The Beaver - #944

Making Sense of LSE Since 1949.

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ISSUE 2

AT WEEK 4

2025

Agitator 2.0:

Amy covers the anticipated relaunch of radical magazine ‘Agitator 2.0’ at the LSE

NEWS

3 9

An exclusive investigation reveals no discplinary action was taken against any LSE staff after 202 reports of misconduct since September 2024

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6 12

FEATURES

multimedia

are artists happy at lse?

Tomas investigates just how legitimate university rankings truly are

OPINION Hana argues against the claim that boys are ‘falling behind’

& & & flip flip flip for for for PULSE PULSE PULSE

Meet the Team Executive Editor

Janset An

executive.beaver@lsesu.org

Managing Editor Lucas Ngai

managing.beaver@lsesu.org

Flipside Editor Skye Slatcher

editor.flipside@lsesu.org

Frontside Editor Suchita !epkanjana editor.beaver@lsesu.org

Multimedia Editor Sylvain Chan

multimedia.beaver@lsesu.org

News Editors Amy O’ Donoghue Jack Baker Features Editors Vasavi Singhal Angelika Santaniello Opinion Editors Shreya Gupta Aaina Saini Review Editors Jessica Chan Iman Waseem Part B Editors Shahzaib Ali Khan Zara Noor

AT Week 4 2

www.thebeaverlse.co.uk

How do You Write Like You’re Running Out of Time?

Sylvain Chan Multimedia Editor

S

orry for the Hamilton reference in the ‘Big 2025’ but the ‘non-stop’ pace I’ve been working at lately has – to my chagrin – been my defining character trait … and it’s only Week four.

To compensate for a summer slump of unemployment, I’ve filled myself to the brim with tasks and side quests.

Describing it as overwhelming is an understatement, as I write this on my walk back home at 10:30pm, having spent my sole ‘free day’ hunched over on campus.

source of comfort: Brennan Lee Mulligan. I watched his interview with Pedestrian.TV recently, where he addressed his status of being ‘the most employed man in the world’ – a title popularised following his contract renewal with the streaming service Dropout, working as dungeon master for season 4 of Critical Role, and being a father. To many, it looks like he operates on a different 24 hours than the rest of us.

What really stuck with me, however, was how he described his packed schedule as simply “honouring all those years [he] spent waiting” for opportunities to let his work As I always do during my shine. !is may be unique darkest times, I turn to my to those who seek emotional reliable and vaguely parasocial fulfilment and are genuinely

Connections Edie Maytum Games Writer How to play: find four groups of four words that share something in common.

Social Editors Amelia Hancock Aashi Bains

OLD

GRN

CBG

TEXAS

Sport Editors Emerson Lam Harry Roberts

FLY

LD

CON

COW

Illustration Heads Vivika Sahajpal Laura Liu

PIG

DÉJA

CAT

RUN

Website Editor Natasha Pinto Philippa Park

RAT

LOVE

PC

LAB

Podcast Editor Salma Abuletta Formatting Editor Oliver Chan Social Secretary Isabella Liu Social Media Sophie Alcock Yashve Rai Anika Balwada Anisha Shinde Khushi Khandelwal

Answers !ree letter animals: PIG, CAT, RAT, FLY LSE Buildings: CON, OLD, COW, CBG UK Political party abbreviations: LAB, LD, GRN, PC First word in Beyoncé songs: DÉJA, RUN, TEXAS, LOVE

Photography Head Yuvi Chahar

Any opinions expressed herein are those of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the LSE Students’ Union or Beaver Editorial Staff. !e Beaver is issued under a Creative Commons license.

Attribution necessary. Printed at Iliffe Print, Cambridge.

Room 2.02 Saw Swee Hock Student Centre LSE Students’ Union London WC2A 2AE

passionate about their careers; god knows if an IBanker would willingly work overtime ‘for the love of the game’.

But as someone who yearns to pursue something in the creative field, I really understand Brennan’s drive – I, too, would “run as hard as [I] can when [I] get that little bit of sunshine”.

not bad to be a workaholic so long as it contributes to paving the path for your future, even if it may be an atypical one.

Of course, it’s important to draw boundaries and recognise when you need a break. But maybe I would rather be constantly occupied and dancing in lost-productive limbo than !e obsessive hustle culture be doomscrolling and inert. at LSE can be really daunting when ‘success’ seems to be It’s funny how similar this solely defined by having a editorial is to my springtime $60k starting salary. But a$er one last year: gloomy a coffee chat with a multi- and stressful buildup hyphenate influencer I’ve with a somewhat hopeful admired for a while (teaser for turnaround. I guess this just my next multimedia feature), goes to show that a$er every she reframed my idea of being trough in life, what inevitably ‘career-driven’ as a matter of follows is well-needed, self-determinant ambition. It’s relative contentment.

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NEWS

3 News Editors

Jack Baker Amy O’Donoghue news.beaver@lsesu.org

Investigation Reveals No Disciplinary Action Taken Against LSE Staff after 202 Total Reports of Misconduct on Support + Report System Jack Baker News Editor

F

ollowing an exclusive investigation by The Beaver, LSE has confirmed that not a single member of staff received any form of disciplinary action for any complaint made using the Report + Support tool since September 2024. A Freedom of Information request showed that there were over 202 reports made using this tool between then and 31 August 2025.

Of this total, 28 were designated ‘sexual misconduct’, 76 ‘harassment’, 46 ‘hate incident’, and 29 ‘assault’ incidents. Multiple categories were able to be selected, and other cases were spread between various other Not a single one resulted in any disciplinary action against a member of LSE staff.

categories. Not a single one resulted in any disciplinary action against a member of staff.

There were less than 5 instances of disciplinary action taken against LSE students, with the exact number not shared due to privacy concerns.

LSE Report and Support is the School’s online reporting tool for students, staff, and visitors, though reports can also be made through HR and legal teams. This data is not included in these statistics.

When pressed for comment, a spokesperson for LSE told us that this has “no place in the LSE community” and that “many [reports] led to informal action”. When stating what informal action is, they listed “an individual [being] made aware of the impact of their behaviour or recommendations for

training

are

implemented”.

This investigation comes in the wake of an article published by The Beaver last year that examined the School’s mishandled sexual misconduct investigation into an LSE professor. In this case, individuals involved told us that the “complaint system at LSE seems to be set up to protect the faculty and does not just let these abuses happen, but discriminates against the people who complain”. These recent findings seem to suggest that a lack of disciplinary action is systemic across LSE. The information received from our investigation shows that since 28 March, 29 complaints have been made about staff and 20 against students.

A breakdown of data into staff or students before March was not shared – the reason for

this is not currently known.

Aliyyah Tahir, President of Hands Off LSE – a campaign group of the Student’s Union dedicated to tackling sexual violence on campus – stated that this “points to a persistent and troubling pattern of institutional inaction, reflecting LSE’s ongoing failure to take reports of sexual violence and harassment seriously”.

LSE publishes an insight report each term, with details of complaints made at the aggregate level. During Autumn Term, 6.9% of cases were reportedly referred for disciplinary action. However, the results of our investigation suggest that none of these resulted in any action taken.

LSE’s publicly available reporting suggests that 13.2% of individuals in Winter Term 24/25 chose to remain anonymous due to fears of repercussions

for themselves and others – a response reminiscent of the investigation done by The Beaver.

When approached for comment, LSE stated: “All forms of harassment, bullying, discrimination and sexual misconduct are wholly unacceptable. There is no place for this kind of behaviour in the LSE community.”

They stated that a “large proportion of reports were anonymous” and that this “cannot, generally, lead to a direct follow-up”. They further stated that “of the remaining cases, many led to informal action”. The examples of what constituted informal action were listed as where “an individual is made aware of the impact of their behaviour or recommendations for training are implemented”.

Read the full article and LSE’s response online.

LSE Students Launch New Personal Finance Society Sylvain Chan Multimedia Editor Oliver Chan Photography

L

SE students have formed the Personal Finance Society, aiming to empower peers to achieve their own personal financial goals concerning “saving, budgeting, investing, managing credit, and more”.

In conversation with the society’s co-presidents, Aanya Jain and Sophie Anker, they comment on university as a critical developmental stage for students towards ‘adulting’, yet note the lack of practical knowhow and su%cient support for handling finances.

In a recent study by Santander UK, only one in four young adults (ages 18–21) leaves school having received financial education. Aanya reflects on the frequently perpetuated

advice of needing to ‘invest early’: “Everyone at LSE wants high-paying jobs, but what after?” Speaking from personal experience, Sophie recognises that the process of opening an account, paying bills, obtaining a national insurance number, maintaining an investing routine, and beyond can be “really scary … [and] a lot of work”.

The society primarily aims to provide workshops such as ‘Invest, Save, Spend 101’, speaker events, and other resources necessary to demystify personal finance. After developing confidence through education to take the first step, Aanya and Sophie state that students will then be free to make their own informed decisions.

Without adequate guidance, almost a third of young adults turn to influencers for financial education. While easily accessible, Aanya suggests that relying on ‘Finfluencers’ and direct advice is the “wrong way to go about personal finance”.

Attempting to seek right or wrong answers about “what stocks to invest in” overlooks the fact that there is no financial strategy that fits all needs and behaviours. As Sophie describes to The Beaver, the end goal of personal finance is “not what brings ... the greatest returns, but what brings [one] greatest happiness”.

Aanya and Sophie acknowledge the important role educational systems play in providing the framework for students’ financial literacy.

LSE offers various financial resources, such as the LSESU Advice Service, and has partnered with Blackbullion, a financial wellbeing app. However, they allege that utilising these resources requires initiative that may be absent for students who grew up in households that “did not talk about money” or lacked connections.

Aanya also describes how women may be discouraged from approaching these top-

ics, considering the dominant “toxic masculine lifestyle” of risk-taking investment in the ‘Finfluencer’ sphere. Whether due to cultural, social, or class stratifications, these structural inequalities can impact one’s relationship with money and mental health by extension.

Through the society, Aanya and Sophie claim to strive to create a judgement-free space where students can have casual conversations about finances, thereby improving their independence.

Events planned include col-

laborations between the Personal Finance Society and other LSESU communities, such as the Feminism Society, to address intersectional inequalities in financial literacy, and the LSE Blockchain to unpack the world of cryptocurrency. The society also expects to invite people who have built their wealth sustainably.

You can find more information about the new society on their Instagram: @lsesu.personalfinance

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NEWS

Agitator 2.0: The Relaunch of a Radical Magazine at LSE Amy O’Donoghue News Editor Sylvian Chan Illustrator

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tudents at LSE have launched a new edition of the Agitator, a self-proclaimed “revolutionary pamphlet” first created in the 1960s by the LSE Socialist Society.

The magazine, led by members of LSESU Students for Justice in Palestine, combines academic and creative work highlighting what they describe as LSE’s “complicity in overseas colonial regimes and its repression of student movements on campus”. On 3 October 2025, students, staff, and alumni gathered to promote the release of the new issue and discuss its contents with a panel of contributors.

The event began with Anna, an outgoing Master’s student and an editor of the Agitator, discussing its history and relevance today. The first ever issue, published in 1966, criticised the links between Walter Adams (then-director of LSE) and white-minority rule in Zimbabwe. Alumni who were involved with the formation of

the very first issue were in attendance at the relaunch.

The new issue highlights that LSE invests “£72 million in egregious companies and financial institutions involved in crimes against the Palestinian people”. Anna described the death and destruction in Gaza and the repression of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. She called everyone to “ground ourselves in this reality, not to lose ourselves in despair, but to honour the martyrs and remind us of what is at stake”.

sorship scheme which was established following a donation made by BP to LSE. He stated that “wherever BP does their work, it involves violence and suppression”. LSE emphasised to The Beaver that their investments are not direct.

Salem and Taha then discussed the contents of their piece in the Agitator 2.0, entitled ‘What is a University For?’. They talked about how... whilst people question whether a university should even be a space of politics, it is now more important than ever to push the university as “a space of inquiry and radical refusal”.

The panel consisted of contributors to the Agitator 2.0, such as Professor Kumar of the Social Policy department, Professor Salem, and Professor Taha of the Sociology department, and Sociology students Nihal Yaldir and Dan Brown. They proceeded to discuss their specific interests in Palestine and the student movement.

They questioned why tuition fees are “being invested in the arms trade” and highlighted that whilst staff may want to organise in protest, it’s hard to build a community of resistance when people are “destabilised by casualised contracts”.

Brown claimed that LSE has £2 million invested in BP, which owns an oil pipeline that is the “key source of oil for Israel” and what he describes as the “lifeblood of the Israeli economy and the Israeli war machine”. LSE also has historical links with BP, such as a profes-

A spokesperson for LSE told The Beaver: “We are committed to strengthening our approach to responsible investment in line with the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Policy, which was recently reviewed.” They highlighted that a “thorough

assessment” of the School’s investment policy has been carried out in the past year.

They also told The Beaver that freedom of speech was of the “utmost importance” to them and asserted that they only intervene in a protest if it crosses the line into illegality or violence.

Referencing the most notorious instance of protest being stifled on campus, which involved seven pro-Palestine students being suspended after a protest in July 2024, LSE stated: “The action was initiated a%er we received multiple complaints from staff – who observed first-hand and heard from students seeking to register – that the protesters, with

covered faces, physically obstructed their work and efforts; used loud megaphones in an enclosed inside space; shouted in people’s faces; and behaved in a manner that intimidated and frightened people.

We could not responsibly ignore these complaints and allegations, which required us to initiate an investigation and disciplinary proceedings, even if some who were present may not have been upset or may have a different perspective.”

Read the full article online.

NEWS

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Backlash after Israel Society Hands Out ‘I SUPPORT THE IDF’ Merchandise at Freshers Fair Hugh Ormond Askerud Contributing Writer LSESU JAZ Photography

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SESU’s stance on Gaza has again become a battleground of student opinion in light of a recent incident between ‘Jews against Zionism’ (JAZ) and Israel Society. A formal complaint was laid down to LSESU by JAZ in response to Israel Society handing out ‘I support the IDF’ wristbands on September 25th, the Thursday of Freshers Fair.

“It’s important not to be surprised by the things these people are doing, but I was completely shocked,” said Oli, one of the members of JAZ in the stall directly opposite the Israeli Society during Freshers Week.

A member of Israel Society confirmed to The Beaver that they were handing out ‘I support the IDF’ wristbands alongside leaflets, waterbottles, and powerbanks on the day.

As ‘Cultural Day’ had been scheduled for the first day of Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year, Jewish Society, Israel Society, and Jews against Zionism all had to postpone their stalls from Monday to Thursday. After seeing that Israel Society was handing out their wristbands, members of JAZ complained to members of LSESU staff, after which the Israel Society subsequently

put the remaining wristbands away.

After the fair had ended for the day, Ben, President of Israel Society, approached the JAZ stall to speak. Speaking to The Beaver, his key complaint relating to JAZ was their turn away from discourse, stating there is “no need for this back and forth – complaint, meeting, complaint, just come up to me and have a conversation”.

Following the event, JAZ launched their petition in tandem with an Instagram post, ‘condemning the distribution’ of the wristbands. The petition itself calls for LSE not to tolerate such actions and calls for signatures. It also asks signatories to ‘share any thoughts’ on the wristband distribution.

In addition to the petition, a formal complaint was privately lodged to the SU by members of the group. Welfare and Liberation Officer Isabel Howe confirmed that the SU had received the complaint and was in the process of drafting a response to the group.

Though LSE as a whole was targeted by the petition, members of both JAZ, Palestine Society, and Israel Society have placed the crux of the matter with the Students’ Union, seeing this as the vehicle of change. The Students’ Union has acknowledged the ongoing genocide in Palestine after a strong referendum result, with...

88.6% of students voting in favour.

Many staff and associated individuals have also expressed support in private.

The president of JAZ, Dylan Watts, stated that, with regard to the SU, it was the case that “generally they are sympathetic but a bit weak, because they like to play this two-sides narrative that both sides need to be listened to, but one side are literal genocide deniers.”

Ben also pointed to this crucial tension, stating that he hopes “they will allow freedom of expression to continue … They should allow these conversations to be had, and I sincerely hope they don’t dampen freedom of expression at LSE.” Members of JAZ said that they had multiple private conversations with staff who voiced their frustration at such actions more broadly.

On one occasion, JAZ member Oli had spoken to one member of staff who called the distribution a “disgusting” act.

“They’re on the right side and they have goodwill, but maybe a lack of political will on some occasions,” said Dylan.

Jack and Amy’s Top Picks of Upcoming Events

Holborn Leadership Conversation with Larry Kramer and James Li LSESU Hayek Society Hosts Gary Stevenson

Isabel said that the referendum result in favour of recognising the genocide provided some scope for working with students on topics such as divestment but the platform was also limited. “I understand this sounds quite vague but what it means is we can work better with students,” she said.

Key to the SU’s approach, according to Isabel, is “facilitating and creating as many places as possible for campaigns to exist … it’s on the Student Union to balance and follow the law while at the same time encouraging students”.

News Editors’ Digest Visual Arts Society Live Drawing @ The Tate Museum

In an interview with The Beaver, Welfare and Liberation officer Isabel was quick to dismiss suggestions that staff could voice an opinion on the issue, arguing that while sabbatical officers had some scope to speak following the referenda results, “In terms of staff, their opinions can’t come into their work … they all understand it’s important not to do that on a moral level.”

03 Oct 09 Oct 12 Oct

An LSE spokesperson told The Beaver: “Academic freedom and freedom of expression underpin everything we do at LSE. Students and staff are strongly encouraged to discuss and debate the most pressing

issues around the world in a mutually respectful manner.

“As an institution, LSE does not take a formal position on political or international issues.

Instead, it endeavours to provide a platform to facilitate discussion and critical debate, within the law, where the views of all parties are treated with respect. This includes the expression of views that are unpopular, controversial, provocative, or cause upset, but are not unlawful.”

This is enshrined in UK law by the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, [which states] that LSE has an obligation to adhere to via our Code of Practice on Free Speech.”

FEATURES

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Features Editors Angelika Santaniello Vasavi Singhal features.beaver@lsesu.org

Do University Rankings Matter? And Should They?

Tomas Corej Staff Writer

F

or years, university rankings have been criticised as subjective, inaccurate, and even unscientific. Despite growing doubts about their purpose, they remain a popular tool for employers, the media, students, and universities themselves.

Recently, the London School of Economics (LSE) celebrated being named the number one university in the United Kingdom by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide. Per LSE President Larry Kramer, the ranking exhibits "the dedication and talent of our faculty, sta", students, and global community". Simultaneously, LSE only finished in 52nd place according to the international Times Higher Education ranking.

then choose the ranking table that best reflects those priorities," he tells the Beaver.

Yet whether international or British, some researchers are sceptical of their usefulness.

Sung explains that rankings may be important for those seeking their first professional job. When he worked in a corporate setting in London and was involved in hiring new graduates, "the university someone attended was one of the factors we considered during the initial screening process”.

Among the critics is Berend van der Kolk, Associate Professor in the Department of Accounting of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, who has published a book on the contemporary preoccupation with performance metrics.

This opinion resonates with some students. Yifei, an exchange student from the United

"I do not recommend any rankings at the university level," he tells the Beaver.

As Van der Kolk explains, the

National rankings use "a greater variety of indicators" compared to international rankings. While criteria di"er, they usually include student feedback, expenditure per student, and student-to-sta" ratio.

So, how important are these rankings?

Chen-Ta Sung, doctoral researcher in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at LSE, claims that rankings "can be useful", depending on what one is looking for.

At the same time, he does not consider any ranking inherently superior to another. "It really depends on which factors matter most to you – and you can

such as Scopus display sharp increases in the yearly number of publications," Van der Kolk claims.

This sentiment is echoed by several LSE students. Leo told the Beaver that, according to them, many universities scoring highly in rankings tend to not be "good at teaching", as they place excessive emphasis on research: "Faculty have so much pressure and competition to get funding."

Still, Leo candidly remarks that their decision to choose LSE was ultimately influenced by rankings: “They do matter because of ‘networks and employers’ perceptions’.”

At first glance, this seems to be a rather bizarre situation.

How can there be such disparity between di"erent university ranking outcomes?

There are two main large groups of academic rankings: international and national.

"... the rankings 'impose a competition frame' and enable the private sector to dictate what universities should do and be."

States, tells the Beaver he monitored rankings while choosing to spend a year at LSE. Similarly, he considers rankings to be important for his future career prospects. However, he clarifies that he looks “at the subject first and then at the overall ranking", prioritising departmental performance.

rankings "impose a competition frame" and enable the private sector "to dictate what universities should do and be". He is convinced that they ultimately lead to what he calls "indicatorism" – a focus on improving rankings while losing sight of universities’ original goals.

"Rankings come with a feel of objectivity but are highly subjective" That said, researcher Sung emphasises that the perceived usefulness of university rankings "can vary across cultures”. He illustrates that "credentialism" is dominant in some societies, such as India and China, which may have unintended consequences such as exacerbating inequality.

While methodological di"erences between di"erent rankings are large, many of them – especially the international ones – emphasise not only quality, but also the quantity of research.

"Unsurprisingly, universities press academics to publish more papers, and citation databases

Alongside other concerns, some claim that ranking universities hierarchically is wrong per se. For example, Jelena Brankovic, Senior Researcher at the Robert K. Merton Center for Science Studies at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, noted in her LSE Impact Blog that the "carefully calibrated" methodologies used to evaluate quality of universities are designed "to convince us that rankings are rooted in logic and quasi-scienti!c reasoning."

The Beaver reached out to Brankovic, who did not dismiss the usefulness of rankings altogether. "If students find them useful, then they are useful, even if they are misleading. If some students don't find them useful, then they are not useful for those students."

So, do students find them useful?

Stefan never considered rankings when applying to LSE. "I did consider LSE's reputation, but I don't have any interest in specific rankings," he summa-

rises.

On the other hand, Christine explains that, due to her interest in research and academia, she found rankings useful. "I got into SOAS as well, but SOAS has a lower ranking so I decided to come to LSE.”

"If students find them useful, then they are useful, even if they are misleading."

At the same time, she emphasises the importance of other criteria, including networking opportunities and programme length.

To sum up, rankings keep having a great deal of influence, leaving a lot of students little choice but to consider them. But at the time when even their defenders admit their shortcomings, and most experts caution against their unwanted societal e"ects, their purpose indeed deserves further consideration. Such continued debate is greatly needed at LSE, too.

Read the full article online!

FEATURES

7

Inside LSE’s IR Department: Where Theory Meets the Real World Shreya Gupta Opinion Editor Yuvi Chahar Photography

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hen I received my offer to study International Relations (IR), I found myself torn between LSE and the University of Edinburgh. Having lived in London all my life, the idea of studying here seemed dull – too familiar, too close. But the more I thought about it, the more a question lingered: how does studying IR change when you’re based in a city where so much of it takes place?

With its location in the heart of London, its global community, and the sheer breadth of resources available, LSE arguably offers a unique academic environment for studying how the world works. To understand what makes this experience so unique, I spoke to fellow students and faculty members across the Department of International Relations.

on your way to class.

During my very "rst term, I was struck by the sheer range of opportunities LSE had to offer. One moment that stood out was attending Professor Peter Trubowitz’s ‘Food for Thought’ event just before the U.S. presidential election. We discussed the possibility of a second Trump administration – the conversation felt timely and deeply relevant. It was one of the "rst times I realised that what we study in class isn’t just theory; it’s unfolding in real time, and it matters.

A Department Built on Its Own Legacy Nowhere is this advantage clearer than within the IR Department itself. Much of the discipline’s foundational theory has deep roots at LSE. Rushil, a fellow IR student, reminded me that “a huge portion of seminal IR scholarship – Buzan, Lawson, and the Eng-

“... our lectures have to be restructured to keep up with the turbulence of the international system.”

