My experience of extracurriculars at LSE Summer School

My experience of extracurriculars at LSE Summer School

When I look back on my time at LSE Summer School, my biggest surprise was that my learnings didn’t stop at the classroom door. A key highlight outside lectures and seminars (and social basketball!) was the Spark programme, a series of sessions designed to help students develop professional and personal skills.

What is the Spark programme?

Spark runs alongside your classes, offering workshops on communication, career development, mindset, feedback, and technical skills. What made it especially valuable was how it complimented the academic learning, pushing me to think more holistically about how I apply knowledge – both personally and professionally. I took a lot away from my time at LSE Summer School, but these four key learnings from the Spark programme are the ones I still use to guide my thinking today.

Learning 1: Framing your value

One of the many lessons I learned came through Spark’s emphasis on personal branding and communication. Sessions like ‘Marketing You: Strategies for Personal Brand Development’ and ‘Your CV: Maximising Effectiveness’ pushed me to think critically about how I present myself. I learned that employers, clients, and even peers don’t just respond to what you know; they respond to how clearly and confidently you communicate. This insight continues to guide how I prepare for opportunities, whether in applications, networking or in teamwork.

Learning 2: Bettering yourself

Spark courses also encouraged a lot of self-awareness. In workshops, we broke down our own habits and routines, identifying small practices that improve focus and productivity. It sounds simple, but learning how to manage your attention and cut away distractions turned out to be just as critical as learning about financial analysis. Equally important were the lessons on feedback and adaptability, including the session ‘Developing Your Entrepreneurial Mindset’ which offered teachings from experienced business leaders and professionals, who shared that growth comes from iteration and rarely ever from perfection. The ability to listen, adjust and refine your service is a skill you can capitalise on everywhere in the workplace.

Learning 3: Mindset matters

Spark also challenged how I think about resilience. Rather than framing success as working harder, one of the Spark courses emphasised working smarter – being open to failure, learning from it and adjusting your approach. This mindset has made me feel noticeably more confident to adapt my own approaches and be comfortable receiving constructive criticism. These workshops also made me think differently about career strategy and long-term planning, showing me that career progression is rarely linear and is instead built from intentional choices or in using opportunities (like internships) as a space to test, learn and refine your direction.

Learning 4: Technical skills

Alongside this, Spark also offered hands-on technical development, joining sessions on structuring essays and improving digital fluency in tools like Excel, Power BI, Python and R. We were also given the opportunity to explore the Bloomberg Terminal held at the LSE library. The Bloomberg Terminal is one of the most widely recognised software systems within the global financial industry and this experience became particularly valuable when I started my internship and had existing familiarity with the system.

Final reflections:

It didn’t take long to realise that the real strength of LSE's Summer School lies in how academic intensity intersects with personal growth. In just a few weeks, I took away an entirely new mindset. I didn’t just learn about my subject, I learned about myself – with growth, I realised, often happening in the moments outside of classes.