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LSE BSc Finance - Personal Statement & How To Get In!

Hi! I was accepted into the BSc Finance course at the London School of Economics as part of the 2024-2027 batch. I had applied for Finance in LSE, Durham, and Manchester and Accounting&Finance at Warwick and King's College London. The UCAS application for each university requires predicted grades, teacher references, and most importantly, a 4000 character(including spaces) personal statement. Although the format of the personal statement will be changing from the 2026 entry onwards, my personal statement will still be useful in helping you craft your answers to these three questions(the format from 2026):  1) Why do you want to study this course or subject?  2) How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject?  3) What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?  When preparing my personal statement, I was often disappointed by the fact that I had no personal statements of students in LSE Fin

Money$ Money₹ Money£ The Psychology of Money Review

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This is my review of a fascinating book on finance called The Psychology of Money . Written by Morgan Housel who is a partner at the Collaborative Fund, this book focuses specifically on personal finance - how to make, manage and maintain your wealth. The book offers a deep dive into investor behavior and the mindset required to stay wealthy using a variety of analysis points and real world examples. Here are a few of my favourite learnings from The Psychology of Money: 1.    Mindset - The Psychology of Money gave me a brand new perspective on investor values and made me understand the importance of developing a stoic mindset with an optimistic outlook whilst investing as it is a fundamental aspect of creating a long term track record of success .  Housel also emphasizes the need for cultivating moderation whilst managing money, which will in turn be reflected in one's lifestyle . The myriad problems of becoming too attached to successes and failures are highlighted through m

My Trip to Kanazawa

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Last week, My family and I went on a week long trip to Kanazawa with some of our family friends. Kanazawa is a city in Ishikawa prefecture which is located near the coast of Japan.  I was very excited for this trip as I had not gone for a vacation to a place outside of Tokyo for more than a year. Furthermore, I was very excited to be going there with my friends and family.  Day 1 I got up at 5:00 in the morning, and left our house at 6. For the trip, we had booked two Toyota HiAces, in order to fit in all 17 of us and our luggage. As we drove along the winding roads and majestic mountaintops, my friend and I settled down to watch a movie(We watched 5 in total by the end of the week!). Our first destination was Kurobe Dam which is Japan's tallest dam. Sadly however, we didn't get the opportunity to visit it as we could only reach the dam by taking a train and the last train had just stopped running 15 minutes earlier. Nevertheless, we continued our drive, exploring the beauty o

Tokyo Olympics 2020

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With only three days to go, the Tokyo 2020 (2021) Olympic Games have proceeded remarkably well with few hitches. Although Tokyo has seen a rise in Covid cases despite the banning of tourists or citizens to watch the games, there have been no pressing issues as the games have carried on successfully. A flashback to Tokyo's bid for the Olympics: In the 125th International Olympic Committee session in Buenos Aires, Tokyo won the bid for the Summer games in 2020 with more votes than the majority needed. This was a major success for the Japanese government as they had been lobbying hard to host the Olympics.  Furthermore, support from back home in Japan was overwhelming. The Japanese public were jubilant because they could see their homeland hosting the olympics after 56 long years.  An interesting question that can be discussed here is why do governments so desperately want to host the Olympics in their own countries? After all hosting the Olympics can be ludicrously expensive. Take f

Life by Keith Richards - Book Review

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In this blog, I am going to be reviewing Life , which is the  autobiography of the  legendary guitarist, Keith Richards . Keith Richards is the lead guitarist for The Rolling Stones which is one of the most successful bands of all time, having sold more than 240 million records worldwide. The Stones are known for their guitar based music and they pioneered  the gritty heavier sound that became the basis of hard rock that was to follow through.  One of the reasons Keith Richards is considered one of the greatest guitarist of all time is that he had great sense of feel. In songs like Gimme Shelter which is about the Vietnam war, he uses only three chords and yet delivers what is perhaps the most ominous and mysterious intro in rock music. Other classic Stones songs such as (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and Jumping Jack Flash are driven by prominent guitar riffs only consisting of three notes and yet they are considered among the greatest riffs ever made. Richards is known as "ro

To Kill A Mockingbird - My Review

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Introduction In this blog, I will be writing a review on the classic book " To Kill A Mockingbird " by Harper Lee . Considered as one of the greatest works of American literature, To Kill A Mockingbird was    a literary sensation when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and was adapted into an extremely successful film of the same name in 1962. It is also one of the most widely read books in middle and high schools across America and the world.  Synopsis The plot takes place during 1933 to 1935 during the Great Depression. The story is told by 6 year old Jean Louise "Scout" Finch who lives in the fictional town of Maycomb in Alabama along with her 10 year old brother Jeremy "Jem" and their father Atticus who is a lawyer. The children are obsessed in trying to make their reclusive neighbor Arthur "Boo" Radley come out of his house, who has not been seen for years. Atticus is put in charge to def

The Importance of Learning Economics in Today's World

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With an ongoing global recession occurring due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it has become  extremely important for everybody learn the basics of Economics . This will benefit you in so many ways as is about to be discussed below.  Day to Day Decisions: Often more than not, people ponder why certain products cost more in the market than others. With the knowledge of the basics of supply and demand,  they can understand that it is usually because of a low supply and high demand that products have a high price. Furthermore, learning e conomics helps you to not fall to misleading marketing strategies and also pushes you to think about both positive and negative externalities while doing a task. Life Decisions: Learning economics helps with making important decisions that can benefit your whole life. You will be able to choose between loans of various interest rates and decide which plots of land to buy in accordance to the real estate market trend. By analyzing the current situation of the ma