On ISI and ₤$€

This post is a compare-and-contrast between Indian Statistical Institute - Bangalore and The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE ≡ ₤$€).
[The writer of this post has a B-Math (Hons) degree from the former institution and hopes to have an MSc in Applicable Mathematics degree from the latter by this year end.]
The possible destinations for a B-Math student would be Masters in - Applicable Mathematics, Statistics, Risk and Stochastics, Operations Research, Operations Research (Decision Sciences). Nothing is stopping one from applying for a degree in Economics/Finance but, I think, B-Math does enough to ensure that one will not think about these options when one is applying.
I, being a Dept of Math student @ The LSE, will talk about the MSc - App. Maths course only. The details about other courses can be provided on request.
So, here goes...

To begin with, there is a lot of differences between living in Central London and living in Muthurai Nagar and, beleive-it-or-not, these factors do have an immense effect on your academic performance! So, its a bit difficult to point out all the causes, their interdependence and the overall effect. I shall point out two concrete ones:-

Standard of teaching:- Click here! The standard of teaching varies immensely over departments and within the departments. One advantage that ISI has is one can walk into a prof's room anytime and ask doubts. Here, you get one hour per week. The coursework is presented in the form of lcetures and classes. "Lecture" means the professor coming and well...lecturing! Hand-outs and assignment sheets are distributed. Be prepared to meet a guy whose accent you cant make sense of or who is too lost to pay attention to what the students are talking about. The "classes" where assignment sheets are discussed, are a platform to discuss ideas and so on. But, not very helpful. But, of course, some of the teachers are simply brilliant. So, the deal is how will one know who is good and who is not? Well... Here, you have almost a month to decide on your course. During that period, you can go and attend lectures by various professors and make up your mind, which I would say is not too bad. The only thing is, level might go down gradually as the term progresses. In fact, do not be surprised if you end up wasting one hour of your class-time learning differentiation-by-first-principle (That after you have just covered Ito-integrals in the previous lecture) The level of studets varies immensely depending on the country and background they are from.
In short, its all about what you make out of the opportunities. Make an aware decision, decide what you want from the course and degree and after that, things aren't difficult at all. (DO NOT join LSE if you wish to take up research in pure mathematics. Go to Imperial Maths Department!)

Extra-Curricular Activities:- There are a lot more opportunities to gain experience. Various student socities organize a variety of programs (from cultural shows to business games to enterprenual challenges) and its upto students to participate in them. This is one of the major deciding factors in job-selection procedure. The companies have no place for plain nerds. One has to excel in different walks and demonstrate diversity and excellence. The international student body and the diversity of opportunities that one offers are an excellent platform to learn a few improtant things like team-skills, communication-skills etc which go a long way in helping one survive in a global business scenario.

Most probably, an ISI student will have trouble adjusting for first couple of months, but, if one chooses to, one can have the time of one's life and take away certain things one is bound to miss out on having spent one's undergraduate years in an elite-yet-isolated institute like ISI. Such a role-change is definitely challenging, but, after spending one - term at this college, I would say, its worth it! And, definitely interesting as well :)

Cheers!
Shivam