To explore the connection between theory and practice, I turned to Professor Toby Dodge, my Foreign Policy Analysis lecturer, whose extensive work on Iraq and Middle Eastern politics bridges the gap between academic studies and lived geopolitics.

A recurring theme quickly emerged – as Professor Dodge put it, “LSE’s position between government and the city allows for supplies and expertise.” From influential decision-makers delivering public lectures almost daily, to the proximity of internships, NGOs, embassies, and think tanks, the university’s location gives students a front-row seat to the practice of international affairs. It’s one thing to study foreign policy, but it’s another to walk past a foreign embassy

lish School – originated here.”

That legacy is reflected not just in the readings, but in the people teaching them.

One of the Foreign Policy Analysis classes this year is taught by Andi Sparringa, a senior Indonesian diplomat currently completing his PhD at LSE. His presence in the classroom reminds us that theory and practice aren’t separate worlds, but are constantly in dialogue.

As Professor Dodge noted, there is a vital “interaction between what we study and what we try to impart; what’s been given to us and what we’re giving to students”. The department’s faculty are not only diverse in background but also in their approaches – scholars, diplomats, and practitioners

who bring lived experience to the academic space.

Thinking Critically, Speaking Freely Professor Dodge also drew a distinction between the formal and informal sides of the course. “Teachers are merely there to facilitate thinking,” he said. “Students play [a] bigger role in channeling that thinking into a process that leads to [their] own thought[s].” It’s a philosophy I’ve seen in action every week. Seminars at LSE are more than spaces for discussion; they’re laboratories of ideas, where disagreement is encouraged, and non-mainstream perspectives are valued.

Because IR is a discipline de"ned by constant change, this openness feels essential. As Professor Dodge explained, “our lectures have to be restructured to keep up with the turbulence of the international system.” For professors, that means recognising that “we don’t always have the right approaches; our theories and case studies must evolve”. For students, it means learning to think critically, to question our assumptions, and to understand the limits of our own worldviews.

Expanding the Global Lens One area where LSE has made vital progress is in encouraging students to study languages alongside their degree. For me, studying Spanish has been an invaluable complement to my IR courses. Language learning does more than expand communication skills – it opens new ways of understanding culture, diplomacy, and identity. I have had the opportunity to study both Latin American and Spanish Politics, broadening my knowledge of historical and contemporary international relations. In a "eld where empathy and cross-cultural literacy are as important as theory, this feels indispensable.

A Truly International Classroom The diversity of LSE’s student body is often mentioned, but it’s only when you sit in a seminar that you realise how much it transforms learning. Rushil described this perfectly: “This is what IR is about at the end of the day.” Conversations about world politics come alive when they’re grounded in lived experiences – from students who’ve grown up in conflict zones, worked in NGOs, or moved between countries. Professor

gagement with the Grimshaw Club, LSE’s oldest society, has allowed me to do just this in both informal spaces, such as socials, and formal spaces, such as embassy visits or panel discussions.

Studying IR at LSE has taught me that understanding international politics isn’t just about theory or institutions; it’s about people, perspectives, and the willingness to listen. Whether it is through seminars, language learning, or conversations, the ‘LSE experience’ pushes you to think globally and empathetically. And that, perhaps, is what

"... it’s not just about observing the world, but learning how to engage with it."

Dodge summarised this: “You learn so much more in your seminars and amongst your fellow students than you do from us.” This points to some of the most formative lessons being learned at LSE not coming from textbooks, but from hearing classmates challenge, expand, and reframe perspectives about the world. My en-

makes studying International Relations here so special – it’s not just about observing the world, but learning how to engage with it.

LSE Media Relations were contacted for a comment on 16 October but have not replied.

Read the full article online.

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FEATURES

LSE’s Widening Participation Measures: Too Little, Too Late?

Amy O'Donoghue News Editor Sylvain Chan Illustrator

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s an institution with a net worth of over a billion and a 26% privately educated student population, LSE is perceived by many as prestigious and elite.

With such a level of wealth and resources, the School has a responsibility to ensure its students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are not left behind. Despite recent changes to its Widening Participation measures, such as updates to contextual admissions criteria and bursary thresholds, many current students from lower-income backgrounds still feel overlooked.

Until 2025, LSE had primarily used the POLAR quintile system – a classification system which grades postcode areas based on rates of university progression – to assess whether students are eligible for a contextual o"er (meaning they may re-

ceive lower grade requirements). Eligibility for Free School Meals (FSM) or household income is widely considered the most accurate indicators of someone’s socioeconomic background.

Yet, until the alterations made in the 2025-2028 Widening Participation Plan, these were not used to determine if someone was entitled to a contextual o"er.

The previous system left a lot of room for error. Tom, a second-year student, told The Beaver that despite being entitled to FSM throughout secondary school, he did not receive a

seem to make any e"ort to acknowledge” important factors that determine a person’s likelihood to progress to university, such as parental occupation and education.

LSE confirmed that the latest contextual o"er criteria now include FSM as a marker of eligibility, in a change from previous years. They told The Beaver that the new Access and Participation Plan includes “ambitious targets to promote equality of opportunity at every stage from accessing university through to progressing to good graduate outcomes”. They also highlighted that they have recently launched the LSE Navigate pro-

"However, current students shouldn’t be neglected: the struggles that come with a lower socioeconomic background don’t disappear once a place at LSE is obtained." contextual o"er. Meanwhile, he noted that other students in his cohort did receive one due to their postcode being classified as a lower POLAR quintile, notwithstanding some of these students having higher household incomes and having previously attended private schools.

He believes that LSE “doesn’t

gramme “to increase support for contextual o"er holders”.

This seems to indicate a welcome – albeit overdue – change in LSE’s access measures.

But some current students remain dissatisfied.

One student told The Beaver that since they had not received a contextual o"er, despite previously being in receipt of FSM, they had been denied a place on LSE Navigate – a new scheme designed to help students from lower-income backgrounds adjust to university and make the most of the academic and professional opportunities available to them.

It appears that incoming students will have more provisions made for them, which is undeniably a positive progression. However, current students shouldn’t be neglected: the struggles that come with a lower socioeconomic background don’t disappear once a place at LSE is obtained.

Present students have described the stress and dissatisfaction that comes with attempting to get financial support from LSE.

One anonymous undergraduate told The Beaver that upon learning that LSE expanded the bursary eligibility to more income categories, they entered into their deferred first year of study expecting to receive £1500 – only to discover that since they had technically enrolled in the 24/25 cohort, they would receive nothing at all.

But this assumption overlooks those who don’t come from af%uent backgrounds. Grace, who attends LSE on a scholarship, told The Beaver that students who come from abroad may face "specific challenges that LSE doesn’t really consider”.

She highlighted that student overdraft accounts, which may act as a temporary safety net for

“... the timeline on which they make the scholarship payments is not conducive to actual student life,” Skye, a third-year law student, reported similar frustration with the fact that incoming students, in the same income bracket as her, would receive £2000 more. “My living costs are not minimised by virtue of having started my degree two years ago,” she stated.

A LSE spokesperson told The Beaver: “The increased bursary values and household income thresholds will ensure that more of our students will receive financial support and more funding than ever will be disbursed through the LSE Bursary.” They also highlighted that LSE o"ers “one of the most generous bursary packages in the country”.

Whilst it’s a positive change that LSE is broadening its scope of financial support for its pupils, as an institution with

home students, are generally unavailable to international students, who “can’t really access credit in the UK”.

She also asserted that “the timeline on which they make the scholarship payments is not conducive to actual student life”, receiving less in the first term than she does later on, despite needing more money to help with moving in and buying memberships on campus.

The financial support LSE appears to o"er is evidently often wrapped up in bureaucracy and practical barriers to access. If the targeted students are consistently struggling to access them, how can LSE claim it holistically supports its disadvantaged students?

LSE has a responsibility to ensure all of its students are able

The "nancial support LSE appears to offer is evidently often wrapped up in bureaucracy and practical barriers to access. one of the largest endowments in the country, one wonders why it wouldn’t extend this help to all the students who need it.

Home students aren’t the only ones a"ected by LSE’s potential apathy to financial hardship. With a student population consisting of over 70% international students, many of them having previously attended wealthy international schools, there is a common perception that most international students don’t need financial assistance.

to thrive without barriers, and it certainly has the necessary resources. Failure to accommodate these students can only derive from apathy to their struggles.

Read the full article and LSE's response online.

OPINION

9 Opinion Editors

Shreya Gupta Aaina Saini opinion.beaver@lsesu.org

No, Boys Aren’t Falling Behind. They’re Just Used to Being Ahead Hana Reid Contributing Writer April Yang Illustrator

“G

uys know that if they sit back and relax, something will get done by someone else,” one high schooler told Education Week when asked why boys avoid leadership roles.

Brutal. But also, Exactly.

The internet is drowning in think pieces about young men in crisis, boys falling behind, girls surging ahead. Claire Cain Miller said in The New York Times: “School has changed in ways that favor girls, and work has changed in ways that favor women.” At first glance, the numbers look grim for boys: women now outpace men in high school, college, and early employment. The narrative is simple – girls are winning, boys are drowning.

But if you look past the headlines, the truth tells a di%erent story: women’s wages are “rising faster” only because they’re still fighting to catch up. They dominate many low-paid sectors, and even when they outperform men academically, they still earn less once they enter the workforce. Working

women in the UK do 50 hours per month more domestic labour than men, with mothers earning £302 less than fathers per week. Even female breadwinners usually take on the heavier domestic labour; one study found 45% do the majority of home/caring work. Even when women negotiate just as much for higher salaries, the odds are against them. Promotion? Recognition? Equal pay? Not a given. This doesn’t look like women “winning”.

Meanwhile, men’s workforce It looks like women carrying not just professional loads, but invisible burdens society refuses to acknowledge.

participation has slipped since the ’70s, but fewer full-time working men also means more men choosing caregiving roles. About 20% of stay-athome parents in the U.S. are now dads, double the rate in 1989. That’s not collapse. That’s change. Why do we treat men choosing the home front as a crisis instead of progress?

Economic shi!s tell a more complete story. Many manual labor jobs once held by men have disappeared. Service-sector roles – traditionally female – have boomed. Gen Z women

now make up ...

53%

of their generation in the workforce.

But a lot of that work is parttime or lower paid, while men o!en hold out for higher status or pay. So yes, women are working more, but working more for less money, power and recognition.

In education, similar patterns emerge. Women account for 57% of higher education. Rather than ask why boys might be checking out, we label education “girly”, “woke”, and “emasculating”. The tempting, faster-reward path? Hustle bros on YouTube selling alpha energy and dominance without discipline.

This is gender flight theory in action: when women start showing up in spaces of power or prestige, many men abandon them. Once women dominate a field or institution, it loses prestige and perceived value, and salaries decrease. That pattern shows up everywhere from medicine, education and tech.

Prestige is hoarded, then dismissed as “overrun”.

Response: In Defence of Charlie Kirk Aiden Sanchez Romero Contributing Writer

O

f all of Tyler Robinson’s bullet engravings, “Hey Fascist! Catch!” perhaps best depicts his motivations. Indeed, accusations of Fascism are commonplace in American Discourse, with many somehow accusing the Pro-Gun, capitalist, isolationist, civic-nationalist President of being one too.

Undoubtedly, Kirk was more right wing than most. As fringe le!-wingers celebrated

his death, mainstream media obfuscated the reality of the assassin’s political ideology, such as Jimmy Kimmel’s false insinuation that Robinson was a conservative.

Mislabeling Kirk as a Fascist or someone who created “a hateful, intolerant America” may give those politically conscious great anxiety, fearing a repeat of historical catastrophe. Who wouldn’t have pulled a trigger to kill Adolf Hitler, or Pol Pot, given the chance? In extraordinary circumstances, violence against political actors seems contemplable.

