Week 7: Freeze the Fees & the Golf Society

Good news, I made the golf squad at LSE! Not sure if I blogged about this or not (I'm too lazy to read over my previous posts) but I'll write about it again just in case. During freshers week (introduction week) I signed up for a whole bunch of clubs (see previous posts) and one of them was the Golf Society. We had our first practice about three weeks ago and I made it. There are two team: the Golf Society which is everyone who wants to play is on and the Golf Squad which consists of members of the Golf Society who are good enough to compete for LSE - I'm on both. After buying clubs, shoes, and a bunch of other unnecessary golf paraphernalia, I practiced with the squad. Both teams practice at Metro Golf, which is an indoor golf range in Central London. It isn't too far from my dorm, which is nice, and it's free (after we pay the initial 15 GBP to join the society). Somehow I got suckered into being the Secretary of the Society, so I run the practices and make sure everyone is having fun, while also seeing who is good enough to play for the squad. About 45 people are in the society and 12-15 have made the squad. I'll talk about matches in next weeks post. Before I move on, here are some pictures from Metro Golf:

On Wednesday, November 10, the Students Union put on a demonstration to protest the raising of fees for university students in the UK. As of now, there is a 3,000 GBP cap of university fees. Due to budget cuts and austerity cuts proposed by the Chancellor of Exchequer, George Osborn (The British Treasury Secretary), the government is no longer funding most universities. Unlike the in the US, most British institutions of higher education are state funded and thus rely on the government for revenue, in addition to student fees. Well, without government funds, most universities will be forced to raise fees in order to cope with higher costs (the new cap is 9,000 GBP). This made a lot of students and parents angry since austerity cuts are not too popular in an uber-liberal society like the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, LSE students union asked Howard Davies, the President of LSE, to freeze student fees at 3,100 GBP instead of raising them to 9000 GBP. Davies has failed to commit in recent weeks, so LSE students joined other students union's from around the UK to protest. I did not get a chance to attend because we had our first golf match, but I did get to see some of the students gather to begin the protest. You all know the end of the story: the demonstration began peacefully and ended up violent as students and anarchists stormed 30 Millbank (the conservative party headquarters) and caused severe damage. While I agree with the protests, I definitely do not condone the destruction and especially the violent actions taken against defenseless police officers (they don't carry guns in London - don't ask me why?). Here are some pictures from the British press for those who did not get to see them: