ohgoodness

Losing yourself whilst getting disowned by the world in CIV4

Congratulations!

At this time 2 years ago I was gearing up to fly around the country for my grad school interviews, and since I imagine many of you are nervously preparing for the same thing, I thought I'd share what happened to me to assure you that however your interviews go, it is highly unlikely any of them will get this weird. 
 
tl;dr during my grad school interview I suffered an acute attack of the same neurological disease I was studying. NPR's Radiolab did a short story on my experience which you can listen to here: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2011/aug/09/damn-it-basal-ganglia/
 
 
I was a tech at the time in a lab studying the basal ganglia (the part of the brain that controls movement) and what happens in the basal ganglia in movement disorders. The day before my final grad school interviews I became violently ill and went to my doctor where I was prescribed a strong anti-nausea medication. The next day, in the middle of my second interview, I began to feel a straining sensation in the muscles around my cheeks and ears. I attributed it to compensation for loose glasses that might have been slipping down my face, so several times during the interview I took my glasses off and pretended to be cleaning them while trying to tighten them.
 
After this interview all of the prospective students went to lunch with faculty and current students, and this is when I began to lose control of my neck. I felt my head spontaneously turning to the right and had difficulty facing forwards, so I positioned myself at a lunch table where I could face right and still carry on a conversation. Walking to my next interview I felt that not only was my neck turning right against my will, but that now it was tensing into a tight clench that forced my forehead to tilt dramatically back. As I began my third interview I explained to my interviewer that I was experiencing neck cramps and he acquired a hot pad to try to help me.
 
As I was holding the hot pad to my neck, and explaining my research into the loss of dopamine in the basal ganglia while trying to stifle spasms, I began to notice that I was losing control of my facial muscles. My eyebrows were tightly arched, and my mouth was stretched into an uncomfortably wide, grimacing smile, but no matter how hard I tried to send commands to my face ("forehead: relax!" "mouth: calm down!") I could not convince my face or neck to act normally. I was having a hard time processing what was happening to me, but I could see by the look on my interviewer's face that something was not right. As I was trying to explain to the admissions people that my face was acting funny, but that I was generally OK, I lost most control of my mouth and tongue and my speech slowed to a slur.
 
I was then rushed to the ER, where I was diagnosed with an acute dystonic reaction to my nausea medications. Here's where the irony kicks in: my dystonia was mediated by a blockage of the dopamine receptors in my basal ganglia - the exact mechanism that my lab was studying in mice. I was experiencing acute dystonia, for the first time, as I was explaining how and why I study dystonia for my graduate school interviews. Just thought you might get a kick out of that story (I'm fine now, by the way).
 
I also thought I'd share that I've been writing a website about branching out from academia - career profiles, tips, resources, Q&A's (I hope it's not bad form to post links?) which might be helpful/interesting to some of you: http://www.branchingpoints.com/

Got off the waitlist at UNC-Chapel Hill!!!!

After 13 rejections I finally get into a school. So excited!

Congrats to everyone with great news! I am so excited for all of you! I am in a different boat it seems.  I applied to one place. ONE PEOPLE!  It is the only program I want to go to.  Many of my colleagues have attended that program.  But here is the thing....NO BACK UP PLAN!  ACCEPTANCE OR BUST!  God help me!

Ughh!!! When are Anthro and Sociology programs going to send out decisions?  Looking back in my e-mails at my MA school decisions I saw it took anywhere between a month - two months.  For some of the earliest deadlines it has been close to two months now.  Every day feels like a year!

Congratulations! Big up! 

http://gradschool.unc.edu/pdf/2010-ADMISSION-STATISTICS.pdf

I completely missed this last time around but for future generations. At the end of the file - there is the GRE scores:

UNC Sociology:
Applied GREQuantative 666.22
Accepted GREQuantative 726.43
Denied GREQuantative 656.91
Enrolled GREQuantative 699.09
Applied GREVerbal 571.48
Accepted GREVerbal 663.57
Denied GREVerbal 557.24
Enrolled GREVerbal 647.27

UNC about the NRC rankings: http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu/stuff/nrc-slides.pdf

http://gradschool.unc.edu/pdf/2010-ADMISSION-STATISTICS.pdf

I completely missed this last time around but for future generations. At the end of the file - there is the GRE scores:

UNC Sociology:
Applied GREQuantative 666.22
Accepted GREQuantative 726.43
Denied GREQuantative 656.91
Enrolled GREQuantative 699.09
Applied GREVerbal 571.48
Accepted GREVerbal 663.57
Denied GREVerbal 557.24
Enrolled GREVerbal 647.27

Oops. It was there. Stunning attention to detail I have.

Sorry - UNC! (and no - I was not spending hours on their graduate page trying to find the secret entrance!)


Columbia says this:
No department other than Psychology sets a minimum score requirement. For those applying to Psychology, although the department bases its decisions on an overall recommendation of applicants' scores, grades, recommendation letters and potential for scholarship in the program, it encourages applicants to have a combined verbal and quantitative GRE score of 1200 (for tests taken prior to August 1, 2011) or 310 (for tests taken after August 1, 2011 and subject to the revised scoring system).

