Tritonetelephone

Yeah, I don't do the MMORPG's, but I like video games a lot too (I'm surprised no one has commented on my awesome icon yet!). My SoP last year had some stuff about wanting to do gender and video games. I only own a PS2, but enough of my friends own a 360. I played a LOT of Halo 3 before my best friend moved. Now they only play Gears of War :roll: I haven't been playing anything regularly lately... God of War II has been on my shelf for a while, maybe I should get that one out. But I've been watching my bf play Bioshock, and even though all my friends have played it and I'd seen little snippets of it, I had NO idea it was so scary!!

I forgot to mention that my WL letter from USC specifically mentioned the economic crisis. The letter was very complimentary; they made it sound like they really wanted me but just couldn't afford me... They clearly wanted to know if I'd still be interested without funding (from the context of the rest of the letter).

3 or 4 of my schools made decisions by Feb. 8th last year, but I haven't heard from any of them. I know, I'm working with a very small sample and timelines aren't going to be consistent every year. But it still seems possible to me that decisions are coming later than usual. Or I could be on 3 or 4 waiting lists. Who knows.

My dad and mom are both awesome. So are my stepmom and stepdad (any other binuclear families in the house?). Dad's side provides lots of financial support and mom's side provides lots of emotional support (story of my life). That sounds stereotypical, but my mom is the only one with a graduate degree (MS in CS) and she's always encouraged academics pretty heavily. After watching me freak out last year, I think she's more nervous than I am this time around. Dad's there too and wants to know how things are going, but he's not much of a talker or worrier, I guess. Neither of my parents have a PhD (both were in corporate most of their lives, especially my dad), so they don't really understand how this process works. It'd be nice if someone in my family had some experience with this stuff. But it's pretty amazing how neither of them pressure me into doing anything like they did. Truthfully, I don't think they'd wish corporate life on their worst enemies Anyway, I definitely wouldn't be able to do any of this without my dad's help. But once I'm in, that's it. On my own. Can't wait!

That's a very good point, slothy! You say 'fractured,' but one thing I love about sociology is how BROAD it is! And I can definitely relate to the need to break from the scholarly stuff from time to time. I don't think any of us want to become "armchair theorists." I haven't heard of "Pure Sociology," misterpat, but I'm guessing it fits into that category?

100% agree with loving this thread!! Also, I'm a big Kimmel fan as well! I saw him give a guest lecture a couple years ago, it was awesome. He's extraordinarily nice, too - I was a little starstruck, emailing with him last year about SBU. They better get back to me with better news this time!!

I'll check them out. Thanks!

Then I definitely wouldn't worry about it. You'll find out soon enough. But I'm notorious for not wanting to "bug" people, especially about impatient admission questions.

I'm specializing in masculinity - actually don't care much for "women's studies." Would that have changed your gender assumption?

Re: "Neoliberal" I just made it up - I wasn't thinking in context. My mistake!

LOL, I thought you were female because I was reading your name as Synthia (or Cynthia). Maybe there is something to be said about assumptions in specific contexts deviating from what we typically think of as "privilege." Don't women dominate (for lack of a better word) men in academia? Do ya'll think that's why a lot of us seem to assume people on here are female? I also get a lot of assumptions that I myself am GLBTQ because of all the work I do, but I'm not.

I'm glad you posted this - I'm also preparing for grad school to completely wipe out my non-academic life but there's some things I'd like to hang on to. Right now I'm an electric violinist for a very loud local band. But we'll be breaking up soon since I have to move for school. Other than that, I want to keep up all my community work... GLBT activism and the like. I also like studying pharmacology and abnormal psych on the side - but I don't really want to incorporate them into my graduate research.

I think the better question is "why NOT call/email her?" If you have any relevant questions left about the program, go ahead. If not, I'm sure she won't even remember.

Me too! I'm really excited about spreading my neoliberal agenda through America's youth with such radical ideas as "poor people DON'T choose to be poor." Who knew!

I call dibs!! Seriously, I think I remember something in Michael Kimmel's work about dimensions of privilege commonly being assumed when information is not available: male, white, upper/middle class, heterosexual, Christian, etc. And characteristics that deviate from any of these tend to dominate one's identity. Maybe I'm mixing a couple of different things/authors... it's been a while. But that's another big research interest for me: privilege and identity. Apologies to the OP for going so off-topic. These are good convos to be had, though

I'm pretty well trained to not make any assumptions - I usually don't assign a gender unless they have a photo or gendered username. The big exception is that I catch myself thinking of all the CS/EE people as male - my excuse is that my bf is in that discipline, so I'm not being sexist I'm a female, BTW hip2btriangle. But props on the "ze" drop! I've heard that once or twice, but only among the TG community. I think a lot of academics are now using "hu" (short for human).

LOL. It's posts like these that make you one of my favorites, misterpat.

Never underestimate the crappiness of my UG university! My theory teacher was a culture expert (there aren't really any gender experts here) so we talked about Charlotte Perkins Gilman but that's about it for sex/gender. Not too familiar with Foucault yet - thanks for the idea though! That will give me something to do while I'm waiting. That's the weird thing about Bourdieu, though... the English articles I've read of his are VERY difficult to read. But in French, he's crystal clear. I'm not even fluent and I get it.

I think I see what you're trying to say, but I would not give this advice to someone who doesn't already have a bachelor's in Sociology. You need to learn to add before you can multiply. Classical theory WILL be discussed in grad school and you WILL be expected to know these three forwards and backwards at some point. Can you imagine passing a qualifying exam for theory without knowing much about Marx, Durkheim, or Weber? I wouldn't want to attend a graduate program where that would be possible. With all due respect to slothy, I would also strongly advise against this. There is a big difference between sociology and journalism, which one of my schools (don't remember which one) found important enough to specifically state on their website. Keep up with your current events, yes, but I would NOT use this information as a model for future research. Journals, journals, journals!! That's true, too. I was just reading an article by Bourdieu about this (in the original French I might add :wink:. /bragging). I'll post it if I can find it.

If they're making decisions this week, does that mean we won't be notified until next week? Just putting that out there so people don't start freaking out as we get closer and closer to Friday. Btw, I didn't get interviewed and I'm still hopeful. You should be too. Good luck, everybody!!

I'm especially glad to hear this one. Creativity is one of my strong suits

That's exactly right. Plus, you don't get to preview your results submission before posting it. I've seen people double post because their first post had an error... that just makes it worse IMHO.

Well, since it's going to take us at least 5 yrs to finish our PhD's, what's available/popular now may not be relevant. That being said, I've heard that cognitive sociology is very hot right now, as are cultural sociology and environmental sociology (this coming from my full-of-himself prof who specializes in each). I'm doing sex/gender and one of my profs said that this is a good time to start grad school for that because there's a generational turnover on the horizon and a lot of sex/gender profs are going to be retiring in the next 10 yrs... I'm guessing a lot of them are from the women's movement of the '70's.

I just spent a lot of time typing up my stats and then decided it gives too much of my identity away. Maybe I'll do it after admissions is over. If anyone is comfortable, however, I recommend adding publications and research experience - maybe more relevant to us than to the polisci folks.

Nick's right. Here's the legal support: