7. Life After Studies

Lots of people did not have much plan for life after studies. They did not know what kind of jobs are available out there. In fact, many only started looking for jobs after they graduate. However, this is not the case for the students at the LSE (and all other top schools or those schools with excellent careers service). When I first arrived at the LSE, I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere on campus. I saw lots of students went to campus wearing full business suits. They were busy attending companies' presentations and networking. To make sure we are on the same page on this post, let's first watch the following two videos.

From the videos, it is clear that Investment Banking is what most LSE high flyers (and (MBA) graduates from top schools) want to work in after they graduate but there are 2 other more.

1. Investment Banking
   Big bucks and long hours are the hallmarks of the investment banking industry. One of the main reasons that Investment Banking being the top choice is because of its notoriously high starting salary for fresh graduates. It is a perfect career for those graduates who have taken huge loans to fund their studies at top schools. If you want to know more about investment banking, please read "Investment Banking Explained"
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Here are the list of bulge bracket investment banks (list is not comprehensive) that fresh graduates from top schools want to work for; Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, UBS, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Barclays Capital and so on.
2. Management Consulting
   Wetfeet provides a good overview of this industry. If you are interested to find more about this prestigious career, please read the following:
   http://www.wetfeet.com/Careers-and-Industries/Careers/Management-Consulting.aspx
   
   
   Here are the list of top consulting firms (list is not comprehensive) that fresh graduates from top schools want to work for: McKinsey & Co., Bain & Co., Boston Consulting Group, AT Kearney, Accenture, Monitor, Oliver Wyman, and so on.
3. Private Equity
   The following is an excerpt from a famous review magazine. It gives us a short introduction for PE industry.
   
   "Private equity firms raise funds from institutions and wealthy individuals and then invest that money in buying and selling businesses. After raising a specified amount, a fund will close to new investors; each fund is liquidated, selling all its businesses, within a preset time frame, usually no more than ten years. A firm’s track record on previous funds drives its ability to raise money for future funds. 
   
   Private equity firms accept some constraints on their use of investors’ money. A fund management contract may limit, for example, the size of any single business investment. Once money is committed, however, investors—in contrast to shareholders in a public company—have almost no control over management. Although most firms have an investor advisory council, it has far fewer powers than a public company’s board of directors. 

   
   The CEOs of the businesses in a private equity portfolio are not members of a private equity firm’s management. Instead, private equity firms exercise control over portfolio companies through their representation on the companies’ boards of directors. Typically, private equity firms ask the CEO and other top operating managers of a business in their portfolios to personally invest in it as a way to ensure their commitment and motivation. In return, the operating managers may receive large rewards linked to profits when the business is sold. In accordance with this model, operating managers in portfolio businesses usually have greater autonomy than unit managers in a public company. Although private equity firms are beginning to develop operating skills of their own and thus are now more likely to take an active role in the management of an acquired business, the traditional model in which private equity owners provide advice but don’t intervene directly in day-to-day operations still prevails. 

   
   With large buyouts, private equity funds typically charge investors a fee of about 1.5% to 2% of assets under management, plus, subject to achieving a minimum rate of return for investors, 20% of all fund profits. Fund profits are mostly realized via capital gains on the sale of portfolio businesses. 

   
   Because financing acquisitions with high levels of debt improves returns and covers private equity firms’ high management fees, buyout funds seek out acquisitions for which high debt makes sense. To ensure they can pay financing costs, they look for stable cash flows, limited capital investment requirements, at least modest future growth, and, above all, the opportunity to enhance performance in the short to medium term. 

   
   Private equity firms and the funds they manage are typically structured as private partnerships. In some countries—particularly the United States—that gives them important tax and regulatory advantages over public companies." 

   
   The top well known private equity funds are Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and The Blackstone Group.

"So what is the point of telling us this ? These firms only recruit from top schools." Well, the point that I am trying to convey is plan what you want to do after your studies. For example, if you are pursuing UOL BSc. Accounting and Finance, and you want to be an accountant, then start doing some research regarding the industry; ACCA or ICPAS or CPA, The Big 4 Accounting Firms (KPMG, PwC, E&Y, Deloitte), when they start recruiting, what is the recruiting process like, and in case you don't get any offer from them, what are your second best options (Grant Thornton, BDO ?) 

However, if you are interested in one (or more) of those 3 industries, then stay tuned with this blog. It is possible with UOL degrees to break into those industries. How do I know? Because, I personally know 2 UOL graduates (Indonesian) who did that; one is working for Accenture and another one is with Credit Suisse. I will share with you how and what LSE students do during their term time to break into those industries. Oh yeah, if you are doing non-business or management related degrees and you are interested in Management Consulting, please don't quit. You are perfectly alright.