Whereas you can do some inference from other programs at Northwestern:

Average Quantitative GRE Scores
Pol sci: 695
Stats: 783
econ: 798
Anthro: 698

"While we out here, say the hustlas prayer
If the game shakes me or breaks me
I hope it makes me a better man
Take a better stand
Put money in my moms hand
Get my daughter this college plan, so she don't need no man
Stay far from timid
Only make moves when ya heart's in it
And live the phrase Sky's The Limit"

and

"You know very well who you are
Don't let em hold you down, reach for the stars
You had a goal, but not that many
'cause you're the only one I'll give you good and plenty"

leading up to:

"We used to fuss when the landlord dissed us
No heat, wonder why Christmas missed us
Birthdays was the worst days
Now we sip champagne when we thirst-ay
Uh, damn right I like the life I live
'Cause I went from negative to positive
And it's all... "

You know who

H. G. Wells - The Time Machine.
 
Never read it before, it's pretty lovely, actually. Too bad my concentration is currently crappy.

Rough - hope it has worked out with the rest of your applications! 

Ah, condescension, passive aggression, and pointless bickering. Feels like I'm in academia already.

(Sorry, I HAD to. Now back on topic.)

In fairness, Lainie's behavior is a pretty typical maneuver people make in arguments: jabbing at someone aggressively at first, then switching to passive aggression, and running for the moral high-ground by claiming to be a victim (e.g. "I didn't come here to be singled out") in order to avoid engaging any of the counter arguments you've prompted.  This is somewhat similar to the times that in four short months I've been called variously, a bully, a bigot, condescending, and an asshole on the forum.  I think I've been rather patient and dignified here considering the standard of discourse on the board.  
 
Often times in structural social sciences, we are asked to evaluate how our ideologies influence our own theories and preferences, and how we may propagate oppression with our ideas.  Just so.  But I think the real problem here is that -- useful as that analysis is -- it turns into a monster when it serves as an excuse to eviscerate people who express an opinion that one feels represents an oppressive ideology.  This effort turns the fight against ideological tyranny into itself an ideological tyranny.  
 
When you believe that everyone is merely a product of ideological frameworks, and in particular False Consciousness, it degrades your sense that the people you argue with have made responsible assessments of their own ideas.  Put simply -- when you believe the world is full of retarded cattle who need to wake up, and when you believe that the way thus to save the world is to go get a PhD and refine the right messages to scream from the mountaintops, you have virtually no incentive to refrain from hostile personal attacks at those you don't agree with.  
 
Further, that framework implies that the social scientist de facto obtains a privilege on truth.  Pretense of knowledge.  When you believe that you're sticking up for the little guy, and a lone voice who can start a revolution if you just scream loud enough and in the right way, you're likely to cause quite a bit of collateral damage in your ideological war.  People who cause this damage give their discipline a terrible name, because it starts to look a lot more like a religion waging a holy war than a reasoned, scientific inquiry.  Criticize logical positivism's shortfalls (when it's taken to extremes) if you want -- some of the people I've encountered here suffer an abject lack of it. 
 
Anyway I'm not completely in agreement with Jose's generalizations about sociology.  From the not-small volume of sociology I've read in the last three months, it appears there is actually quite a bit of nuance and fair and mature entertainment of interlocutors in it.  I think there is quite a bit of self-selection and adverse-selection bias on this forum.  It's not a representative sample of the discipline.  I've had other board members sympathize with me privately about how intellectually and emotionally immature a group of regulars are here.  I don't have positive evidence, but I don't not see a good deal of people not wanting to socialize where a basic level of criticism is often times unwelcome, and where people toss a lot of ad hominem around when they don't like what other people are saying.  That scenario would of course just leave the choir and the preacher here without a congregation.  Jussayin.
 
It would seem like not offending anyone guarantees the freedom of everyone -- until one realizes that such a situation turns anyone's offense into a weapon, limiting the freedom of everyone.  If you aspire simultaneously to a PhD and social activism, and you want a more tolerant, diverse, and inclusive world -- lead by example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_course_approach
and then read this http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/book/978-0-306-47498-9
 
but you should really know better.   It grew out of various major developments in various disciplines, especially hägerstrands time-geography.  I hope you're not applying to Yale or UNC  

Hello to all:
 
The University of Texas at San Antonio has a three year PhD Program in Applied Demography. We are a 40 persons program and have two specializations: 1)Public Policy and 2)Health Policy. Out faculty comes from Penn State, Princeton, UT-Austin, among others. The department is doing cutting edge research in areas such as Migration, Health Disparities, Public Policy Evaluation, Education and Energy Consumption.
 
For more information our website is: http://copp.utsa.edu/demography/home/
 
Cordially,
 
A. Santos

*drools* 

*drools* 

ONE DOWN! (Illinois)
 
I answered the phone without much interest since it woke me up. I was wide awake after she told me where she was calling from.

http://www.yale.edu/ciqle/PUBLICATIONS/Brueckner%26Mayer-Destandardization.pdf
 
Herr Mayer at your service. 
 
and then: 
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/advances-in-life-course-research/most-cited-articles/ <- specifically the "now or later" (at the bottom) article and the "towards a new pattern of entry into adulthood"
 
 
btw - I thought you economists had given up on rational choice theories?  
 
(sorry for hijacking this thread - life course makes me randy and raucous) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_course_approach
and then read this http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/book/978-0-306-47498-9
 
but you should really know better.   It grew out of various major developments in various disciplines, especially hägerstrands time-geography.  I hope you're not applying to Yale or UNC