However, Charlie Kirk was not an extremist by virtually any parameters, and his death was as futile as it was tragic.

He was a Man who fought extremists such as Nick Fuentes, with Fuentes stating he was “complicit in the Israeli capture of the right wing”, whilst Kirk called Fuentes a “bad faith actor”.

He was a Man who described January 6th as “the dark night of the soul for the conservative movement.”

He was a Man who fought

Powerful, perhaps overcompensating, Mark Zuckerberg has griped about the lack of “masculine energy” in the corporate world. Similarly, Donald Trump has said America has become “too feminised.” These aren’t neutral observations – they’re dog whistles. They shi! the blame for the outcomes of patriarchal leadership styles onto women’s progress rather than systemic inequality, bias, or power-hoarding.

Women o!en feel they have to be more qualified just to be taken seriously – but it’s not just a feeling. Studies show that women are hired based on experience and evidence, whilst men are hired based on potential. Even to be hired, you need to be called back a!er submitting your resume, and with a woman’s name, that’s 30% less likely.

This is an expression of the “prove-it-again” phenomenon: the expectation that marginalized groups (women, Global Majority people) must continuously prove their competence, while default trust is a%orded to men. These dynamics are structural: bias in evaluation, in networks, in investment, in promotion.

So yes, men face challenges. But the system still stacks the deck in ways that “privilege” them – o!en invisibly – while women must play by di%erent, harsher rules.

Read the full article online.

If girls are really “doing so much better,” why doesn’t it translate into power, pay, or investment? When women do get to the C-suite, female founders and female-led startups o!en receive less funding, are penalized more harshly for failures, and on average have lower valuations, even when they generate better returns.

“Mislabeling Kirk as a Fascist or someone who created ‘a hateful, intolerant America’ may give those politically conscious great anxiety, fearing a repeat of historical catastrophe.” against Lawlessness, such as the roughly 10 million illegal aliens who migrated to the United States under Joe Biden.

He didn’t oppose emotion – he simply preferred the word Sympathy to Empathy, a minor semantic point misused to further demonise political adversaries as immoral. Kirk was a devout evangelical Christian, claiming “Jesus saved my life” – hardly the words of a violent reactionary. His opposition to

the word empathy, then, seems more nuanced than a dislike of feelings.

He would not have applauded violence against ideological adversaries, acknowledging that “When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against that group,” (Continued on next page)

10

OPINION and “Violence is not an option”.

Many views and policies on the left wing of American politics are what I would consider radical and divisive. Joe Biden’s calling of 77 million Trump voters as “garbage” wouldn’t have united the nation. Kamala Harris’ support of taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for illegal immigrants is divisive, yet her 2024 opponent faced far greater safety concerns, including three assassination attempts.

Zohran Mamdani, candidate for NYC Mayor, has repeatedly

refused to condemn the “Globalise the Intifada” phrase, yet many on the left are complicitly silent in promoting political violence which supports their cause.

Charlie Kirk did believe his political opposition should have human rights, and he died bravely debating those he disagreed with. He knew that it is war, not politics, which asserts that ‘Might makes Right’.

As his Christian Conservative movement suffers a major setback, genuine Fascists have emerged, attempting to fill the

void on the right. Will leftist phraseology moderate such a void, or will it further defeat their own goals? Reductio ad hitlerums have drastically increased in the past decade, yet the Republican Party has continued to dominate politics.

Charlie Kirk understood that “you can tell a lot about a person by how they react when someone dies.” He was controversial and opinionated, yet massively popular. Are we to presume our opponents are bad people, or those trying to build a better world?

On the Fragmentation of British Politics Joe Card Staff Writer

S

ince taking office, Keir Starmer’s government has disappointed much of the British-left by seeming to continue a drift towards the right which began during his time as Leader of the Opposition. What was perceived as a strategy to win the 2024 election and end 14 years of Conservative government is increasingly looking like a centrist muddle appealing to no one in particular. With approval ratings on the %oor, Starmer’s Labour Party has undeniably lost its role as the electoral vehicle for the vast majority of left-wing voters.

Instead, a range of alternatives are springing up. The Liberal Democrats arguably went into the last election with a more left-wing manifesto than Labour, which saw their best result ever, with 72 MPs elected. The Greens similarly saw their best result, with four MPs elected – especially in seats ranging from urban Brighton to rural East Anglia.

In the most direct threat to Labour, Jeremy Corbyn and four other independents won in traditional Labour strongholds, with a number of very close calls in other places.

These independents and Zarah Sultana have since tried to set up a new party, provisionally called Your Party. Despite unedifying public scraps over trans rights, a membership

But if these different parties arrive in Westminister, following the election scheduled for 2029, how will they coordinate a cohesive programme for goverment? portal, and sexism, this party may well become yet another alternative to Labour.

OUR TWO PARTY SYSTEM The conventional wisdom in British politics says that the UK is a two-party state. Political scientists argue that this is the result of our first-past-thepost electoral system, where candidates only need a plurality of votes to win, rather than an absolute majority. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that when parties fracture, their prospects inevitably decline, and new parties have almost no chance of gaining traction – unless, like Reform, they can jump to the top of the polls. This means that the left of British politics faces a major structural disadvantage.

However, this narrative misses an important point. Unlike the US presidential election, our general elections are instead 650 local, constituency elections. In each constituency, the electoral battle is realistically always going to be a two-horse race – but there is no reason for each local election to be between the same two parties everywhere. For instance, at the 2024 election

in rural North Herefordshire, the Greens’ Ellie Chowns decisively beat a Conservative incumbent. Four independent MPs elected last year won on the basis of support for Gaza, defeating Labour in urban strongholds with large Muslim populations.

In the next election, we could easily see this go further, with a range of smaller left wing parties re%ecting the concerns of local voters, challenging Reform and securing seats across the country. But the same parties wouldn’t be able to win everywhere–ending the traditional picture of the two ‘broad church’ parties, Labour and the Conservatives, competing for every seat.

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA Nationally successful parties, however, still have some advantages. They can deploy far more resources – in terms of both campaign funds and activists – and can capture media attention in a way smaller parties cannot. But in the 21st century, this is becoming less significant as social media allows politicians to bypass traditional media, such as national broadcasters and news-

papers. Evidence already suggests that many more people in Britain – and across the world – turn to social media for the news, as TV and print media see their relevance decline.

This has profound ramifications in practice. In Zohran Mamdani’s campaign to be the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, we saw how an insurgent, anti-establishment candidate can use social media to drive a campaign.

If smaller parties in the UK can use these same techniques to build a social media presence, traditional media’s focus on the major parties will become irrelevant, and various leftwing groups will be able to win across the country.

PARLIAMENT IN 2029 But if these different parties arrive in Westminster, following the election scheduled for 2029, how will they coordinate a cohesive programme for government? We have already seen serious ruptures in Your Party; divisions in the Greens were laid out in full view during their leadership election; and even the Liberal Democrats saw concerns raised over their leader’s tactics at the party conference in Bournemouth. If left-wing parties are not even on the same page internally, there seems little chance of them agreeing a formal coalition.

Indeed, all three political parties come from very different ideological positions. For example, the independent MP and potential Your Party leading figure, Adnan Hussein, does not support trans women accessing women’s spaces, putting him at odds with Zarah Sultana and the Greens. The new Green leader, Zack Polanski, suggests Britain ought to leave NATO, a significant departure from the Liberal Democrats’ more supportive approach.

However, where left-wing MPs do agree, they have already demonstrated their ability to work together. For instance, they have drafted a bill calling for an independent public inquiry into UK involvement in the attacks on Gaza. If large numbers of left-wing MPs from different parties are elected at the next election, perhaps rather than a formal coalition, they could continue this more %exible arrangement. By working together when they agree and sticking to their principles when they don’t, they may be able to deliver real change while remaining true to their values.

Read the full article online.

OPINION

11

East German Women – More Than Just the ‘Losers’ Lizzie Dacombe Contributing Writer Laura Liu Illustrator

that their calls for equal rights could be hijacked by the state to justify increasing militarisation and hostility.

D

That same year, the first independent lesbian group in the GDR was founded. Lesben in der Kirche (Lesbians in the Church, LiK) was the first effort to increase visibility and normalisation of female ho-

ic emancipation of women: they no longer had to choose between a career and motherhood. Interestingly, the reforms encouraged women to be less dependent on men due to the iscourse about the expansive welfare state.

East German legacy reiterates the same FEMALE themes: the lingering economAUTONOMY AND ic and political divide, whether women “had it better” unCOMMUNITY der the East German Regime BUILDING (GDR), and the portrayal of East German women as the It was in the 1980s that women “losers” of reunification. Such began to organise themselves, narratives reduce East German initially under the auspices of identity to a teleological story the Protestant Church. of decline spiralling towards 1989, and cast individuals as One of the better-known womvaluable only for understanding the state’s collapse.

for education and open discussion on various themes, but perhaps most remarkable was the 1987 festival in its theme of ‘power in relationships’.

Through these Women’s Festivals, attendees could access the language and framework to discuss sensitive topics like sexuality and violence, which remained highly restricted by the state.

It was not just about outlining goals for the political movement, but a longer-term ambition to build a lasting community and space for exploration and self-expression.

THE SITUATION OF EAST GERMAN WOMEN IN THE 1970s

East Germany had made leaps and bounds in the econom-

East German women in particular have been unfairly labelled as “losers”, ignoring how they existed alongside, in opposition to, but most importantly, independently from the state. en’s groups that grew was Frauen für den Frieden (Women for Peace). Formed in 1982 as a women’s peace group, it emerged in response to the new military act expanding conscription to women. Their petition to Honecker, with over 150 signatures (a large number for the time), stated that female conscription was in “contradiction to their femininity”, not an expression of gender equality.

It was a statement of refusal

CONCLUDING REMARKS Of course, there is some explanation for the neglect of East German women from the historical narrative. In the years following reunification, many East German activists retreated from political activity, feeling increasingly disillusioned with the absorption into the newly unified Germany. This was particularly true for women and lesbian activists.

Only recently have we begun to reappraise East Germany as a society with autonomous people, culture, and history, rather than a monolithic police state.

East German women in particular have been unfairly labelled as “losers”, ignoring how they existed alongside, in opposition to, but most importantly, independently from the state.

They were never passive, and although they did suffer more than most in the reunification process, we continue to do them a disservice by retrospectively marginalising them from our understandings of both East German and modern German cultural and historical development.

This perspective renders women as passive victims of reunification. Rather than debating which system was better, I want to look beyond such one-dimensional views to explore how East German women expressed themselves politically and culturally outside the state framework.

By the 1970s, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) had shifted from increasing women’s employment and education to addressing the friction between motherhood and women’s employment. These policies, ‘Muttipolitik’ (Mommy policy), hoped to counter low birth rates and the continued labour shortage by making motherhood more attractive.

Women were guaranteed a year of maternity leave with the ability to return to their jobs, as well as leave for housework and to provide care. State daycares also expanded. Indeed, these policy interventions did push women and mothers into the workforce: by 1989, the East German workforce was 49% female, despite around 91% of East German women being biological mothers.

community and space for exploration and self-expression.

mosexuality. Through lectures, discussions, and even guest visits, LiK was crucial in the conception of lesbianism as a political identity in East Germany.

Their work to connect queer women, who had suppressed their feelings as unnatural, was key in fostering a network of women who could realise the normality of their desires.

The Women’s Festivals in Dresden (1985-1987) were a space

Frau Anders cultivated the vibrant community of women that had developed in the 1980s through amusing illustrations, articles, readers’ letters, and event notices. Distributed from friend to friend, it deepened the personal networks that were the foundations of the East German women’s movement. The zine also represented a more light-hearted side of the movement in its role as a space for playfulness and to explore identity and its possibilities, as women, lesbians, mothers, and even as socialists. It was not just about outlining goals for the political movement, but a longerterm ambition to build a lasting

Read the full article online.