6. On the Battlefield

In exams, time is diamond especially if you are sitting for a 2-hour paper. You will be surprised that time flies very fast. Make sure you always bring a watch or a stopwatch if you like. The following are common stupid things that may cost your precious time but they can be minimised:

1. Answer is too long for a 5 marks question.
   The amount of time that you should spend on a x marks question is x / 100 * duration of exams. So if it is a 5 marks question for an economics paper, then you should not spend more than 5/100 * 180 = 9 minutes.
   Speaking of economics, you should always include a diagram for every answer whenever possible instead of waffling a full page answer. I usually draw a diagram (half a page) and then explain how it answers the question (half a page). Always remember to ANSWER the QUESTION. When you are answering True/False question, always start with the statement is true/false and then followed by your diagram and explanation. Sometimes it's easy to see whether it's true or false, but sometimes it's not clear. For the latter case, leave the true/false blank after "the statement is" and do not forget to fill it after you have figured out the answer! The reason of doing this is to show the examiners that you understand economics, you already knew the answer just by reading the statement although most of us know the answer only after we draw and analyse diagrams.

   
   

   Remember: if a picture is worth a thousand words, a diagram is worth a lot of marks.
   
   
2. Spend too much time on drawing diagrams.
   I have been asked many times whether we can use pencils to draw diagram. The answer is YES ! I don't see any reason why we can't. Drawing diagrams using pens is very risky if you make a mistake. You have to cross out the whole diagram and redraw again whereas with pencils, we can use eraser to correct the mistake.  
   
   
   Also, make sure you already know the measurement; how long should the y-axis and x-axis be, scale, etc. Don't spend time figuring those in exams. If your diagram requires steep budget constraint or IS or LM curve,  you should know roughly what the gradient should be.
   
   
3. Run out of paper and being idle for few minutes.
   I had seen the case where a student who sat next to me in exam had her time wasted for about 10 minutes. She waved her hand to get attention from invigilators for about a minute until she was noticed. The invigilator took his time walking to approach her. She asked for an extra answer sheet but the invigilator thought she wanted to go to toilet so he didn't bring any blank answer sheet with him. So, he took his time again to get the answer sheet and to get back to her. This case can be quite common if you are sitting for an exam where there are thousands of candidates.
   
   
   Ladies and gentleman, the moral of the story is don't ask for extra answer sheet only when you are run out, you should anticipate worst case scenario when the invigilator don't have any answer sheet in his/her hand. Keep your idle hand up if you need something from invigilator while your other hand keep writing.

It is expected that exam questions will be difficult but sometimes the difficulty can be totally beyond our expectation. Let me share with you all that this has happened once.

In 2009, the chief examiner for paper 133 (advanced statistics : distribution theory) left the LSE and a new guy took his position. The questions he set are absofuckinglutely difficult. The standard was way too high compared to subject guide and the previous exams. I still remember when I looked around, everyone was panicking. It was our first exam (for year 3 BME students) and we were already screwed. 

My friend who sat behind me said that I kept shaking my head and she even heard me cursing. I saw about half of the candidates who took the exam left the hall after an hour. Honestly, I wanted to join them because I was very sick on that day and I already secured my first class honours even though I fail the bloody paper. But then I remembered that I was competing for the LSE scholarship, so giving up was not really a good option. So, I decided to sit through the 2 hours torture. I only managed to do half of each questions and was expecting to get at most 40 marks.

After the exam was over, many people complained and one of my friends claimed to solve all questions. We agreed that whoever passed this exam must be bloody genius let alone getting a distinction. Three months later, results were released. From SIM , there were only 2 people who got distinctions. Surprise surprise, I was the world top scorer with 87 marks. 

Here are my advices should this happen to you in the future:

1. Take 1 minute to spit out vulgarities (but not too loud) if that helps.
2. Everyone around you is now your competitors. Pray that they leave early because you have high chances of scoring higher than these people. Even 1 mark means a lot in this scenario. You want to make sure you belong to at least top 40% percentile in case the examiner want to fail 60% of the candidates. Remember, there is no such a thing called re-examination. Instead moderation will be applied.
3. Specific to maths units; note that each question usually consists of 3 parts. Most of the time, part (a) asks you to state theorem. Part (b) asks you to prove something. Part (c) asks you to use theorem in (a) and result in (b). Make sure you state the theorem CORRECTLY ! It's the easiest part to score. Part (b) may be difficult. Part (c) should be easy so you better answer it even though you did not manage to prove part (b).
4. Write down your thought process. Let the examiners know what you were thinking so that they can give you some credit. If you hand in blank paper, even God can't help you.

