Frequently Asked Questions

Many of your queries will be answered in the FAQs below, however, if there isn't an answer please contact us.

Alumni Relations help	Houghton Street Online help
Transcripts and certificates	Registration
Privacy and data protection	Username and password
Access to LSE buildings	Email forwarding
Current students – contacting alumni	Updating your contact details
Prospective students – useful links	Class notes
Contact the Alumni Relations team	Accessing other online services

 

Transcripts and certificates

Transcript requests are handled by the Student Services Centre - for full details of how to get yours, please see below for the most relevant section of the their website. If you graduated in 2010 you can now access your transcripts electronically via Digitary.

Alumni who graduated before 1993
Alumni who graduated 1993-2009
Alumni who graduated in 2010 onwards

Please note: Alumni who graduated in 2010 onwards will need to register for Houghton Street Online (HSO) to access Digitary. Please be aware Digitary will not be accessible instantly, you may experience a delay of up to 24 hours before you're able to log in to the system. For further information please contact Registry Services on registry@lse.ac.uk.

Alumni who graduated between 1993 and 2009 will notice that the process for requesting transcripts has now changed. You will be required to have an account on Houghton Street Online to login to the transcript request system. If you don't already have an account register now.

Hard copy transcripts will usually be dispatched within 3-5 days. Please ensure you submit your request in ample time to be able to account for possible delays.

All queries regarding transcripts should be directed to Registry Services on registry@lse.ac.uk.

Degree Certificates
Degree and diploma certificates are issued either by the Student Services Centre or by the University of London. For full details, please go to the following Student Services Centre site:

Degree/Diploma Certificates - undergraduate and postgraduate

Proof of attendance
If you are a potential employer of an LSE alumnus/a or current student, please see the Transcripts: Frequently Asked Questions page of the Student Services Centre site.

Queries
Please note: the LSE Alumni Relations team is unable to assist with queries about these services; instead, please contact the Student Services Centre or e-mail registry@lse.ac.uk.

Privacy and data protection

The LSE Office of Development and Alumni Relations data protection policy is as follows:

All data is held securely by LSE and is treated confidentially in accordance with the 1998 Data Protection Act.

Data is not disclosed to external organizations other than agents contracted by the School directly for purposes benefiting the School or its alumni.

Data is available to academic and administrative departments and recognised Alumni Association groups and is used for a full range of alumni activities and to encourage financial and non-financial support for the School.

If you do not wish your information to be used in this way, please contact the Office of Development and Alumni Relations.

Access to LSE buildings

LSE welcomes visits from its alumni, but please note that access to buildings for alumni is different to that for staff and students:

1) Monday – Friday, 8am-6.30pm
The School is fully open Monday to Friday 8am-6.30pm, excluding Bank Holidays and School closures at Christmas and Easter (see below).

2) Early mornings, evenings and weekends
Access to LSE buildings before 8am and after 6.30pm on weekdays, and at all times at weekends, is restricted to LSE staff only. Please note that alumni Library cards permit access ONLY to the Library.

3) Exceptions
The following are exceptions to this rule:

• Library - the Library operates its own admissions policy and has opening hours which vary according to the time of year – please see the Library website for details of opening hours and admissions policy.
• New Academic Building (NAB) - access to the NAB works on a swipecard system for staff and students. Access for alumni is not possible before 08.00 or after 18.30 on weekdays, or at weekends; access on weekdays is possible either by presenting your alumni Library card or by emailing the NAB reception at least 24 hours in advance of your visit.
• Gym and squash club members who are in possession of a valid gym or squash membership card can gain access while the gym and squash courts are open in the evenings and at weekends. When the East Building is closed, access is via the Old Building entrance.
• Public lectures, evening classes and other official events – anyone attending public lectures, evening classes and other official LSE activity is permitted access to LSE buildings for the duration of the event.
• LSE SU events – the LSE Students’ Union facilities in the East Building and Clare Market Building, including the Three Tuns, are accessed via the Clare Market Building entrance. Some evening and weekend events will require a ticket or LSE identification - it is advisable to check with the LSESU in advance.

4) School closure periods
LSE closes for around a week at Easter and Christmas/New Year. LSE Security staff are available to deal with enquiries only at the reception desk at the Main Entrance to the School.

Please see Opening times of buildings for full list, and the LSE Map for details of rooms and buildings.