12 THIS MULTIMEDIA SPREAD WAS DESIGNED AND CREATED WITH EACH ARTISTS’ INPUT

INSPIRATIONS: JAPANESE BAUHAUS/ BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE, INTERPLAY BETWEEN TYPOGRAPHY WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC ELEMENTS

WHY DID YOU END UP GOING TO LSE? There was an undercurrent belief among the interviewees of security in academia versus instability in the arts.

Serena echoes her fathers words, “only the top 1% of the art world actually succeed in life”, which renders art as an unsustainable long-term career. Though Luoyi comments that the ‘starving artist’ trope is a “misconception”, its dominance in mainstream narratives, coupled with cultural stigma and the current state of the art industry, does not exactly act in its favour.

OLIVER CHAN YEAR 3 LAW CONSIDERED STUDYING GRAPHIC DESIGN

Serena expands on her father’s statement, stating that despite her French mother’s encouragement (having attended fashion school), her father considered “education [as the] only tool for social mobility” – an anxiety grounded in having grown up in rural communist China, compounded only by what Oliver describes as the stubborn, uncontestable nature of “traditional Asian beliefs” surrounding academic prestige. Recognising the privilege in attending a private school that her parents worked hard to pay for, Serena further felt she should be striving for “a good return on investment” by taking advantage of the opportunities academia opens up. Oliver expresses a similar filial piety, saying that “I do want to provide for my parents because I really appreciate the stuff that they’ve done despite their nagging” with a more ‘traditionally academic’ degree like law, promising job security to achieve these goals.

Serena additionally reflects on the significance of employment security in an era of AI proliferation, which, in her opinion, has stunted artists as they “have to adapt to AI” irrespective of their ethical and economic concerns. For Jessica, she comments on the necessity of being an ‘all-rounder’ if you want to get into game design: that needing to know how to 3D rig, illustrate backgrounds, and beyond was “too intense”. This underscores how creatives are doubly pressured to conform to overwhelming expectations just to be devalued by AI. Another fear all the interviewees conveyed was that attending art school would corrupt their passion. Alongside dejectedly feeling they would ”just be average” or “not good enough”, they also cite various ‘art school horror stories’ as deterrents. Though Serena often feels envious of her home friends who ended up going to art school, she sympathises with their cutthroat environment where art becomes a matter of “finishing assignments on time rather than expressing themselves creatively”.

It can also become suffocating when “art is everywhere and defines your career and personality”, as Jessica puts it. Art is constantly scrutinised and arbitrarily judged by a curriculum, or cheapened in meaning upon being monetised. Recognising the “detrimental impact” art school would have on her self-esteem, Luoyi sees her decision to study psychology at LSE as a healthy “combination” of her interests and academics in getting to “understand people and the mechanisms behind creativity and sustainability”.

SERENA FENG YEAR 2 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CONSIDERED FILM/ ART SCHOOL

INSPIRATIONS: CONCEPT ART FROM INNOVATIVE 3D ANIMATION EG. INTO THE SPIDERVERSE, ARCANE, THE BAD GUYS, PUSS IN BOOTS

Artists at LSE are like a amongst the sea of suitsessed finance bros. While aggeration, it does raise the creatively inclined tense, specialist social

In conversation with fou at LSE, this spread aims t er and how they retain the amidst the tidal wave

Scan the QR co the full articl more about th

INSPIRATIONS: JAPANESE BAUHAUS/ BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE, INTERPLAY BETWEEN TYPOGRAPHY WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC ELEMENTS LUOYI SHEN YEAR 3 PSYCHOLOGY CONSIDERED FASHION SCHOOL

SPREAD BY SYLVAIN CHAN 13

HOW DO CONTINUE TO ENJOY ART WITHIN AND OUTSIDE OF LSE? As a certified “internet kid”, Jessica describes a thrill from participating in online fandom communities and drawing fanart for the “sheer love of the game”, despite no longer being interested in being a ‘big-name online artist’ as she once aspired towards.

Serena, however, reflects on her wavering relationship with art. Having put art aside to focus on her conditional offer to LSE, art has since played a less prominent role in her life. She finds that what was once a way to “decompress” has since become obsolete upon entering university, having evolved into spending time with friends, going on walks, and playing games. Now equipped with a different support system, she did not find the need to “retreat back into art” as she once did.

Luoyi struggled with adjusting to a predominantly non-artistic environment, missing how accessible the weekly studio sessions her high school had provided were – “the hard part is making time for it ... because it’s no longer built into your curriculum”. As such, she turned to exploring London and extracurriculars as stimuli: from visiting art galleries, to attending a short course on life drawing at the University of Arts London, to taking on marketing roles within societies - now currently the LSESU Visual Arts Society’s president.

a pearl in an oyster -wearing, career-obe this may be an exe questions about why attend such an inscience university.

JESSICA CHAN YEAR 2 ECONOMICS CONSIDERED GAME DESIGN AS A CHARACTER ARTIST

ur different artists to investigate whetheir creative passions es of academics.

Oliver expands on this by lamenting how his skillset essentially prepared him to become a valuable asset in university clubs, jokingly describing LSE’s social sciences environment as his “saving grace” as he may not have been able to compete as strongly in UCL with its more diverse artistic talent.

ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH YOUR DECISION? Quite conclusively, all the artists said they were satisfied with their decision to attend LSE. In their eyes, pursuing an academic degree did not inherently mean abandoning the passion they had grown up with. Instead, it was a welcome challenge in adaptation, building networks of support, and seeking creative outlets.

To those whose heart and brain are in limbo, Serena recommends to “take the path that opens the most doors for you right now, (... as you) can always pursue art down the road”.

ode to read le and learn he artists!

INSPIRATIONS: 2000S ANIME EG. CODE GEASS & SCHOOL RUMBLE, THE TATAMI GALAXY, PING PONG THE ANIMATION

SPORT

EDITED BY EMERSON LAM & HARRY ROBERTS

Women On and Off the Track in Formula One Written by Chloé Cerisier Women’s sports have surged ahead in recent years, experiencing considerable advancements across the field. Yet, one arena remains stubbornly untouched by this progress — Formula One. The motorsport racing series is still principally male-dominated: in fact, in its 75 years of existence, Formula One has never seen a female driver compete for a full season, despite there being no rule that women cannot race alongside their male counterparts. But, with the formation of the female-only F1 Academy in 2023, rising numbers of women studying motorsport engineering and an ever-growing female F1 fanbase, there are promising signs that the landscape of Formula One may finally be shi!ing.

Formula One has always been an unforgiving sport, where the margin for error is in milliseconds, and even the most talented drivers can be failed by mediocre equipment.

For women, the challenges are compounded by other cultural and institutional biases. Securing sponsorship, crucial in motorsport, was especially difficult for female drivers. Teams were reluctant to take risks on women, and sponsors balked at the idea of investing in them. So, even when they did make it to the grid, female drivers found themselves in underperforming cars compared to their male counterparts and teammates. They constantly had to prove themselves and overcome the stereotypes they were subjected to. !is is where the F1 Academy, run by Susie Wolff, comes into play. Founded in 2023, F1 Academy is the new female-only racing series for drivers aged 16 to 25, introduced as an entry point to get into Formula One. It o%ers 18 female drivers a platform to perform and financially secure a future in professional racing. Affiliated with top Formula One teams, these drivers compete across 14 races on iconic Formula One circuits for a funded seat in the following year’s Formula 3 GB3 Championship. Beyond competition, the Academy also partners with schools through the ‘Discover Your Drive’ program, aiming to inspire young girls and address the sport’s gender gap.

Following the launch of F1 Academy, there was an increase from 2.5% to 9% of girls competing in karting, which is where drivers get their start before the formula leagues.

This gender disparity in Formula One is being rectified beyond the driver position, with significant progress made on bridging the gap in technical and strategic positions. From 2021 to 2024, McLaren Racing and Mercedes went respectively from 5% and 6% to 10% of their team’s technical employees being women. These statistics mirror a larger rise in the number of women studying motorsport engineering, with Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data showing a doubling of the number of female students from 2019 to 2023. Even though these numbers remain low and barriers persist for women wanting to work in engineering, we are still witnessing some attempts at employing more women in the teams, and some on the 2025 season are worth mentioning. For example, this year, Haas has appointed the first-ever female race engineer, Lara Muller, who is working with Formula One driver Esteban Ocon this season. The team also appointed Carine Cridelich as their Head of Strategy.

Women are also involved in Formula One through fandom. Social media, the Net"ix program 'Drive to Survive', 'F1: The Movie', and other initiatives helped raise interest among women. Last July, Formula One released its 2025 Fan Survey, which revealed a shi! toward a young female fan base.

Forbes also now estimates women to represent over 40% of the total Formula One fanbase. This trend is well understood by racing teams, who are now collaborating with brands like Charlotte Tilbury, La Roche Posay or Shark Beauty to appeal to this newfound audience. Just recently, as Taylor Swi! released her new album The Life of a Showgirl, many teams such as McLaren, Williams, and Mercedes went on TikTok to talk about the tracks or endorse its aesthetic.

Despite Formula One acknowledging and embracing this female fanbase, misogyny in the community remains prevalent, with women o!en dismissed as being superficial. For example, Christian Horner, former Red Bull Racing team principal, once said that: Formula One is "bringing in a lot of young girls because of all these great-looking young drivers." !e reality is, the history of women and the automobile is characterized from its earliest days by men deciding what they think women feel. Women were banned from various racing categories because they were considered emotionally unable to deal with the stress. They were ignored by auto companies when asking for safer cars, and instead were given the Dodge La Femme, a pink car that came with a matching handbag and lipstick holder.

!ey are now ignored or ridiculed in the racing sphere because many men think girls actually don’t like sports.

And it is time for these stereotypes to go.

Genuine equality in Formula One will only be achieved when women’s passions, talent, and expertise are recognized as legitimate and indispensable to the sport, on and o% the track. The road ahead remains challenging, but the growing momentum proves that women’s place in F1 is not a question of possibility, but of persistence.

Goodbye to the Klopp era: A Heartfelt Adieu to Liverpool’s Summer Departures Written by EUGENE WONG Illustrated by SYLVAIN CHAN For veteran Rreds accustomed to Fenway Sports Group’s (FSG) tightpurse spending, Liverpool’s summer has been nothing short of a blessing.

Splashing the cash in buying players from Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak to German superstar Florian Wirtz, Liverpool has le! rival fans lamenting about Liverpool’s excessive spending.

While it is true that the club has spent a fortune strengthening their champion-calibre squad, the media o!en overlooks the large number of summer departures who played a crucial part in Liverpool’s campaign last season.

With that in mind, this article hopes to reflect on the impact of these departures, showing gratitude for their roles and memories in front of the Kop. Memories of the 20/21 and 22/23 seasons are unlikely to bring a smile on Liverpool fans’ faces, but this year saw the departure of many bright spots in what would have been otherwise quite gloomy times, as Liverpool failed to finish in the top three in both of those seasons. Nathaniel Phillips will be much missed for his past heroics, filling in Van Dijk's shoes when

the captain was out and joining the elite group of players having the honour of defending successfully against Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Kostas Tsimikas also served as the loyal understudy for Andy Robertson, earning the name “Greek Scouser” for his antics in Liverpool’s domestic cup double in 21/22. !is represents the difficulties faced by players around the age of 26-30 in big clubs who are not guaranteed starters, with them hitting their ceiling for improvement while not being good enough to start games regularly.

Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz were both brought in as replacements for Liverpool’s iconic front three of Salah, Mane, and Firmino, hoping that they would mould perfectly into the system. Luiz Diaz impressed in his debut season, propelling Liverpool to a Quadruple attempt, but his Liverpool career will always be marred by his knee injury later in the 22/23 season, where he never regained the speed and %air he initially showed. Nunez had moments of excellence, such as the brace that lifted 10-man Liverpool over Newcastle, the brace against Brentford, and the assist to Elliot against PSG. !ere was no doubt that he had the passion, talent, and speed to make it on the big stage, but his lack of refinement and temperament ultimately left him as just another “what-if ” in the rich history of Liverpool’s number 9's.

step in the transition from Slot to Klopp, where many of the aforementioned players made up the bulk of Klopp’s final season in charge. !eir departure, then, waves another goodbye to the remnants of Klopp’s tenure, along with the many memories they brought with them. !e 23/24 Carabao Cup final was undoubtedly the peak of Klopp’s youth strategy, one where Klopp’s kids played a crucial role in their ascent to champions, beating Chelsea once again in a Wembley final.

