Roll Right

Im doing a masters of sociology at UNCW, definately keep me posted on your acceptance status. Its a great program.

LOL! Time management! Whos got time to manage! Sadly, my bedroom is also my office. So once I wake up, I'm already at work. My biggest vice is probably sleeping too much. Im told adults only need 6 hours of sleep. I usually steal 8 hours and then work straight until bed...well I'll take a break for video games. Shhh. I've noticed that I suck at eating well. I'll buy lunch, eat half of it and forget to eat the rest as I do lit reviews or mess with data sets. Then I'll realize I'm still hungry, and my food has been sitting out so long its all cold and nasty. I also noticed I drink more than I did during my undergrad! I don't know any grad student (or young professor) who doesn't. Takes the edge off a bit. Not healthy at all. LMAO. Also, I haven't really had a decent conversation or a solid night off in quite a while. With the research assistantship and then coursework and my own research, I really do have a 40+ hour a week job. I feel everyones stress. I've got two presentations coming up and a paper to revise and hopefully edit for publication. But I wouldn't do anything else. I love sociology. This is just a masters. Yeesh.

LOL, I traveled to a dangerous place to do research...the downtown area of my city. Hell its not a warzone, but the head start program I visited to administer an interview was the target of a drive by. Yeesh.

"Their" is an unbrella term, as everyone knows. Language is taken quite literally by many people who are not in academia. In fact, without language, we can't have a society that functions (obviously). Through the medium of language we become socialized and continue to build our internal selves. Having said that, you have to assume that a emphasis on masculinity even in something as seemingly mundane as language will have an effect on gender stratification in the larger society. Also, think about historical causation. Men ruled just about every occupation, so its no wonder masculine generalizations were used as a default. The change to something neutral is a reflection of the changing stratification of gender in at least the developed world.

Advances in agriculture allow for a food surplus, which is the only thing that allows humans to specialize in something other than food production. While these advances occured long before the establishment of a PhD in agriculture, I think food systems and agricultural studies are still the foundation of a functional society.

Everything is useless to someone.

Your MA program will have nothing to do with your PhD application power honestly. I mean...if it was a really prestigious school...it'd have a PhD program. You'll do a thesis, but its nothing you'll need an advisor to work with on intimately. I'm doing a sociology of religion thesis, and we have no religion guru in the dept. This is just further training for your PhD. Don't worry about going to a MA that is suited to your interests. Go to one that wil give you money. Thats all that matters.

Pew is a world class research org. I know that the competition for Pew is steep. Also , I feel that not a lot of sociologists are hired by larger research organizations. It's probably mainly a poli sci/economics game. Why is this? Well I'm not completely sure...I'd like to hear what others know/think about this..its kind of just what I suspect. I'll be honest with you, I don't think sociology is highly regarded by american business and corporate research. Sociology usually invalidates and threatens the American cultural complex.

I haven't posted in a while (been super busy), so I'll throw my two cents in. I think you're asking about job prospects after leaving the field...I've had several conversations with other professors in the past about this, so I'll relay what I've internalized. A). If you're getting a masters, you can be a lecturer/social research for institutions such as Research Triangle Institute or other social research institutions. You'll be doing data analysis with SPSS or SAS mostly. Also, you're well suited for jobs in the human services or public administration fields, as you have intimate knowledge of the structure of social organizations. Here we're talking about jobs like human resource manager...or what not...or DHS (department of human services) type stuff. Or you can work in management for a corporation. Basically you're marketable...but not in an extremely specific field. Go on for a PhD. . So you decided to get a PhD! Good! Otherwise, sociology isn't worth the money for the degree...lol......I'm kidding, I love sociology. Anyway! No one does sociology for the money. Now that you have a PhD, you can be a professor for a University, work for government orgs (probably can do this as a MA but you won't command as much money or clout), work for research institutions....(once again like RTI)...work for groups like Pew Research Center (good luck with that)...or just...I dunno, pretty much do whatever you want within sociology. In terms of how the school you attend affects your job prospects after...well. It does and it doesn't. Heres how schools hire professors: The get 100+ job offers for one position. The choose the top ten, based on paper presentation of self. Your vita and your dissertation are what is important...and maybe your graduate institution...but really it depends on catering to the strengths of the program and putting out some well received research. Professors at my program are from a variety of places...Maryland, Duke...I don't think it matters. Although my undergraduate mentor said they won't even look at applicants from somewhere that isn't ranked favorable by US News....but I don't put a lot of stock in that now. Out of this top ten, they whittle it down to a top 3. This top three is offered interviews on campus, and must teach a class, and also have to give a talk to the department faculty. Here it really matters if you get the influential faculty members to like you. You'll be in like Flynn. But I'm sure the name Harvard doesn't hurt. Does this help at all?