5. Turning the invisible into the visible

Now, you have been studying hard and (hopefully) also smart but have you asked yourself what you have been trying to achieve so far ? Do you want to get a full marks in mathematics 1 and 2 ? Do you want to get distinction grades for all the foundation units ? or including all the further units ? Or do you just want to get 5 distinction grades so that you get a First Class Honours classification ? Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the concept of "Achievements".

Let me sidetrack a bit, I used to play World of Warcraft and got the concept of "Achievements" from this game. Now you see that being a gamer is not actually a bad thing.

The purpose of "Achievements" is to offer satisfaction to goal-oriented people who manage to overcome the challenges. You can think of it as a recognition to your hard-work. Here are some list of Achievements that I have thought of during my studies.

 The list given above is definitely not comprehensive. Feel free to add more on your own.

The achievement number 6 was originally named "Flawless Victory" but when I told my friends about it, their reactions were "Are you nuts?" and I decided that their expression was more appropriate.

The achievement number 7 is only applicable to degrees which only have 4 foundation units and BME is one of them.

I was inspired to introduce achievement number 8 during my third year. Third year BME was one of the most stressful years in my life. I found out that the competition for the LSE External Study scholarship was very strict. Most recipients had obtained achievement number 10. Not to mention, I had to sit for 6 exams (each subject is not closely related to each other) which were very painful. Honestly, I was really afraid that I would lost my mind before the exam began and hence the achievement.

The achievement number 10 was created due to the large number of First Class Honours recently. I suspect that these people only obtained 5 distinctions out of 9 units. So, I was thinking that  the First Class honours should be categorized as follow (this is not from UOL, but from me)

a. First Class among the First Class (9 units of distinction)
b. Second Upper among the First Class (8 units of distinction)
c. Second Lower among the First Class (7 units of distinction)
d. Third Class among the First Class (6 units of distinction)
e. Just a simple First Class (5 units of distinction)

Usually I attach the achievements that I want to get, together with my exams timetable. I call this end product "Motivational Timetable". So if you are Diploma in Economics students sitting for exams in May 2011 then your Motivational Timetable should look like this:

The purpose of listing down the achievements is also to make you aim as high as possible. Do not aim just for "pass" or "merit". Most of the time you will get the grade below what you aim. I personally always aimed to score 90 and above for each subject and as you have seen that I ended up getting 70 - 80+ .

4. Study Hard and Smart (Part 2)

The next important thing is past examination papers and reports/commentaries which you can find at:

http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/current_students/programme_resources/lse/exams.shtml

It depends on what year you are viewing right now. You will get at most 3 years x 2 zones = 6 papers which are not enough. So, where can we find more ? We can use "time machine" to download older papers at

http://waybackmachine.org/

copy paste the link to past exam papers above and you will probably get nothing (if you do this in year 2011). The reason is because London International Programme is a new name. The old name was London External Programme. So, change the word "international" to "external"

http://www.londonexternal.ac.uk/current_students/programme_resources/lse/exams.shtml

and paste it to the wayback machine, you will see that the oldest paper you can download is from year 2003 (link is given below)

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20051028203413/http://www.londonexternal.ac.uk/current_students/programme_resources/lse/exams.shtml

I recommend that you download all the exam papers and reports that you need RIGHT NOW before they are gone.

Now, there is a reason why UOL only post the latest 3 years papers and reports. The reason is that syllabus change and old exam papers may not be relevant anymore and hence misleading. But do not worry, changes of syllabus do not apply to all subjects. Most questions in old exam papers are still relevant. In fact, you can see some questions are recycled after 3-4 years.

Having said that, you have to be careful as there are some subjects that have changed completely in terms of examination style and syllabus. For example, Introduction to Sociology had been changed to Principle of Sociology in 2006. Always check out the latest papers for latest exam's instructions.

Past exam papers are good for practicing before you sit for real main exam. Practice as many papers as possible until you get the feel of the answers that the examiners are looking for. 

Next piece of advice is always try to understand instead of memorising. Memory is volatile and it often let you down if you rely too much on it. Recall that in maths 1, you have to remember all the basic differentiations and one of them is 

It is much better if you know how to derive the formula above. Here is one way to do it.

Notice that it is actually ln a NOT ln x. If you didn't notice that in the beginning, it's the problem that I am trying to point out.

Another advantage of understanding is to prevent you from making silly mistakes. For example, if you don't understand what demand and supply curves mean, you can label them wrong in your diagram. The same thing goes for IS (Investment-Saving) and LM (Liquidity preference Money supply). I have seen many of my peers make mistakes in labeling the curves.