Homegrown talents such as Conor Bradley, Kelleher, and Harvey Elliot stepped in their mentors’ shoes, starting the game and forcing it into extra time after a tight 90 minutes. With the bench being depleted due to the lack of starters, other Merseyside talents such as Jarell Quansah, Bobby Clark, James McConnell, and Jayden Danns came in, providing fresh legs as Van Dijk’s late header sealed the game for Liverpool. !is was arguably the zenith of Klopp’s trademark strategy of promoting and training young talents, moulding them into serving his philosophy of heavy metal football.

Unfortunately, most of these names have departed Merseyside this summer.

Read Eugene's full article online!

!is represents another major

A Meandering Story of Cycling in London Written by JOE CARD Life in London is a signi!cant adjustment for many students at LSE. With a campus in the centre of one of the world’s largest and most cosmopolitan cities, it's very easy to feel like a !sh out of water. One of the perennial top tips for Freshers is to take up a sport to help you settle in, meet people, and keep up with exercise, now that the routines of school P.E. are gone. But that’s easier said than done ... !roughout my childhood, my favourite sport had always been cycling. I never really enjoyed the team sports we were forced into at school, but I always enjoyed myself on my bike – whether o" on my own, with friends, or with my Dad.. When lockdown came in 2020, cycling almost became a daily ritual, as it was one of the only reasons we were allowed to leave the house. Even once the world began returning to normal, I kept going, exploring the quiet country roads and farm tracks around my house. This ceased to be an option when I arrived in London. !e infamous central London traffic meant that I never cycled further than the 10 minutes from Carr Saunders Hall to my lectures for most of first year, dodging buses and weaving between taxis – hardly an enjoyable or relaxing experience. But, I soon learned there’s far more to cycling here.

Once you get out of the noise and stress of Aldwych and Holborn, there are wonderful routes off the busy streets all over the city, from the Regent’s Canal towpath to the trail along the River Lea in East London. !en, there’s the spectacular feeling of cycling over Waterloo Bridge late at night when there are no cars, just incredible views of St Paul’s and the Houses of Parliament.

Even commuting can be a joy if you’re lucky enough to live near one of London’s cycle superhighways. A network of segregated cycle lines crisscrossing the city, they’re well maintained, relatively direct, and very useful routes just a world away from the meandering lanes I was used to.

If my sales pitch for inner city cycling isn’t working, just get out of London!

I was recently dragged away from a peaceful Sunday bed-rotting to join a friend cycling down to Brighton. While the endless London suburbs were an inauspicious start, we soon reached the unbelievable viewpoint at the top of Farthing Down, just inside the M25. Surrounded by the gently rolling hills of Surrey, it was easy to forget London and the anxieties of returning to campus, instead reviving a connection with nature I’ve missed since my regular countryside rides at home over the summer.

Longer distances like that shouldn’t be taken lightly, though. By the time we arrived in Brighton, we were both thoroughly worn out despite taking regular breaks, and very ready to grab a takeaway to eat on the train back to London. Make sure you’ve done your research about the route you want to take, bring snacks, and have a backup plan in case things go wrong. !e route we chose, for instance, largely followed the train line, giving us multiple opportunities to bail and go home in the event of technical difficulties.

Cycling around London and making the most of the countryside nearby is an excellent way to get some exercise and take a much-needed study break. !ere are lots of ways to enjoy it too, whether alone or with friends, for hours at a time or for a quick 30 minutes. But it’s also a way to stay in touch with a hobby many of us enjoyed when we were kids at a stage in life when it feels very easy to lose track of yourself!

SOCIAL!

EDITED BY AMELIA HANCOCK & AASHI BAINS

South Asian or ‘Scandinavian’ Fashion Under Scrutiny Written by AASHI BAINS Illustrated by LAURA LIU Cultural appropriation in fashion refers to using elements of a culture in ways that misrepresent it, and this is by no means a new issue in the industry. Runway fashion has frequently been criticised for poaching elements of cultural dress and integrating them in ways that lack appreciation, often to diversify new collections.

Over the last year, designs, fabrics, and jewellery originating from the South Asian region have dominated the biggest of stages, raising concerns of tokenistic cultural inspiration. During Milan Fashion Week in June 2025, Prada unveiled sandals that were strikingly similar to Indian ‘Kolhapuri chappal’ sandals. Thus, major fashion houses like Prada found themselves amid this long-running controversy: borrowing cultural ideas without proper attribution.

However, it’s no longer just runway fashion that is using cultural elements

Eat the Rich? Or Follow Them?

Written by AMELIA HANCOCK Illustrated by SYLVAIN CHAN

Videos of Indonesian MPs dancing in parliament after approving a rise in their housing allowance went viral on social media. The scenes of celebration are starkly contrasted with the harsh reality that the population faces, with 60.3% of the country living below the World Bank’s poverty line. This footage sparked nationwide protests against what many call a ‘corrupt elite’. Government buildings and police headquarters have been set ablaze, and officials’ houses have been looted, leaving the country in a state of disarray. With housing allowances now more than ten times the minimum wage, and budget cuts and industry closures leaving thousands jobless, it’s no surprise that anger towards the rich is growing.

The phrase ‘eat the rich’ was first used by French President Chaumette to criticise the nobility, and then gained greater popularity after the French Revolution. Today, it is used in response to growing wealth inequality and food insecurity, fronting countless campaigns. During South Africa’s 2021 local government elections, it appeared as a campaign slogan, and in 2023, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fein adopted the phrase in the fight for increased wages and benefits. The growing outrage towards the e%ects of capitalism is echoed in these phrases and movements. Yet on the same platforms we see this outrage, millions tune in to watch influencers and celebrities flaunt their luxury lifestyles.

If inequality sparks protest, why does wealth still hold our attention?

In her first year on TikTok, Becca Bloom gained over 3.5 million followers.

Her videos feature Van Cleef jewellery and caviar breakfasts, yet her comments are filled with praise, branding her as ‘humble’ and ‘lovable’. Maybe it’s her soft-spoken nature, or perhaps it’s the way she explains financial advice as dating scenarios that make her luxury feel relatable. The same paradox has fuelled the rise of reality television. ‘The Real Housewives’ Franchise has been

to capture audience interest. South Asian-inspired fashion has become more widespread: from mainstream media to everyday online shopping platforms, cultural appropriation is hard to avoid.

The 2025 Met Gala was at the centre of this debate, as Punjabi singer and actor Diljit Dosanjh made his first appearance at the festival. Dosanjh elegantly sought to recreate the attire of a former Maharaja of Patiala, from Punjab, India. The extravagant look was praised and dissected endlessly online, revealing historical details of the outfit and crediting designers.

What was most interesting about these online discussions was the focus placed on a piece of jewellery that the Maharaja of Patiala had commissioned: the largest necklace that Cartier had ever created. Fans were quick to critique the absence of this necklace in his Met Gala look. Despite the necklace now being archived in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, it was worn a few years prior at the Met Gala by social media star Emma Chamberlain. Cartier reportedly used archival reasons for denying Dosanjh’s team the necklace. But learning about the decision to let Emma Chamberlain wear it as a brand ambassador makes me wonder about wider discussions of who is permitted to showcase culturally and historically significant jewellery.

It’s not just celebrity events that are at the heart of this debate; online fashion trends are also beginning to showcase controversy.

Continue reading Aashi’s analysis online!

ongoing for nearly 20 years, with 31 versions and 21 spino% shows, turning the lives of affluent women into entertainment. Likewise, the Kardashian family has kept their lifestyle as a spectacle, with season five of ‘The Kardashians’ reaching 3.9 million viewers within four days of its premiere on Hulu.

Our fascination with wealth isn’t new; it’s just rebranded. The Golden Age of Hollywood also entranced its audiences, celebrated for its elegance and high fashion. Stars like Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn became symbols of style, inspiring women to emulate Old Hollywood glamour through elegant dresses and sophisticated accessories. Their lives were made into public spectacles by gossip columns. Louella Parsons reported on the lavish parties they attended, detailing guest lists, outfits, and dating rumours. Her daily column appeared in over 400 newspapers and reached upwards of 20 million readers, giving her audiences a window into the exclusive lives of the elite.

While Hollywood was producing images of luxury and success, much of America was suffering from unemployment and uncertainty. These two worlds couldn’t have been more distant, but for Americans they provided an escape and a dream. Social comparison theory, first proposed by psychologist Leon Festinger, helps explain this fascination. Individuals instinctively compare themselves with people they perceive as superior to create a more positive perception of their personal reality. For audiences, comparing themselves to the rich o%ers them a vision of a better life.

The videos of Indonesian MPs dancing sparked outrising inequality, but even in anger, we keep watchwealthy. From Hollywood icons to content creareality TV stars, audiences have long been drawn lives of the rich. So while ‘eat the rich’ has become a political slogan in response to capitalism and corruption, it seems our fascination with the rich makes us follow them instead.

rage over ing the tors and to the

Dating Across the Pond: Does American Boldness Make the British Seem Too Polite to Flirt?

Written by RESTLESS NYU EXCHANGE STUDENT Illustrated by LAURA LIU Dating in the city is not for the weak. After experiencing dating life as a university student in two of the biggest cities in the world – New York City and London – I have come to my favourite student publication with reflections on both. In NYC, every waking moment is an opportunity to find your next situationship – whether that is casually catching the eye of the cute volleyball player in Central Park or grabbing a coffee with the tall guy in your astronomy class. London, on the other hand, is a city of politeness and reading between the lines – you wouldn’t know if you were on a date or just having a polite conversation over a pint. If flirting were an art, the Brits have created the minimalist movement. My first month in NYC has been more eventful than my entire last year in London, feeling like a fish out of water pursued by every man who was too bold for his own good.

In the city that never sleeps, American men are just as restless, always looking to buy you your next drink. With pockets as deep as my trust issues, they are seemingly willing to empty their entire trust funds to take you out on a nice sushi date or charm you on their Upper East Side rooftops and dive bars.

And damn does it work. %ough some British men are capable of doing just the same, they prefer to be a lot more casual on their dates, with a cute coffee or one drink and calling it a day. From the consensus of the people around me, Brits are not willing to inconvenience themselves and go out of their way to treat you; Americans, on the other hand, very much are. %e difference does not lie in material wealth, but rather in generosity. %e nature of American colleges enables their boldness in flirtation, with frat parties forcing brothers to invite girls as their dates and nights like Champagne and Shackles’ forcing you to be zip-tied to the cute engineer junior.

And being at NYU doesn’t even scratch the surface of what traditional colleges like ‘Bama’ have to offer. American college students are experiencing ‘exposure therapy’ to flirting on a daily basis, shaping a bold bunch of serial flirters.

To give my home uni its credit, LSE is not without its fun, contrary to what the other unis may think of us. On the topic of dating, more people find their dates through friends of friends, casual pub nights out, and drunkenly flirting on a Sway night out. People are more reserved, focused on internships, and meeting someone happens once in a blue moon. But when you do, it’s unexpected and all the more exciting.

Maybe it’s the element of studying abroad that makes me take on more opportunities than I usually would – after all, my grades do not count towards my degree, so why not indulge in some reckless dating? At the end of the day, dating is what you make of it, and being in a certain country doesn’t mean you’ll automatically meet the right man. In the meantime, I will be sitting in my tiny NYU dorm room, decoding my rooftop boy’s “let’s do it again soon” text with my roommates.

