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Meet Holly a current Philosophy, Politics and Economics Student
Tell us a bit about yourself, and your background
Hi! My name is Holly. I am in my second year at UCL studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics with Social Data Science. I have always loved Economics and Politics and at A-Level I studied Maths, Economics, and Politics. I loved first year and found the balance between the challenging work and socialising to be perfect for me. When end of year exams were all over I went travelling for a month to Vietnam and Bali which was amazing. After my degree I am hoping to go into a job in finance, specifically investment banking.
Why did you apply to Political Science Department, UCL?
To be completely honest, in the beginning of my uni search I didn’t give as much thought to UCL as I should’ve. I was completely set on studying PPE and thought I knew the unis that I wanted but applied to UCL anyway because it was highly ranked for the course but I didn’t know much about it. I was set on another uni but received my offer from UCL and went to the Offer Holders day. It was there that the enthusiasm and dedication from all of the lecturers and the academics made me change my mind. Additionally, the Q-step part of my course and the overall commitment to have some form of tech/ coding aspect to the Political Science Department courses was something that stood out to me. As someone who wanted to learn how to code but had never even taken any computer science courses, the Q-step programme sounded amazing as they teach you completely from scratch. I also didn’t need convincing of the reputation of this department as UCL stands 9th in the world as a university and 3rd in the country for my course so overall it just made sense to pick this department. This combined with how beautiful the UCL campus was made me dead set on UCL and I formed it when I got home that evening.
What do you like best about your course so far?
The flexibility and how equal weight is given to all three modules in first year. There has rarely been a week that I haven’t fluctuated my preference of which module in my course that I prefer. As a strictly economics preferring student it came as a shock when I enjoyed philosophy more than economics at one point. However saying that, I am looking forward to dropping philosophy and keeping just politics and economics in second year. It was nice to have that flexibility in year one but I am looking forward to the change now that I’ve figured out what I want to do.
What is the rest of your cohort like?
Going into the year I thought there would be a bit of a divide between the international students and domestic students, but I could not have been more wrong. Everyone has been so incredibly friendly. Although I typically prefer to stay with my friends, I know that I could go up to and speak to anyone in my cohort and they would know my name and be so nice to talk to whether that’s about academics or just general chat.
What is the teaching and learning like?
The style of teaching by the department is something that I’ve never seen at any other university or school. The political science department teaches to help you to understand the material you read and learn to become more analytical and change the way you think. They do not teach you simply to pass exams. I don’t think end of year exams were even mentioned until February and at first, I thought this would mean I’d be less prepared for exams. I was wrong again. By teaching you to understand the material and take the pressure off of exams, by the time I came round to exams I was in the perfect mindset for it and did the best I had all year.
What are your career aspirations and how do you envisage the programme helping with these?
I’ve always been very set on going into finance. The course has helped me not only academically, but with my style of thinking. Being able to juggle all three subjects and switch my mind between the three regularly has helped have a more efficient way of thinking. The social data science (a-step) programme, I can’t stress enough, is something so sought after by financial employers and any employers really. By teaching you to code and having that as part of the degree it gives you qualities that these banks would have to spend time teaching you. As someone who has been selected for work experience at Goldman Sachs, HSBC, PWP and more I can speak from first hand that whenever I tell someone the degree I’m doing I always get a very positive reaction and it has helped me to get to where I am with my career progression.
Give us your top three things to do/see/go to in London
1. Primrose Hill
2. Lime bike from UCL down to the Thames, go across all the way to London eye and the Big Ben and turn right to Buckingham palace
3. Ministry of sound on a Tuesday
Who inspires you and why?
I know it’s a bit of a cliché answer but honestly probably my Dad. He suffered from learning difficulties, dyslexia, and it was not discovered until later in his teenage years, but it did not stop him from going on to become extremely successful at what he does and has so given me an amazing start in life. As a daughter you do not really get to see this side of your dad as much but when I did work experience at the bank he works at, the interns and colleagues he works with all said about what an amazing teacher he is and how he’d contributed to their success. It would have been quite easy for my Dad to not have been as successful in life due to poor grades at school, due to a lack of educational support, but it didn’t, and his dedication is something I admire a lot.
If you could implement one for policy in the world today, what would it be?
The financing of this might be a bit tricky but free, compulsory education for children up until age 16. Education is so important and a luxury not all in the world have access to. When you think of the potential of the population if all minds had the chance to be educated then it’s hard to really argue against that.