Another best example I could think of relates to Oligopoly. Oligopoly is everyone's favourite topic in Microeconomics and Managerial Economics. If you are not taking either subject then please skip to the next part. Otherwise, recall that in the standard Cournot duopoly model (homogeneous product), Firm 1's (or 2's doesn't matter) best response (or reaction) function should take the following form:

So, if your best response function end up with something like

then you should be alarmed. The positive coefficient tells us that if our competitor increase their production, we should follow suit. Clearly this does not make sense since the products are assumed to be homogeneous, if two players flood the market with their products then price will decrease because of excess supply.  This is definitely not good for both parties.

Careless mistake like this will cost you "25 marks" in exam which you could have scored easily.

3. Study Hard and Smart (Part 1)

Note: I will assume that you are already familiar with UOL-LSE system when you read my blog.

If you are doing fine with your studies, then you can just skip all the posts with title "Study Hard and Smart"  . Otherwise, keep on reading.

Good ! Now I have your attention. The reason I post my transcript is not to show off but rather to show you my credibility and hopefully to inspire you as well. 

The first thing that probably comes to your mind is "Oh my god, you are genius! There is no way I can get those marks!" Now, hold that thought! I would like you to know that those marks do not reflect my intelligence but rather the blood and sweat I shed throughout the years. I am being honest rather than modest. I graduated from high school in 2004 and was rejected TWICE by NTU and NUS. In 2006, I did not even get the invitation to sit for the entrance examination any more. That's when I found out that SIM - UOL started to offer Mathematics and Economics course. Anyway, the moral of the story is... If I can do it, you can do it too !

If you are not first year student then you should already know by now that you should study consistently since day 1 (very first lecture). Anyway, I am going to skip advising you to be hardworking, organised, and discipline. You are an adult so you should know that.

Let me first start by emphasizing that Subject Guides are the most important notes you should read before lecture notes. Find out the syllabus and what you are expected to know from each chapter. 

When you see that the author of the subject guide is the same as the author of the main textbook, it is mandatory that you read that textbook. For example, for 02 Introduction to Economics, you have to read the textbook written by Professor Amos Witztum. The sample questions at the end of every chapter are past exam questions which are very important. You should follow his guide and style of answering the questions. 

The same thing applies for 20 Elements of Econometrics, you should follow closely the textbook written by Christopher Dougherty (not Daughtry) instead of one by Damodar N. Gujarati unless you have spare time.

Having said that Subject Guides are important, they cannot replace textbook (but few can, for example 40 Game Theory and 42 Optimisation Theory)  There are some subject guides that are not really useful; either they are too thin and contain very little information or badly written and hence confusing. 

Either the subject guide is good or bad, I recommend you do the following extra works instead of blaming the author of the subject guide (because the latter is futile):

1. Go to other universities' website and search for relevant materials.
   I started doing this when I was frustrated with explanations from subject guides and lecture notes. There are always some people out there who can explain better than subject guides.
   
   Subjects like Economics, Finance and Mathematics for undergraduates usually share common materials among different universities. For example, if you have problem with 118 Advanced Linear Algebra, you can always go to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) website and search for OpenCourseWare and then find the subject Linear Algebra.
   
   Here is the link : http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra-spring-2010/
   
   Do not try their exam because it's too difficult and different from LSE exams style. Instead, go to the video lectures session, select relevant lectures, download them and, of course, watch them.
   
   "How do I know whether any particular university teach the same subject?" Here is one way to find out. Google the key term with quotation, plus the word "lecture notes". For example, if you want to learn more about IS LM model, you should google ==> "IS LM Model" lecture notes. The search result will you give some pdf files.
   
   
   
   Now, we have seen that Lecture 9 is about Closed Economy, and supposed that the lecture notes is good and you want to find out about Open Economy from the same lecturer, how can we do so ?
   
   Look at the picture above, I have highlighted the URL to the lecture notes which is www.wellesley.edu/Economics/weerapana/econ213/.../lect213-09.pdf
   
   Remove everything before "econ213" and now we have
   www.wellesley.edu/Economics/weerapana/econ213/
   
    Copy paste the link above on your browser and go to the website. Click either econ213.html or the folder. You will see all the lecture notes for the course econ213 in that university.
   
   You can try googling the subject name (don't forget to put quotation around it) + lecture notes. For example, "Mathematical Economics" lecture notes, or "Corporate Finance" lecture notes.
   