Autumn Fashion Around LSE

PART B

EDITED BY SHAHZAIB KHAN & ZARA NOOR

You know, you aren’t like other British guys I’ve met. Nobody liked the ones in my school; they were really weird.

It’s because I’m Northern. Most other English people are kinda weird.

She laughs drowsily, even though I’m pretty sure she doesn’t understand what I mean by ‘Northern’.

A Bankside Story

My computer loads and opens on Trackr. I need to finish the OA for Macquarie. At dinner, we talked about some bloke in the year above who had got nine spring week offers. I didn’t even know what a spring week was a month before getting here. It made me anxious.

Written by RONAK MAITI Illustrated by by APRIL YANG

At university, we start making lives.

Have you read this? says Hana. She holds up a copy of ‘!e Brothers Karamazov’ from the shelf above my desk.

Yeah, I reply, sitting at my desk and opening my laptop. My Hinduism teacher recommended it when I was doing my GCSEs. Decent book. I leave out that I stopped reading it 200 pages in, having never really understood what I’d read. !at’s impressive, she says. I’ve read ‘White Nights’. She moves closer to my chair, and takes out another book. Tell me about this one.

I look up. She’s holding ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach’. I bought that book in sixth form on a date with my ex. Don’t remember, I say. Never got into it.

She tuts knowingly. I watch her while my computer logs me in. Her hair is damp - she took a shower an hour ago. She’s wearing navy sweatpants and a Pacsun halter top. She looks good. She turns her attention to my desk, and her black hair hangs in thick strands over her pale face.

We had met on move-in day in the Bankside basement. We’d been going to the club nights together, and then to my room afterwards to talk and do the NYT games. It’s now the third night of Freshers’ Week; we didn’t make it into Lightbox because the line never moved forward. I prefer the later parts of the night, anyway.

You know, I say, you’re the only Japanese person I’ve ever met.

She’s also the first non-English girl I’ve ever really spoken to. I’m from South Shields. My family were the only non-white people for miles, except for a Chinese takeaway in Westoe. In many ways, though, she was similar to Geordie girls. Every girl listens to Lana Del Rey and every girl drinks Sangria. We live in a global culture.

I open JobTestPrep and click on a Korn Ferry numerical test practice. She sits on my bed and scrolls through reels on Instagram.

She yawns. Come and do the Mini with me.

I’m doing a test, Hana.

It’ll be quick. I average, like, 36 seconds. You shouldn’t be doing internship apps at this time, anyway. It’s so ethically reprehensible making kids stay up til 3am doing mental maths - Guter Gott.

Alright, alright.

She definitely knows I find her German endearing. I roll backwards in my seat until I’m next to her. She’s lying on her stomach and looking up at me and it makes me anxious. I don’t know where to look so I focus on her phone.

We do it in 48 seconds. I get ‘Rolling Stones bassist’ (Wyman), and she gets ‘Sweet, in Calabria’ (Dolce).

Go, then, she says. She’s upset in a teasing way.

It’s pretty late. You might want to go back to your room.

It’s cold outside. Let me stay a bit longer. I’ll be quiet.

I smile and sigh very loudly. Course, Hana.

I start the test while sounds of reels continue behind me. What is the projected annual consumption of gasoline? It takes me a few minutes to notice that the sounds have stopped. After finishing the test, I look back and see that she is curled up asleep.

I look at her for a few long seconds, before turning back to my computer.

Really? she says, looking down at me and then ‘G.E.B’. She’s close to me now; looking up at her feels too intimate. !at’s so odd. To be fair, there was only, like, one other Japanese person in my school.

My thoughts have cleared; it takes a minute to remember what I was doing.

I finish another practice test, then realise I’m too knackered to do the OA. I look at her again.

Bonn, right?

Seeing her asleep stirs me. It’s really nice. Not in a creepy way - there’s just something entirely unfamiliar about a person falling asleep in my company.

Trusting me enough to. I think my heart’s slowed.

Mhm. Sie mochten die asiatischen Typen nicht, bro.

She speaks English with an ‘international’ accent; I wonder if her German accent sounds ‘international’ as well. I had been injecting GCSE-level Deutsch throughout our conversations and messages: ich kann dich nicht im club sehen rauchst du draussen??? It entertains her. I find it fun.

I wish I could talk to her in German fluently. Japanese, too. International students are so talented.

Why does this make me so happy?

I’ll sleep in my chair tonight. I don’t take my contacts out or brush my teeth.

I pull my chair up next to this person I barely know, and slump sound asleep beside her.

Then we both jolt awake a few minutes later when the fire alarm starts to blare.

Kestral Gaian: On Learning to Love London Written by ZARA NOOR Illustrated by SYLVAIN CHAN It appears that student life in London is inevitably shaped by a love-hate relationship with the Tube: seemingly random charges from TFL, post-club eye contact with bankers on their way to work, and the pigeon somehow always inside Euston station. People from all walks of life are brought together, perhaps closer than they’d like at rush hour. It’s no wonder that every tourist and Londoner alike has a story to tell about the Tube.

Driven by the absurdity and diversity of the London Underground, Kestral Gaian’s new poetry collection, ‘Tubelines’, is both comedically sharp and deeply poignant. It launched in London on the 4th of October, and I had the opportunity to hear Kestral introduce their work. I was also able to chat with them about the queer poetry scene, their creative writing process, and most importantly, which Tube line is their favourite.

Growing up as a queer person on a council estate in the Midlands, Kestral’s writing is shaped by the desire for connection in a community that makes you feel di!erent. As many LSE students do, Kestral moved to London for the first time as an adult and described the initial difficulty in making friends and feeling connected to the city. As a non-binary poet, Kestral writes work that is “unapologetically queer”. They hope through their storytelling and poetry, queer and marginalised people are able to “feel seen”, knowing that – as they put it – “poetry is for everyone”.

‘Tubelines’ is not only about the literal Underground, but also the experiences beneath the cold surface of London that eventually made it feel like home. In Kestral’s words, “the Tube is an amalgamation of people from all walks of life”, and also “a place where ‘people are [at] their weirdest’”, allowing moments of humanity, humour, and honesty. London, from an outside view, has a reputation as a daunting, glamourous city of gilet-wearing finance bros and designer handbags, but it is also true that one trip on the Tube can shatter this illusion. I, for one, have experienced the community spirit (and impromptu karaoke) on the Northern Line during Notting Hill Carnival.

through stuffiness. Art is messy and it’s best when it’s messy!”

Often, creative writing and the arts can seem inaccessible, particularly in the career-driven, competitive environment LSE is notorious for. Kestral’s advice is this: “The absolute hardest thing to do is starting, especially when you’re coming from a results-driven place like LSE. The process is what matters in art, not so much the result, and you’re the only person to who the process should matter to. Writing sometimes is an act of self-care.”

Writing ‘Tubelines’, it seems to me, was an act of self-care for not only Kestral but every visitor and native feeling disillusioned with the city. Taken from the press release, this quote explains it all – “Tubelines is both a journey through a city and a journey through the self. It celebrates everyday magic, transforming ordinary Tube rides and city life into extraordinary uplifting poetry.”

It is a difficult time to be a minority in London, and it is worth remembering to look for the moments of joy in unexpected places.

What next for Kestral? They’re working on a novel where, as they assured me, all the protagonists are queer, and all the evil characters are straight.

Personally, I can’t wait to read it, particularly if it is as insightful, heartwarming, and full of laughter as ‘Tubelines’ and Kestral themselves.

Tear Drenched Towers Written by TOMMY KING I gaze on London’s tear-drenched towers, Skylines in the rain, Rivers drowned in pain, Knowing – to be good is to suffer.

Your past resides in nameless streets, Today – upon my hood.

Your future in the gentle breeze, From clouds of dismay, a droplet of good.

I bear your weight like Sisyphus his boulder, Your sugar-strung breath embracing my shoulder.

The towers shrink, then plummet, Without you at their summit.

A tourist pulls her phone out— She saturates the image.

Tear-drenched towers through a camera: Morally indifferent.

Wind cuts through my hand; I cannot grasp you here.

Me the sieve, you the sand, We touch, you disappear.

Kestral’s writing is inspired by living experiences, and it is clear to see in their poetry. ‘Really Fucking Old Street’, an intensely funny rant about constant building work, is balanced perfectly with an observation that all of us are a work in progress, really. Their writing is able to transform the banal annoyance at construction into a powerful comment on human nature and change. It is in this incredible ability to find the connection and wonder in ordinary moments that makes this collection so powerfully honest and deft.

Their writing process consisted of carrying a notebook around London, noting down the tender moments, glances, tears, arguments, and fallingdown-stairs incidents that happen every day. Rather than over-formalising what poetry can be, Kestral explains: “I play with genres and forms and write what I feel needs to come out. People should stop gatekeeping

Lost on the path between us, No hint, idea, or clue.

Tear-drenched towers – hyenas, Mocking my distance from you.

I see a soul in the river.

You swim on by, I think.

I realise you are drowning, And as you drown, I sink.

My feet fall abruptly back on the land.

I smoke by a corner my favourite brand.

Exhaling love that time devoured, Goodness fallen like tear-drenched towers.

REVIEW

EDITED BY JESSICA CHAN & IMAN WASEEM

A Useful Ghost: Memory and Power Written by VARISA SIRISOOK What does it mean to be useful, and who gets to decide? Writer and director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke explores these questions in his debut feature ‘A Useful Ghost’ that took home the 2025 Grand Prize at Cannes Critics’ Week. !e film blends fantasy and comedy to deliver a moving reflection on memory and a supernatural satire on !ai politics.

It is a stunning, stylised experience delivered by its dreamlike soundtrack and cinematography that holds the audience entranced; but what first appears to be a charming, unconventional love story transforms into something darker. Strong performances from the cast carry the dramatic dialogue with flair, but where the film shines brightest is the conviction of its narrative and ideas.

‘A Useful Ghost’ follows Nat (Davika Hoorne), a ghost who possesses a vacuum cleaner to stay with her husband, March (Witsarut Himmarat), among the living. Her disapproving in-laws make numerous failed attempts to sever their connection, from an exorcism to electroconvulsive therapy meant to erase March’s memory of her, the source of her presence.

Desperate for her husband’s family to accept their relationship, Nat uses her ability to enter dreams in identifying and subduing a vengeful ghost haunting the factory run by March’s mother, Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon).

Now celebrated as a ‘useful ghost,’ her ability catches the government’s attention, who assigns her to investigate the general population’s memories for politically inconvenient figures: the victims of the 2010 Bangkok massacre.

Narrated by a mysterious technician (Wanlop Rungkumjad) and the self-identified ‘Academic Ladyboy’ (Wisarut Homhuan), whose vacuum cleaner he has come to fix, the film is an ambitious whirlwind through various problems in !ailand, from dust pollution to racism against people from the Isan region. While Nat and March are cisgender and heterosexual, the film deftly draws parallels between them and queer couples in the film, as well as weaving the struggles queer people face in real life into the plot. !roughout the film, Nat and March are denied the rights their marriage granted them during the former’s life. While an early hiccup with visiting hours is played off as a hu-

morous jab at bureaucracy, comedy becomes tragedy when they are denied access to Nat’s frozen eggs, their dream of becoming parents seemingly dashed. Although !ailand’s Marriage Equality Act came into effect in January 2025, this reflects the legal changes still needed to grant same-sex couples the right to fertility treatments.

Against this backdrop of discrimination, ‘A Useful Ghost’ criticises people who serve causes that marginalise them and their communities.

While empathising with the desire for opportunities that dominant forces may provide in exchange for compliance, the film emphasises their conditionality and makes a plea for solidarity. Although Nat initially refuses the government’s request, she agrees when a minister promises to help her and March have their own biological child in return. Her efforts result in scores of people tortured to erase the victims of political violence, both from their ghostly existence and cultural memory.

Nat’s conflict resonates especially during a global rise in authoritarianism, where some members of marginalised communities may support the institutions depriving them of their rights. One example of this may be seen in the case of Kat Cammack, a Republican representative who blamed the reluctance of medical providers to terminate her pregnancy on leftist “fearmongering”, instead of the restrictive abortion laws she sponsored.