5) Access to IT facilities
Alumni do not have access to the LSE network, and are therefore not permitted to use IT facilities; with the exception of the open-access visitors' PCs on the first floor of the Library, during Library opening hours (see above).

6) Contravention
The School reserves the right to ban from LSE property anyone found to be contravening these rules.

Current students – contacting alumni

LSE has an extensive network of alumni around the world, and there are a number of useful resources available to get in touch with them:

Alumni Professional Mentoring Network - our career networking resource which allows LSE alumni to give back to the alumni and student community by sharing some of their valuable professional experience and expertise. Note that this network is for career guidance, not a job-search service, so mentors will not respond to direct requests for jobs.

The network is currently open to students on request - please email alumni@lse.ac.uk for details of how to join.

Please note that the main alumni email directory is primarily designed for alumni to get in touch with old friends, and is therefore not currently available to students.

Alumni groups – LSE's alumni groups organise regular professional and social events, and often group leaders will know their members well, so may be able to put students in touch with alumni; though please note that group leaders are all volunteers with full-time jobs, so may take a few days to respond. Please see the groups section on Houghton Street Online for contact details.

LSE Graduate Destinations – as well as statistics about the careers undertaken by leavers, the LSE Graduate Destinations site features profiles of many alumni; and although it doesn't list email addresses, it's usually possible to find these using online searches and/or LinkedIn.

LSE departments and centres – many LSE departments and centres keep in close touch with their alumni, and many post profiles on their own webpages - if you have a query specific to a department or centre, it's worth a try getting in touch with them.

LinkedIn – there are a number of LSE alumni groups on LinkedIn, many of which accept students as current members - search 'LSE Alumni' for the most popular.

Please note that Alumni Relations team is unfortunately not able to offer a bespoke service to put students in touch with alumni.

Prospective students – useful links

There are a number of useful resources available for prospective students to find out about studying at LSE, and where studying a particular course may lead:

LSE graduate profiles – contains many detailed profiles from alumni, exploring why they initially chose to study at LSE, how they found the experience and how their careers have developed since graduation.

Email a student service – offers the opportunity to contact current students and find out more about life at LSE, from a student's perspective. (Please note that this service isn't operational within vacation periods.)

Email an alum service –  connects you with alumni who are in a unique position to answer your questions on their experiences prior to, during and since their time at the School. Featured alumni are located across the globe and have studied on a variety of programmes at undergraduate and graduate level. They are all happy to answer your questions.

Contacting the academic department – most academic departments keep good links, both formal and informal, with recent alumni, and may be able to put you in touch.

Alumni groups – most alumni group leaders are happy to be contacted by prospective students, and, if they personally know someone from the particular course, will put you in touch. (Please note that there is no formal process for this, and it's not guaranteed that a group leader will be able to find an alumnus/a in your country.)

For full information about studying at the School, please see the Study at LSE webpages.

Contact the Alumni Relations team

For further information about LSE Alumni Relations, please visit the relevant pages of this site by navigating using the menus to the left or the help topics to the right.

Alternatively, you are welcome to get in touch with us as follows:

Post, phone, fax and email
Alumni Relations, LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 7361; fax: +44 (0)20 7955 7567 alumni@lse.ac.uk

In person
Our office is situated on the 9th floor of Tower Three, and office hours are 9.30am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday.

LSE Alumni Relations team

• Charlotte Armah, Head of Alumni Relations - email
• Camilla Langlands, Events and Reunions Manager - email
• Susan Quach, Events and Reunions Assistant - email
• Monica Ugalde, Deputy Head of Alumni Relations - email
• Sarah Savage, Alumni Relations Officer - email

Houghton Street Online registration

Step 1 - Alumni ID
To register for Houghton Street Online, you'll need your Alumni ID, which has ten digits and starts with four zeros. Recent alumni, please note: this is different from your LSE student number.

If you have received an email inviting you to join Houghton Street Online, your Alumni ID should be included. If you do not already have your Alumni ID, please use the Alumni ID request form to retrieve it.

Step 2 - Register for your LSE for You Personal Account
Registration is handled through the main LSE authentication service, and involves creating an LSE for You Personal Account. This account can then be used to log in to Houghton Street Online, Digitary and the CareerHub.

To start the registration process, please go to the Houghton Street Online homepage and click 'Register'.

Please see our Step-by-step guide to registration (PDF) for further help with this part of the process.