   
2. Read beyond recommended readings.
   Sometimes there are textbooks which are much better than the ones in the recommended readings. I personally prefer textbooks written by US academics to those by UK academics.
   
   For example, the textbook "A First Course in Probability" by Sheldon Ross (not Cooper) is not listed in the Statistics 1&2 or 134 Advanced Statistics : Distribution Theory recommended reading but I find this text very helpful.
   
   "Microeconomics" by David Besanko and Ronald Braeutigam is also useful for 66 Microeconomics but not listed in the recommended reading. In fact, when I sat for the exam, I saw 2 short questions were taken from this textbook. Imagine a free 10 marks to boost up your morale in exam !
   
   Let me remind you that the texts I mentioned above are only useful for some relevant chapters and they should not be used to replace the main readings. If the book you are reading has different notations or definitions from those in Subject Guide, please follow Subject Guide's style. The least thing you want to do in exam is to confuse the examiners who are marking your papers because they are not going to call you and ask you "What do you mean by this notation?"
   
   Now, you probably ask "The recommended readings are already a lot, how can I cope with these extra textbooks?" Let me share with you how I read textbooks. I never read any book from cover to cover. I only read relevant sections which contain answers to the questions in my mind. The questions usually come from tutorial or past exam questions. I find that my mind focus much better than just reading the books "blindly". Without questions in my mind, I will fall asleep after 2-3 pages (paragraphs, if the subject is Sociology).
   
   

2. Regret Always Come Late

Imagine that you had finished your studies. Yes ! No more mugging nightmare. No more staying in the library from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. No more hair-pulling because of Bolzano-Weierstrass. Bellman and Kuhn-Tucker theorems and proofs.

Now, it's time to find a job to repay the "piece of paper" that had made you suffer for 3 years. You start browsing for job vacancies. You see your dream job and it requires the following:

1. Graduates with 2:1 (second upper class honours) or above
2. Shows initiative, leadership and teamwork skills
3. Good interpersonal skills and communication ability
4. Fluent in written and spoken English and Mandarin.
5. Proficient in MS Office especially Excel and Powerpoint
6. Shows interest in finance 
7. Preferably have finished one or two internships

You quickly prepare your CV and try to recall what you had done during the last 3 years.

1. You didn't do really well for your studies because you were a "last-minute" student - you started studying 4- 5 weeks before the exams and unfortunately (and as expected) you only got a 2:2 if not a pass degree.
2. You did not get involved in any of extra curricular activities. You went home straight away after lectures and tutorials.
3. You were "shy" type and only mingle with few people at school and seldom talked.
4. You only hang out with friends from your own country and only spoke your own language.
5. Oh come on ! Since when UOL required students to use MS Office ? Hmmphh !
6. You took BSc. Mathematics and Economics or Management and didn't take any finance course.
7. You remembered you were offered an unpaid internship but you turned it down.

Time flies and 1 hour has passed but you could not remember any experience or skill you had garnered to match most the criteria above. You remembered that you had spent most of your time (other than studying) watching Korean dramas, Facebook-ing, and playing DotA or World of Warcraft. Tears starts flowing from your eyes, you regret all the "crimes" you had committed and wish that you could turn back the time.

Fortunately, it was just a imagination! Your wish had been granted and now you are back to the present time. However, the nightmare is still vivid in your mind and you hope it never occurs to you in the future. You quickly wipe your sweat and seek out the remedies.

1. Introduction

Welcome !

Hi, my name is Ronny Goh. I am from Medan, Indonesia. Following high school, I worked as a freelance computer programmer for two years. After successfully saving enough money, I pursued BSc. (Hons) Mathematics and Economics degree with University of London (International Programme) at the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM). Upon the completion of my undergraduate studies, I was awarded an LSE External Study Scholarship to study MSc. in Applicable Mathematics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (2009-2010).

Studying at the LSE is an enlightening experience. I have met many interesting, inspiring and amazing people from around the world and learned a lot from them. This is the reason why I write this blog - to share with you what I had learned and what I would do if I could turn back time to the year 2006 when I started my undergraduate studies. 

The intended audiences for this blog are the  undergraduates who enrolled in a degree with University of London International Programme (Lead College:  LSE).

My hope is that after you visit this blog:

• You will have a clear direction of what to do during and after your undergraduate studies.
• You will be inspired by those who have inspired me and (hopefully) by my own story. 
• You will spread the word !

Let me first give you a warning before you proceed to the next section. This is going to be (hopefully) a powerful "inception" (don't worry if you haven't watched the movie, you only miss the joke) , you will soon experience a paradigm shift. Tighten your seat belt, let the brainwashing begins!