This weekend, I went on a short trip to London, the United Kingdom's capital. As already elaborated in a previous post, I started a distance study course with the University of London under the academic guidance of the London School of Economics. Each year, they organize a so-called "study weekend" where every enrolled student can participate in. Even though, current students are encouraged to participate, it is not free of charge. A course (3h) costs about 50 pound, which is reasonable I think. In addition, participating students have to cover for flight and accommodation themselves.
For me, the weekend seemed to be the perfect excuse to escape Cologne and trade the old Roman city for the great former industrial capital. As both of the courses I enrolled in were held on Sunday, I had the whole Saturday to explore a bit of the vibrating city.
The first awesome look of the city I got before even arriving at Heathrow airport. Due to heavy air traffic, our flight had to circle many times over the city before getting landing permission. Fortunately we had very good weather conditions and I could take some nice shots from above.
After landing, I got an Oyster Card for public transportation. The card works in similar ways as JR's Suica, Tokyo Metro's Pasmo and Hong Kong's Octopus Card. Those cards are based on the Near Field Communication (NFC) standard that enables passengers to pay for the ride by just "swiping" the card over a receiving unit. It's a really convenient way to pay for public transportation. Unfortunately, no such NFC standard has been implemented in Germany, yet. But given the recent developments and technological advancements, I hope this will change, soon.
A day before I boarded the flight to London Heathrow, Europe's tallest building was opened to the public: The Shard. For London standards, it really sticks out and can easily be seen from above (see first picture of this blog entry). Thus, I really wanted to go to the observation desk, even when hearing about the expensive price tag of more than 20 pound. However, as I arrived at the bottom of this architectural marvel, there was a huge line of people waiting. I later found out, that you had to pre-reserve a ticket for the observation desk on the first weekend. Well, there is always another day. :)
Instead of seeing London from its new The Shard observation desk, I decided to stray a bit through the city. I have been to London before during a school trip. Thus, I don't have that many individual impressions. I believe we went to Hyde Park by bus and then went to Madam Tussaud's, but don't really remember much. So I just went a bit along the River Thames and passed by some of the sights naturally. One of them is the Big Ben near Westminster station.
Another famous of London's landmarks is the London Eye, a ferris wheel near the River Thames. Before The Shard was finished, I believe the London Eye provided one of the best views of London from above. Will its popularity decline, now that there is better way to get a glimpse of the city from a bird's eyes perspective?
On an airplane, I usually read the monthly magazines that are distributed for passengers. Most of the times they have interesting stories connected to some of the destinations an airline is flying to. This month, one of the stories in Germanwing's monthly magazine was about The Tube, London's underground transportation system. Apparently, it is the oldest subway in the world. In the magazine they showed old drawings of the first rides 150 years ago when people were transported through London's subway tunnels via steam engine trains, I can't really imagine that the air ventilation system was that sophisticated more than a century ago.
In the evening, I met an old friend from my time at Ryukoku University. She used to be an exchange student just as me and went to London for her Master's degree. The interesting fact is that her undergraduate degree was in Japanese literature, I believe, and the Master's she pursued in a law-related subject. After graduating and some time with a Japanese company, she now works for an accounting firm just as I do. I see some parallels here. :)
As mentioned in the beginning of this post, my intention of visiting London was to take part in the study weekend organised by the London School of Economics (LSE). I applied for two 2h courses that were held on Sunday. The first of which was a course about the principles of accounting and the second courses' subject was that of auditing. LSE's campus is located near Holborn station right in the center of London.
The courses were held in the New Academic Building. The facility was indeed quite new.
On the campus, cube-shaped signposts give directions for the 10+ buildings.
Registration was underdone in the main hall of the New Academic Building. As students who chose to undertake a degree via distance study do not possess a local student's ID card (although, they DO have access to the same online resources as full-time students, including the journal databases), a temporary visitor's ID card was issued.
There are many coffee shops around the campus, with Caffe Nero being the most famous among the students. Before classes started, I quickly grabbed a cup as well.
As for the content of the courses, I was left with a somewhat ambiguous impression. On the one hand, the courses might be good for review of questions that could be part of the exam for that subject. The professors who lead the classes are the ones who actually wrote the study guides, which are meant as a general guide book for a given subject. Students who are uneasy with the subject have the opportunity to ask direct questions and receive some hints for the upcoming exams. However, the people who actually grade the exams are not there, but the professors who wrote the subject guides do have a good idea about the contents of past exams.
On the other hand, the courses are NOT meant to be taught classes. It is expected that students who do come to the courses acquired most of the knowledge for the exams beforehand and already read the subject guides. This, of course, will get you the best benefit out of the courses. I had the impression that the teachers leading the two courses I enrolled in prepared the students well for the exams and also gave them some valuable information about the contents and the general approach. However, I heard from a German colleague that in two other courses he took part in on that weekend, the benefit wasn't really great, as the teachers spent most of the time explaining about examinations in general. In the end, I think it comes down to what one expects of the study weekend. If the goal is to meet interesting new people, get an idea who else is studying for a degree on his/her own or if you want to get an idea of what is expected in the exams, the study weekend is definitely worth attending. However, if you want to get taught great details about a subject, you will most likely end up disappointed.
For me, the study weekend was definitely worth attending. Although, I didn't really take away much knowledge for the exams (as I forgot to register for this year's exams anyways ^^), it was quite interesting. I was really amazed of what kind of people undertake distance study courses. There was a girl who flew in from Singapore only for the the two days, even though they have a similar event that is actually held IN Singapore.
Although I landed in Heathrow, my flight back was departing from Stansted. London Stansted airport is more far away than I anticipated. Therefore I had to leave the last class a bit early and rushed to the airport. Unbeknownst to me, the airport express is actually really fast and so I arrived at Stansted way before the scheduled departure. I used the time to grab some diner. There was a Japanese-styled sushi/ramen-ya where I ordered some miso ramen and a sapporo beer. The ramen weren't as good as those I remember eating back in Japan. Interestingly, the Sapporo beer can was the size of 650ml. I never saw this size and the shape of a can before (see picture above).
Comments