cooperstreet

If you want a PhD in political science, why don't you focus more on applying for MAs in political science rather than professional degrees?

guys my nintendo just published a paper in the APSR. can you belive it.

I too struck out one year and landed a top 5 offer the next year. It can happen.

MA at columbia in political science? Is that worth the 50k?

At the grad level.

I counted my change out at the supermarket, ergo, I know methods.

You are an undergrad. You don't know the statistical methods that researchers in political science use. You may know what they are, but you don't know how to properly use them. That's fine, I can't imagine any undergrad knowing them. More evidence you don't know what you are talking about.

Pointing out a model is misspecified means that it can't reliably be used for causal inference. My point is that saying something can't be used for causal inference is not a harsh criticism and certainly doesn't mean that someone is not legitimate, should be in the humanities, or is not political science.

People dismiss all sorts of methods for causal inference all of the time. Its part and parcel of using a method. Do people who think that the Rubin causal model is wrong and isn't useful for causal inference mean that they are in effect saying that whoever uses the model model belongs in a different discipline? What about if I point out that someone's model's errors are serially correlated and therefore its misspecified, does that delegitimize and marginalize them? No, of course not. Criticism of a method is not criticism of a person.

Which is entirely different than the content of the post I was responding to.

FWIW, I've never heard anyone say this, ever.

Then don't get a PhD. Case closed.

"The problem is, I see no value in quantitative research, it's reductive and constraining and forces square pegs into round holes to make them fit rigid and inflexible models." This is simply because you do not understand it.

what are you talking about

PhDs are hard. Choosing the highest ranked school makes it easier. That's an oversimplified version but you get the idea.

no

probably shouldn't use gendered insults here or in academia.

do it

You are an academic and are sneering at 'science confirms the obvious' articles?

I think its quite simple really: If you don't love reading, writing, researching, and teaching, then you will not be happy as an academic. If you don't love the job, there are simply too many demands on you to be happy. For us who love it, these things aren't really demands.

100

lol wut?

Middlebury. They have grants. Also FLAS.

I don't know of any poli sci phd program that doesn't have TA or RA requirements.

No this is not what is happening. People aren't viewing you as someone who doesn't know what political science research is like because of your JD. Its that your research interests are overly broad as to be vacuous. Its that you are unsure what subfield you want to study. Anyway, American Quant said it better than me and with much more grace, so do what they say.