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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 stud...

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...

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 be...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 th...

In the second blog of the case study series, I am going to be writing on one of the world's most inspiring businessmen, Phil Knight . The co-founder of  Nike , Knight grew the firm (then known as Blue Ribbon Sports) from a regional business to the world's most valuable sports company. Through his exemplary man-management skills, passion for his work, never say die attitude and visionary leadership, he was able to lead Nike through tumultuous times and establish it as one of the biggest businesses on the planet.  Here are the reasons why I admire Phil Knight: 1. Man-Management Skills - Much of Nike's success can be attributed to its solid foundation during its founding days. Although it is usually said that a company's first hires are extremely important and have to be very skillful, Nike's first hires were loyal shoe enthusiasts who did not have much experience in helping run a business. However through his exceptional man-management skills,  Knight was able to in...

Image Source: Wikipedia In the first blog of the case study series, I am going to be elucidating on Steve Jobs ' life and try to analyze how he became so successful.  Few men have changed the world today as much as Steve Jobs did. From being one of the pioneers in bringing about the personal computing revolution to transforming the mobile, music and digital printing industry through his company Apple , Steve Jobs serves as an example for all future entrepreneurs and leaders for innovation, ingenuity, leadership and marketing among countless other things.  The reasons why I feel Steve Jobs was so successful are:  1. Innovation - Steve Jobs always believed that innovation was the key to success. Having an exceptional sense and taste for design and detail, he often observed that the standard design of phones and laptops at that time could be made in a much better way. This is proven by products such as the Apple iPhone, which although was completely different to the st...

 Dear Reader, It is with great pleasure that I am announcing a new series in my blog post which is called the Case Study Series . For each blog in this series, I will be taking an example of an extremely successful person and doing a case study on how he/she achieved that level of success, what the person's strengths and weaknesses are and why he/she is an inspiration for all of us. Each blog will be preceded by extensive research and analysis from my side as I only want to put out the most authentic and reliable information for you. The reason why I am doing this series is because I want every person that is reading my blogs to be motivated by these extremely successful people's stories and I believe you will obtain valuable learnings from both their failures and triumphs. My next release will be the first blog of the Case Study Series. Thank you😀

Why Do Firms Need Marketing? Marketing is for firms what breath is for humans. Generally speaking, the 3 main reasons why entrepreneurs say the reason their company faced heavy losses is because it was either undercapitalized, employed the wrong people or the market conditions were bad. However, I would like to add a fourth point here which is poor marketing. Not only does effective and good marketing help a company sell its product thereby generating revenue, it also helps build indirect customer and business relationships and helps the company gain widespread fame and an increased customer base.  Types of Marketing : 1. Print Advertisements 2. Word of Mouth 3. Radio and Television Advertisements 4. Social Media Advertisements 5. Cause Marketing - Marketing that involves messages about social causes and activist messages 6. Relationship Marketing - Marketing campaigns that stress customer satisfaction more than sales transactions. The Advent of Digital Media Marketing Prior to the...

As a build up to my previous blog which was also on the Stock Market , I will be explaining the various types of  Orders for buying shares, the notion of Intraday Trading and a very important concept for traders which is Short Selling . Types of Orders There are various types of orders which an investor can place to buy shares. They are:  Limit Order (LO) - Usually, an investor buys shares at their current market price. However, if the share's market price is at ¥500 and the investor wants to buy it at ¥475, he can place a Limit Order; following which, the order will get executed only when the market price drops to ¥475.  Market Price Order (MPO) - This is an order where the buyer/seller is ready to execute the order at the current market price. After Market Order ( AMO) - In India, investors can trade/invest in the stock market from 9:30 A.M till 3:30 P.M. However, if an investor wants to buy/sell shares after the market hours, he can place an AMO. However, the ...

During the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic that is raging the entire world, more people are looking at ways to multiply their money. In this post and the upcoming one, I will be covering the basics of one of the best ways to multiply your money, the  STOCK MARKET . What is Investing?  Investing means putting your money into any financial scheme with the hope of achieving a profit. Depending on the medium, profits gained from investments may take from 2 days to 20 years! However, it should also be noted that there is an even possibility for an investor to incur losses.  5 Types of Investments There are 5 main types of investments which are 1. Stock Market .  2. Gold .  3. Real Estate .  4. Bonds .  5. Mutual Funds I will be explaining all the other types of investments in another blog. However, I will be going over the difference between the Stock Market and Mutual Funds .  Stock Market VS Mutual Funds In the Stock Market, the investor is in charge of hi...

As technology is poised to dominate our lives even more in the coming years, two main focus areas for the future are AI ( Artificial Intelligence ) and IoT . In this blog, I will be covering the basics of IoT. What is IoT? IoT stands for the Internet of Things . The word 'Internet' refers to the interconnected computer systems. Similarly, the Internet of Things means interconnecting everyday objects with embedded computing devices. This will allow these everyday objects to be able to 'talk' to each other. This means that they will be able to send and receive data to each other. How does it work? In order to connect each object, it has to be given a unique identity. A computing circuit and a sensor has to be embedded onto it in order for it to be able to communicate with other objects As there are a wide range of sensors for various purposes, the developer has to choose a sensor which is suited for that specific purpose. Then, all the data which has been produce...

The Great Gatsby is a book which is always listed among the greatest American novels and even among the greatest novels ever written. Authored by F. Scott Fitzgerald , the book's main theme revolves around the ' American Dream '. Through the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald tries to bring light to the de facto aristocracy in America and the fact that wealth is not everything in life. This can be seen when Fitzgerald writes, ' Money can't bring happiness. ' The American Dream represents the ideal of equality of opportunity for every American, allowing their highest aspirations to be achieved. It also says that a person from any financial background can rise up to the top and earn multitudes of money. The Great Gatsby presents a contradicting viewpoint to this by saying that getting rich should not be one's highest aspiration, rather wealth actually causes one's downfall. This is suggested when in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald describes a drunk man, who ke...