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Hi there! I received an offer for the MSc in Political Theory at LSE 2020/21 and am currently looking into housing options. I am a bit confused as to whether I would have to choose an hall that has accommodation for 50 weeks, or whether I would only be required to be on-site for the 30/39 that most halls provide. The webpage of my programme states that it is 12 months full time, but I cannot find anything as to whether that would actually entail 12 months of teaching in London? If anyone has an idea about how the academic year is structured and whether I should try and get housing for more than 30 weeks, it would be much appreciated! Cheers - Johanna

Hey Everyone! So my name is Amar and I was applying to grad schools for the Fall of 2017 and the biggest issue I found (other than doing the application) is finding affordable accommodation. I ran into this problem while doing an internship last summer, but luckily my undergraduate institution (Colby College) helped me cover costs that time around. I'm still amazed by how ridiculously expensive it has become to find actual affordable places to live in a lot of metropolitan areas (I applied to a lot of schools in Boston and around California). One of my friends actually pays around $1500 monthly in Boston (this is per person, there are 3 of them living there) and the rent basically eats into more than half of his income (and he has an actual full-time job btw). This was one of the reasons (but there are also other issues I have with the current housing market) that I started Fractal with my best friends. Fractal is a startup with the goal of providing more affordable and flexible housing for young individuals and designing the home of the future. I am working on this full-time for a while, so I have put grad schools on pause, because I really think this is an important problem that needs to be solved. So what we do is produce modular micro-spaces, you can think of it as Tetris meeting housing. Basically, you have one small self-contained, self-sustainable living unit which can be easily relocated anywhere (it's simple to load on a typical trailer). The idea is that you should be able to take your home anywhere with you (or have it transported) since our generation is constantly on the move and a lot of us frequently travel. The cool thing is that multiple units can smoothly connect together to create a larger living and working space. So 4 friends can essentially all own a living module and then buy a 5th common area and connect them together to build their own life. Also, you don't need to connect them to the grid, so you leave minimal environmental impact. One of these units costs $20,000 and we are making financing options available if this is still too steep. Of course the goal would be to give this housing to everyone, as the housing of the future needs to be designed for optimal use of space and minimal carbon footprint, but right now I think millennials are in the most dire need for this kind of living solution. You can take a look at www.fractalspaces.com to learn more about who we are and where we want to go with this. Please let me know what you guys and girls think and hit me with any questions you may have!

Hello everyone! I am an architect from Pakistan and this year I was awarded the DAAD post-graduate scholarship for an M.Sc in Infrastructure Planning at University of Stuttgart. My wife, who is also an architect (and my undergrad classmate), also got admitted in the same course and we are both planning on studying together in Germany. We are about to start scanning for accommodation well in advance and any word of advice would be greatly appreciated. We’d be able to spare around about 350 EUR per month for rent, and would prefer to rent a single-room flat with small kitchenette and an attached bathroom. I know that finding a single flat in Stuttgart city center will not be easy and that we must look into suburbs. Would places such as Ludwigsburg be a decent choice provided that the bus/train station is in walking distance of the apartment? Basically any advice and tips regarding accommodation would be a tremendous help. Thank you!