Why are you guys still on about this??

LOL, I swear this guy is a ETS representative. This is just a gripe session! It doesnt need justification!!!!!!

I applied to ND last year. Its an intense program, but dont let that intimidate you. They were my first rejection, which came fairly quickly. Youll hear by March at the latest if its a rejection. I think youll hear soon if youre accepted.

Interesting, Ive never been any good at discerning who was male or female here. I dont think it really matters either way. Thanks for the props jacib, but hell, you deserve some commendation, so I second modernity. Consistently you provide information that has been useful to me, and constantly contribute to stimulating discussion. Furthermore, you hit me up with some great GRE study tips. Im indebted. Heres to jacib.

Im surprised this thread is still fired up. We've really done this to death here.

Yeah, I need to hold on to a book. Smell it, feel the binding, the paper...its almost like a living thing. It really comes to life when you read it. On that note, I just got a netbook, and love it. Damn its handy! Spss computations and research work anywhere I want. Damn this thing is tiny!

Thanks man, I sure hope so. I'm trying to build something that will be eye catching. I decided to retake the GRE too. Its my moby dick.

LMAO, I think professors know that there may be more than one person with a particular first and last name....they aren't going to google you and expect the first hit to be the applicant. Thats insane.

Hell Boston is amazing! That city alone is enough to seal the deal!

I wasnt applying to schools, but I did apply for a research assistantship last week.....and today I was hired during my interview!!!! WOOT!!!

I think thats a great summary of the topic. Although Im surprised that he sees inductive and deductive as the major divide. I really only hear about quantitative versus qualitative. Thats interesting that he says differently. I hadnt realized there was such a huge divide. In terms of Marxist perspectives, well your dad said it well. There arent really any true Marxists in a sociological sense anymore. Thats more of a political and social ideology, not a scientific perspective. I mean, Marx didnt write as a sociologist, and its only been since the 1960s that Marxist thought has been added to the cannon. Marx gave birth to conflict theory, which has its own sub-sections now (including neo-marxist thought, the critical school and so on..). Im glad post-modernism didnt catch on. While I love it and borrow from it constantly, its not a recipe for good science. A lot of its teachings are pretty trite when considering sociological interests. Medical sociology is a field I know little about. Id like to hear more about it!

I'm not entirely sure there is a strong divide between empirical and theoretical sociology. You can't explain what you see without a theory to apply. If you're talking about grand theorizing...like in the days of Parsons...well those days are over. Frankly, every sociologist has a theoretical foundation.

Yeah, this whole alpha crap is bothersome. Frankly, money should have little to do with who calls the shots in a relationship. I tend to think to the ideal type, an egalitarian relationship of equal say and equal responsibility. It's important to get away from this obsession with salary earnings and who's buying the milk at the end of the day. We're going to end up creating a stereotype of women with high earnings, the "dominant domineering wife who runs the show". Isn't that what men have been criticized over for years?

