, and I wouldn't have had a lost and unstopped cheque floating around for a few months******. This taught me two valuable lessons:

1. Universities may be institutions encompassing vast numbers of geniuses and leaders in their field, but they can't do admin and
2. Always state you want a receipt.
   

*And provides an application form confidence shot- it may well be that they accepted me because no-one else applied. But I shall be telling myself that it was my brilliant way of selling myself that led to my triumphing over the hundreds of other impressive candidates.

**I'm very aware of how lucky I am. If my parents hadn't been able to lend me the funds for this year, I'd have had a choice between working at the same time to support myself (can impair your studies, and it's very unlikely I could have managed at LSE, which not only has very high tuition fees and is situated in expensive London, but forbids students to work more than 15 hours a week. You'd have to be earning a lot per hour to make ends meet), borrowing from banks or credit card companies (which charge a lot of interest and aren't very understanding about postponing repayment if it takes you a while to find work after graduation) and just not doing the masters. They have made this year possible for me and I'm very gratefull to them- and sad that not everyone is in my position. Bring back grants and do away with tuition fees! It won't cover everything but it'd go a fair way to help.

***For those who don't know, not the norm- generally the university runs its own halls, and indeed LSE runs just about all its others. Though who knows whether this may not become a more common arrangement in the future- it seems to have started within the past few years at various places. Not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, really.

****To be fair, I can't remember whether UCL did bills either- though I do seem to remember that they would send out emails letting people know it was time to pay some time in the autumn term (you didn't have to pay in advance there)

*****Not as well publicised as they should have been- you only found out about them when you looked into paying the fees, so for those people who would have been swayed by them to pay early, as LSE wants, had they known but who actually are only paying now, the discounts are not doing their job- in fact, since pretty much the only people who'll find out about them in time are those who are already paying early, you could say that they're not really benefitting LSE. Their loss.

******It wasn't UCL's fault, since (I assume) they didn't lose the cheque and they didn't make me have a building society account, but cancelling was quite an annoying process as I had to get UCL to sign to say they hadn't received it before I could get the first cheque stopped.