Like most students weighing options and schools, the reputation of the program mattered a great deal to me. And, the LSE International History department does not disappoint in that respect; consistently ranked in the top ten History programs worldwide, the research is top notch and the timber of LSE, resounding.
At this elite echelon however, when debating between top tier schools – each with stellar reputations and brilliant faculty – the choice bewilders. Does one go with Oxbridge? An Ivy League? Does it matter at this level? The answer is: it does. What made the choice for me was the London location. I received my undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and had studied abroad in the Middle East. But, I had never really forayed into Europe. What’s great about London is that it has all the benefits and ease of the hyper-capitalism of North American cities and yet, still maintains the elegance, class, and history of Europe. That’s what was missing from my academic experience. As Allan Bloom would certainly contend, there is something to a European education that truly imbibes the souls of great thinkers and of great histories (The Closing of the American Mind) – “they weave the fabric of the souls” (p.51).
As our program director, Dr. Taylor Sherman, mentioned at our welcome orientation, “Empire is everywhere in London” – from the carefully curated sartorial exhibits at Kensington Palace, to the Cool Britannia souvenir shops, to the orientalist tea flavours at the Twinings original tea shop on The Strand right by the LSE. The discourse of Empire carries weight and gravitas in London; it is a city steeped in Empire and steeped in History. With the lure of London and Allan Bloom’s voice in my head, the choice made itself for me.
In my senior year of university, I took a course called “Empire” which taught me to rethink the ways in which I construed the term; far from anachronistic, it is very much alive in the ways countries act, react, and interact, and in the ways identities are negotiated in our milieu. Having covered most of the main Empire historians in that class – Doyle, Pagden, Fanon, Hobsbawm, Conrad & Demarest, Anderson – hubris led me to believe that the LSE would be a rehashing of old constructs I had already learned. After all, I was an avid reader and had covered the theories somewhat. My intent was to obtain a Master’s degree to parlay into a Ph.D. which, I was certain, I already knew what it would be on.While I did get/am getting a Master’s degree, it is but mere epiphenomena. What the LSE taught me was to question – “question the question” as Dr. Sherman always urged us in class – to push the boundary, to rethink what was thought. No historian, intellectual, thinker, philosopher, is sacred; they all have their flaws. And, it is our duty as students of history to render their sanctity, banal. And, in the cacophony, find your own tune.
If you are looking to push yourself, if you are looking to challenge your way of thinking, if you are looking not just to think outside the box but to question why it is that ideas are constructed in boxes, and how those boxes change over time, then the LSE is for you. You will read like you have never had to before. You will be checked like you never have been before. And you will write more profusely and with more erudition that you ever envisaged. The pulling out of one’s comfort zone – one can never be too comfortable at the LSE – that has been the most exciting and challenging part of the year. And the patience and support of advisors and supervisors as I wrestled with these demons of intellection, the most sustaining.
If you want to breeze through your degree and earn credentials at the snap of your fingers, then the LSE is not for you. However, if you want professors who will guide you and push you to your potential, colleagues who will debate globalization and shifting identities and the meaning of Europe and of Empire over pub crawls and happy hour, and supervisors to be inspirational role models to aspire towards, then come to the LSE. You won’t regret it!
I still plan on pursuing my PhD after I graduate but having learned so much, it’s hard now to be so certain of what I want to research. But, I am certain that in this aporia, once I’ve completed my dissertation, in Plato’s words, the divine irruption will come.