I'm just posting something from a previous thread, but I want to make sure everyone is starting on the same wave-length. Here's some evidence against ongoing gender discrimination out of a very good book called the Meritocracy Myth. You'll see that seadub is right, its 79 cents on the dollar. I was mistaken about the numbers being just about equal. But this isn't due to ridiculous discrimination practices, as Jacib pointed out. And the closing wage gap is actually due to the falling wages of men. And no, its not getting worse. In fact its getting better. "In 2007, the median earnings for full-time, year around female workers was 79 percent of the median hourly wage of male counterparts, whereas in 1970 it was only 60 percent (US Bureau of the Census 2007). However, the rate at which the male-female wage gap has declined has slowed in recent decades, perhaps indicating that the most blatant forms of wage discrimination have largely been eliminated, but remaining subtler forms may be more difficult to overcome. In addition, much of the recent wage-gap reduction is due to the falling wages of men rather than the increasing wages of women. Also, the gains relative to male incomes have been experienced mostly by upper class women, whereas incomes for lower-class woman have remained stagnant. (Massey 2007, 240; Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto 2007, 163)." This has to do with the male domination in upper level management and CEO/partner positions. This is where things get really interesting. Male partners in firms are unlikely to take female lawyers under their wing, as they don't want to risk their reputations by allegations of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct. They don't want to start rumors around the office, basically. Also there is a king shit affect that Ellis Cose identified, highly successful women who have convinced themselves they got as far as the did alone, and are unwilling to support other women in lower level positions because of it. Frankly the pay gap we see right now is largely due to two factors, 1)birth (as you mentioned), 2) Old men holding on to their positions of power and high pay. When they die, the next in line for many high powered white collar jobs are women. heres some numbers here: "By 2005, women earned 58 percent of all bachelors degrees, 60 percent of all master's degrees, and 49 percent of all doctoral degrees (National Center for Education Statistics 2007a). Women have also achieved parity or near parity in professional degrees in law (48 percent), and podiatry (45 percent), and they have far exceeded men in earning degrees in optometry (59 percent), pharmacy (67 percent) and veterinary medicine (77 percent)...Likewise, women are rapidly closing the gaps in degrees in the male-dominated field of engineering..." So this all really makes sense. Consider the time line..the increase in wages since the 1960's is due to a flood of women into high paying technical/professional positions. The number of women gaining higher degrees will create a huge influx of females in hiring processes to replace old men who pass their jobs off after retirement/death. The fall in pay for men is likely due to their minority status in the education field. The wage gap is probably closing also because the men who are dominating the labor market in high paying positions are slowly dying off, hence the drop in wages as well.

On that funding note...I've heard horror stories at ASA meetings about students sabotaging other students in an attempt to secure funding. Has anyone heard of this? I don't put much stalk in it, I'm just wondering if anyone else has heard it.

Here the distinctions I've found in my 5 years of studying it: 1. Huge divide between the conflict theorists (Marxist in origin) and the functionalists (Durkheimian). While these are both marco-perspectives, there is another camp- the micro-theorists who tend to be hated by both macro-parties. The micros seem to dislike the macros as well, as they believe in socially constructed reality, while the macro theorists argue that society is a reality unto itself. I love micro, and I love macro (I disagree with a lot of the functionalist tenants). I'm a conflict guy with a lot of love for phenomenology and ethnomethodology. 2. Quant/qualitative divide: This is almost like the micro-macro fight. Macro scholars love the numbers, and some of the qualitative scholars try to be macro in orientation but usually get heckled, cause anything qualitative is almost never statistically generalizable to any larger pop (or that's the opinion of the macro quant folks). The qualitative folks argue against the quants by citing cases that defy statistical certainties...such is the nature of qualitative work. Its funny, both sides argue against each other, yet both sides are needed for a full picture. 3. In terms of softer and harder sociologists...well I can't really tell you one way or the other. I know a lot of family, gender, religion folks who are very chill and just like philosophizing. They save the science for their research. Great people to talk to. I kind of see myself as one of them, although I'm moving in a quantitative direction with my research. I think there are those who master all techniques. The hardest sociologists I know are the functionalists. Very scientific, deterministic approach to the science, using quantitative techniques to discuss the structure of society and how society exerts its power on the individual. Conflict folks seem to be a bit more laid back in my experience. But that's just what I've seen. In short: sociologists don't agree with each other. There are those who want to argue things, and those who just don't care...they're simply interested in how stuff works.