Notes:

• To complete your registration, you must click a link sent to you in an automatic confirmation email. These can sometimes be filtered as spam by your email provider, so please keep an eye out for the email.
• If, for whatever reason, you don't activate the email, then next time you try and sign up with your Alumni ID and date of birth, you'll be able to close the half-opened account and start the process again.

Username and password

Once the registration process is complete, access to the password-protected areas of Houghton Street Online is via the main LSE Authentication Service, and this is where the username (email address) and password you chose are stored.

For help with username and password problems, visit the LSE Authentication Service Forgot my details page.

Common problems

I've forgotten by username and/or password
Please see the LSE Authentication Service Forgot my details page

Useful hints:

Your username is the non-LSE email address you chose when signing up for the account.

Your password must have more than six characters, and contain at least one digit.

I'd like to change my username and password
If you know your username and password but would like to change them, please use them to log in to LSE for You and select from the options in the 'Account Management' section.

Firewalls
If you are entering your username and password correctly and are still denied access, it is possible that a firewall is preventing access. Some business networks (and some public libraries) do not allow transmission of authentication information – please speak to the local IT support department for further information.

Email forwarding

The LSE alumni email address is a free forwarding service available to all LSE alumni who have signed up to Houghton Street Online.

It allows you to maintain a permanent email forwarding address associated with LSE, gives you an easy way to keep in touch with friends and colleagues following graduation and during your working life - without having to constantly update your contacts whenever your email address changes.

How email forwarding works
Any email sent to your LSE alumni email address will be forwarded to a destination email address you specify, for example your personal Hotmail account or your work account – this destination email address can be changed whenever you like.

How to get started

• select your LSE alumni email (e.g. a.n.other@alumni.lse.ac.uk)
• choose your main email account (e.g. another@gmail.com) to which you would like messages to be forwarded
• distribute your LSE alumni email
• check your main email account for messages

Once you’ve signed up to Houghton Street Online, please click this link to log in to the site and be guided through the process.

Please allow for 24 hours from time of registration for the email forwarding to be operational.

Important note: your LSE alumni email forwarding address is not an email account service and as such you will not be able to send or otherwise store email with this service. You should continue to send and store emails using your personal email account.

Sending messages as if from your LSE email forwarding address
Many email accounts may allow you to spoof the "from" address so that it appears emails sent from your personal account originate from your LSE address.

Some information on how to set this up within Microsoft Outlook Express, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Mail, Pegasus Mail and Eudora is available in the Email forwarding section.

Information on some of the more popular web-based email accounts is available as follows: Gmail and Googlemail | Hotmail | Yahoo | 
However, please note we are not able to offer any personalized technical support for this service, as it relates to your own email account rather than the LSE address.

Updating your contact information

If you don't currently hear from the School, please let the Alumni Relations team know your up-to-date contact details, so we can add you to the mailing lists for our alumni magazine, LSE Connect, and the monthly email newsletter.

You'll also automatically receive emails from the alumni group located in your country of residence.

There are two ways to update your details:

1) Houghton Street Online (HSO)

If you have an HSO account, you can update your details by logging in via www.alumni.lse.ac.uk.

For help with registration or logging in to your account please see the Houghton Street Online help.

2) By email

If you prefer to update your contact details by email, please send a message to alumni@lse.ac.uk, including:

• your full name

• your LSE degree and year

• your current postal and email addresses

Queries
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact the Alumni Relations team.

Class notes

Share your news with us and you may feature in a future issue of LSE Connect or in LSE alumni echo, the alumni enewsletter. To let us know your news, login to your HSO account and submit your news, or alternatively, email us at alumni@lse.ac.uk.

Accessing other online services

Access to LSE for You
When you sign up for Houghton Street Online, you create an LSE for You Personal Account which can also be used to sign up to other online LSE services.

You can log into LSE for You to change the username or password of your LSE for You Personal Account.

LSE Careers Service
LSE alumni have access to the LSE Careers online vacancy board for up to two years after graduation on LSE CareerHub. More information about alumni access to LSE Careers can be found on the Information for alumni pages.

Provision of other online services
Access to the LSE network, either via computers at the School or the Wireless Network, is not permitted under the regulations laid down by JANET, the body governing IT use in UK higher education institutions.

However, alumni are welcome to use the dedicated Alumni PCs and Visitor PCs on the first floor of the Library (though note that these do not have Microsoft Office, for licensing reasons). Please see the Library website for more information.