While Cammack eventually obtained the services she needed, how many people without her resources and connections are able to circumvent such legal barriers?

By weaving Nat’s tale through conversations between two characters, the film’s structure reiterates that it is not about one useful ghost or the family she married into. Rather, it includes ordinary people who are rarely lauded for their service and labour, who do not make it into the stories often told.

Shifting the focus onto these interlocutors, the film does not end on the tragedy of Nat and March, but explodes in a climax that takes aim at those who silence others and displays the power of the people united. !ailand’s tumultuous political history continues to be censored, especially when it involves military repression. However, ‘A Useful Ghost’ demonstrates optimism for transparency in discussions of politics and the past, along with solidarity in the search for accountability and change at home and abroad. Just as the film describes haunting as the deceased’s “protest against their circumstances”, the same applies to the act of remembering those the establishment would rather disappear, ensuring our ghosts are not forgotten.

Saiyaara: A Cultural Reset for Bollywood Written by SHREYA GUPTA For years, Bollywood has struggled to deliver a true romantic hit – one with dazzling stars, addictive music, and that essential rollercoaster of emotions that leaves you wrecked and glowing all at once. Nothing will ever replace the films I grew up on, such as Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, but Saiyaara comes close. !e name itself, meaning “a solitary wandering star” in Urdu and Arabic, captures the film’s soul perfectly.

I’ll admit, writing this review was partly an excuse to rewatch Saiyaara for the fourth time. But I fully intend to convince you all to watch it, Bollywood lovers and newbies alike.

As the most-watched non-English film on Netflix right now, Saiyaara marks the debut of Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda. And please, ignore the “nepo baby” accusations about Ahaan – I genuinely believe he has so much potential (and I’m not just saying that because he’s extremely handsome). !eir

on-screen chemistry makes it hard not to hope we’ve !nally found this generation’s Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan. The two have since con!rmed they’re dating in real life, which only proves how real that chemistry felt.

The !lm follows Krish Kapoor, an arrogant yet gifted rockstar, and Vaani Batra, a shy but inspired songwriter. Their collaboration turns into both creative and emotional upheaval. Vaani’s songwriting in the !lm is what I believe made this movie one of the highest-grossing romantic !lms in Indian cinematic history.

The !lm’s lyrics are pure poetry, easily the most moving since Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.

(And yes, before any Saiyaara fans come for me – Dhun is the best song. No competition.)

At a glance, the XM5’s uniformity in the design allows it to look like a standard pair of headphones, not trying to wow the buyer. Although it doesn’t have the foldable design of its predecessor, it still !ts in a neat case that can be decorated with stickers. The padding itself for the ear is also quite comfortable, clearly designed for extended usage. Looking deeper into its functionality, it continues to wow the user with its various technological improvements. The sound quality for playing music and videos is consistently high, with the speaker being able to accurately represent both high-pitched and bass sounds.

Yet, the real standout feature lies in its ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) abilities. Even with the many grievances I have with the product, I have yet to try any other piece of hardware that successfully does noise cancellation like this. It is to the point where when flying on a plane, the outside world is able to be successfully cancelled, and you can feel as if you’re in a concert hall instead of a 12-hour plane ride. This alone helps them stand out from other headphones, creating a substantial market of users.

Without spoiling the huge plot twist, the kind that made the entire cinema gasp, I’ll admit the premise sounds familiar: tortured genius meets quiet muse, sparks fly, chaos follows. But Saiyaara transforms that cliché into something deeper.

Unfortunately, this pair of headphones is also plagued by a myriad of issues.

Disclaimer: I am a romantic, so the following statement may be incredibly biased: It’s a portrait of unconditional love and the devastating beauty of emotional vulnerability.

Listed by The Independent to be priced at around £380 in 2022, this is almost at the price of some mid-range mobile phones. Even though the features offer some explanation for the pricing, it is reasonable to assume that many customers would feel uncomfortable paying this much for a product that could be found at much lower prices.

Critics have called the !lm slow, predictable, and even toxic. I disagree. Saiyaara isn’t about glorifying heartbreak – it’s about the process of making art that moves people. The !lm doubles as a quiet critique of today’s “mass-produced” pop, reminding us that music can still be personal and transcendent.

At its heart, Saiyaara isn’t just a love story – it’s a reminder of Bollywood’s power to blend art, music, and emotion into something timeless.

The dialogue, especially Vaani’s description of Krish as a Saiyaara, captures this perfectly: “A wandering star among stars, it travels as if it seeks something.

The star is alone, but its shine brings light to everyone.”

Despite her own personal challenges (no spoilers, I promise), Vaani helps Krish rediscover purpose and self-belief, demonstrated by both of their sacri!ce and devotion.

In a time when too many !lms rely on spectacle, Saiyaara dares to slow down – to let silence, melody, and vulnerability do the talking. It’s not perfect, but maybe that’s why it feels so real. And this is precisely why I fell in love with Bollywood in the !rst place.

Now the only question is … Mohit Suri, when do we get Saiyaara 2?

Not an Audiophile: A Review of the Sony XM5s Written by EMERSON LAM Out of the many brands that produce headphones nowadays, from Apple and JBL to Soundcore and Nothing, Sony stands out as the producer of high-quality yet reasonably priced headphones.

Having used the Sony WH1000XM5s for a while, I agree with the high praise that many reviewers give it, considering its high audio quality and comfortable feel it provides. Yet, the downsides not only ruin its functionality, but also reflect the state of modern-day headphone use (and, to a larger extent, electronic consumption around the globe).

First, you have the pricing.

This leads into the next issue, which is the now notorious problem with the hinges that connect the stereo to the main headphone itself. Even with its high pricing, swarms of users have complained about the hinge breaking, including myself. After around 1.5 years of usage, the hinge on one side simply gave way, and I could no longer use the headphones. I managed to get it repaired after bringing it to a repair shop deep inside a tech mall, but the risk of it failing bothered me enough that I simply left it at home and got a new pair of headphones.

To me, this is just one problem in a wider trend of modern-day technology usage.

Why can a product like this fail so easily? Why should we even allow these technology failures to happen?

Prior to these headphones, I had used a large variety of earbuds, from different brands and at different price ranges. Many of them often ended up malfunctioning after around a year of usage, suddenly being unable to play sound nor connect to my phone. Sure, you can blame it partially on my rough handling of these products, but they simply shouldn’t fail like this after such a short lifespan. Often with minimal warranty and little repairability, these electronics end up creating large amounts of waste that our planet is simply unable to handle, causing even more problems.

If you’re reading this piece to see if you should purchase this pair of headphones, my advice honestly still ends up being “no”! The risk of breaking it, combined with the high price tag, simply isn’t worth the upsides that this device offers. Go explore some other headphones in the ever-expanding electronics market, and I’m sure you’ll !nd another pair that suits you better.

PuLSE: Music, DJing, and Community interview by SKYE SLATCHER In 2025, it sometimes feels like everyone is a DJ. But no one is doing it quite like PuLSE – LSESU’s o!cial radio and DJ society. Anyone who has ever set foot in the Media Centre (MC) will undoubtedly have heard someone in the booth playing music, whether on the radio or just practicing. I recently sat down to speak with some of the PuLSE team to learn more about the group the Beaver shares the MC with!

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F

or most people, thinking of the London School of Economics does not exactly trigger thoughts of music, fun, and creativity.

Rather, most would think of late-night library sessions or growing lists of incomplete readings.

However, PuLSE has firmly planted itself as one of the core pillars of campus appreciation for nightlife and DJing.

the community: “We know that we’re all here to find some sort of like, solace from the rest of LSE that might kind of be a bit dull sometimes.”

What is your favourite show you’ve ever been to?

Abe: Honey Dijon at Drumshed (for my birthday) Suchir: Acid Pauli in One Marylebone Church Letho: First ever club night at TOYTOY in Johannesburg Camelia: Parallel at Patterns in Brighton

Letho, this year’s President, joined PuLSE after becoming a fan of electronic music during his gap year: “I wanted a space to continue that in uni. So I remember finding the Instagram and seeing like, ‘oh, it’s really cool. They put on club nights, people DJ, people are into it.’ So it was one of the things that I was really excited about before I came to LSE.” Suchir (Events Manager) was interested in DJing before joining LSE and said it was clear from Instagram that it was a well-run and cohesive society. And the reality did not disappoint: “It’s just a very lovely community of like-minded people. I guess for me, I didn’t come into it from a DJing perspective. I wasn’t really that interested in DJing when I started, even though I do DJ now … I was like, oh, this looks cool … I think this would be a good gateway into [techno and electronic], because I remember being over the freshers music.”

Camelia, the Treasurer, did not consider herself a particularly creative person before. She joined PuLSE as a space to meet people without expectations of networking. It is a space free from LinkedIn and spring week talk every five minutes. It is also an incredibly inclusive space, which Abe emphasised. They celebrate and welcome everyone.

PuLSE recently had their first event of the year – a sold-out night at Corsica. Another incredible event and the ideal way to kick off the year. Abe’s first time DJing at the iconic venue was understandably nerve-wracking, but as he played a set of his favourite music with his close friends next to him, his time on the decks went down a treat: “We’re all enjoying the music together.

That was what was most important. And a!er the set, people would come up to me and [say], ‘you did an amazing job.’ That was such a good feeling … I was just really happy with that.”

One of PuLSE’s major achievements has been cultivating a genuine music community at LSE. In a university known for its corporate pipeline, fostering a space for creative expression is no small feat. Letho said that PuLSE is in many ways a response to the wider uni atmosphere. “You can come here, even if it’s just to study here or DJ, or go to the event, or just speak to everyone, it’s a rest from the whole environment in a very unconditional way.”

The only requirement to join PuLSE is to be a nice person.

Abe’s experience, as this year’s Secretary, has certainly lived up to that description. He was most keen on finding a community that celebrated creativity in any way, whether that be music, art, or graphic design. Having grown up around music, he had always had a connection to the creative.

In the first few months of his time at LSE, he felt (as many of us do) that it was kind of hard to express that side. It was this that got him initially interested in PuLSE, but what made him stay was

Some quick questions...

PuLSE will be back at Corsica towards the end of Autumn Term, with more events at different venues before then.

PuLSE also offers workshops for those new to DJing. “Speaking to other unis and other like uni DJ presidents, I think that's the one thing we do that most others don't tend to do,” says Letho.

For new members, there is space to practice, and as they gain confidence, they can then play smaller events before building up to something like Corsica or the SU’s Summer Ball. At its core, PuLSE gives new members a space to make new friends, explore their creativity, and feel deeply supported. Suchir emphasised that they are all just a bunch of friends.

What is your favourite venue in London?

Letho, Camelia, and Suchir: Corsica Abe: The Cause What about your least favourite?

Camelia: The Cause Suchir: Simmons Leicester Square Letho: XOYO Abe: Egg If you could open for any artist, who would it be?

Camelia: Conducta Abe: horsegiiLl Letho: MARRØN Suchir: anyone in Dubstep

pulse’s recs Favourite song right now?

Abe: Room for Fools by FKA Twigs Camelia: Swim Good by Frank Ocean Letho: Ding Dong by Joe Nina Suchir: Feel Like Making Love by Ana Mazzotti

By the end of my time chatting with Letho, Camelia, Abe, and Suchir, I was definitely thinking about joining PuLSE. Inclusivity, creativity, and fun – the MC is full of those things. If you find yourself reading this and about to buy your PuLSE membership, I look forward to seeing you around the MC (and hearing your tunes while I am formatting a future issue).

ISSUE 944

AT WEEK 4 2025

AN AN INTERVIEW INTERVIEW WITH WITH PULSE PULSE

LSESU’s DJ DJ Society Society LSESU’s REVIEW

PART B

SOCIAL

SPORT

Varisa’s review of ‘A Useful Ghost’

‘A Bankside Story’

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Eugene on the end of the Klopp era