Sword_Saint

Thanks for linking to that, I heard about it in passing but never read into Ms.Goffman's situation. During my undergraduate degree I was captivated by ethnographic research, especially works like: Code of the Street (1999), Dealing Crack: the social world of street-corner selling (1999), and Random Family: love, drugs, trouble and coming of age in the bronx (2003). It's wholly different than the quantitative work that I was really taught and it's uniqueness, how much light it could shed on a situation that quantitative analysis just couldn't, is something that appeals to me. Its a shame to me how difficult it is to conduct that kind of research because of the "publish or perish" atmosphere- and its also a shame how little ethnography is valued by some individuals as being 'less' than quantitative research.

This was a really interesting and worrisome story to me because of how easy it is to alter and manipulate data before submitting the research to others or for publication. Something it reminds me of is food industry related research; specifically research I reviewed for an Ethics and Food Security course that involved GMO research. In my experience a study comes out and it is either accepted or questioned and if its questioned other authors may make a piece calling it out or attempt to replicate or disprove it, but with GMO research it's different. Instead of replicating or otherwise professionally critiquing the work, the work gets slandered and the authors associated are questioned based on their personal character and professional affiliations. I'm not native to food industry research but my finite exposure has left me a little discouraged by how some researchers operate. An easy example can be found here about a retracted study: http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/06/24/scientists-react-to-republished-seralini-maize-rat-study/ In criminology and criminal justice research, based on what other posters have said, there is considerable replication of research. The theories for crime causation that are most widely trusted and accepted are those which have been replicated several times in different ways and principles like "Crime Prevention through Environmental Design" are semi-proven with dozens of research based anecdotes and evaluation studies. My personal favorite means of determining the authenticity of a field of research is via meta-analysis. If you want to know whether crime displaces spatially when an intervention occurs few things can answer that better than a meta-analysis showing the results of 102 other displacement and diffusion of benefits studies (thank you, Guerette & Bowers, 2009). To me also it seems like some amount of blame has been placed on the reviewers of LaCour & Green's work. Personally that seems weird to me as my understanding of the review process is that reviewers are more for assuring the journal that the study makes a substantive contribution to the field, that the study's statistical conclusions are sound, that the study accurately and appropriately cited other work and the study was written competently. It isn't the reviewers job to be reviewing original data sets that the study drew from or do the investigative work that Broochman conducted to discern that the study was a fake. Am I wrong here?

For me, hard work equaling entitlement is a problem because not everyone is equally capable of completing a given task. Some individuals are no more capable of obtaining _____ degree than I am of being an Olympic athlete. My former adviser was right in this respect I believe, that not only is everyone not equally capable, but to award students a degree when they aren't capable of well representing your field is a disservice to the discipline (whatever your discipline is). There is a growing stigma in our society where you need a degree to be successful in life but it devalues the worth of a degree, especially if educators are willing to reward based on effort and not on outcomes. In the job field I am judged on what I am capable of doing, not what I am capable of trying to do. In the end working hard isn't good enough, I believe thinking that it does overly simplifies a complicated interaction of hard work, ability, determination, etc. Shouldn't it be the universal practice that process is as or more important than the end result? No. Because at the end of the day I want a doctor, lawyer, engineer, scientist (etc) who has good end results, not simply who tries and knows the process but is incapable of successfully completing something. While there may be some argument that we are evaluating progress and capability early in an individuals life (college age is pretty young), I wonder if it's ethically wrong to give students this false sense of security by rewarding things that are not results; because again, at least in my own experience, you can put 100 hours of work into a project but if the project isn't completed and done well your boss, professor or fellow group members will not find that satisfactory. Can you learn the process of "mastering a field" without having a good end result? I don't think you can. In a field like philosophy the end result may be a well formalized process (being a master of logic or mastering a philosophical argument that has no right answer) but even in that sort of field I'm skeptical that "mastery" can be achieved with only knowing process, especially knowing process while lacking end results. Educators are not grading a student while they are at home or after the student graduates; educators grade a student while the student is in their course, you are assuming that all students who know the process will master it after the confines of your semester- this is an assumption that I would posit isn't accurate. Expecting of students what the professional world expects of students I don't think is wrong- in fact to expect less of them, coddling them even, I think may be the wrong approach. It's a difference of opinion I guess, but a 20 year old college student is an adult, not a child, and I feel deserves to be treated like an adult which to me equates to them being held accountable for what they produce. Hard work is important, but the guy who easily completes a project and a guy who struggles to complete a project should be graded on the project, not on the struggling it took them to get there (obviously my personal opinion).

I didn't have an opinion about grade entitlement one way or the other until I took the Justice and Society course required for my undergrad. The professor asked the class of 25 students to raise their hands if they thought that because they paid to be there, they should get a high grade. A follow up to that was if a student works hard, regardless of the final product, the student should get a high grade. My mind was blown by how many students (3/4's) thought they deserved a high grade irrespective of their homework and exams in the course. The semester after that in an Applied Stats class the professor graded everything pretty easy such even mediocre students had A's in the class. It was his first time teaching that course and he admitted that he graded too leniently but would change that in subsequent semesters. That was the most painful course for me because I was in a group with two other individuals who, 14 weeks into the 15 week semester, didn't understand anything about statistics, but they still had A's. It really devalued all of the work I put in to understand everything and receive a high grade. Lastly on my rant: plenty of students leave scathing reviews for professors who make the students work for their grades. One of the things that irritates me the most is when I hear students brag about taking a class where the professor grades easily and requires virtually nothing from the students. Not that there is a clear and identifiable relationship between tough grading and good teaching but I have to stop and wonder if the professors who are "easy" graders teach the students just as well as the professors who are "hard" graders.

I wasn't sure where to mention this but I wanted to sing praises about a policy from Simon Fraser University that was not at my former institution. Apparently senior PhD students are matched to incoming grad students so that if there are any random questions or concerns the grads can ask their respective student mentors. On it's face it seems childish to me, but having a fellow student you ask questions is an awesome resource, especially when you're an international student. Maybe not all departments at SFU do this, but mine does and its super useful. Go Canada (and useful policies everywhere)!

Good thread, helps me practice what to say when individuals ask if I want to be a lawyer or a police officer. I'm sure my pitch will get more refined as I continue farther into research and academia. Pitch: I conduct research on the spatial distribution of crime events with mapping software to develop and inform crime prevention policy. Specifically, by determining where crime clusters I can analyze those locations for ways that the physical environment can be manipulated to reduce crime currently occurring there and prevent crime that would occur there in the future. The work that I am doing and am interested in doing is a hybrid of crime science with geographic information systems and urban development.

Interesting thread, parts of it reminded me of the Einstein quote: "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself." On the other hand, some jargon is difficult to replace in a way that is understandable to lay persons while also not making your work sound overly simplified like anyone could do it. In terms of not wanting to sound like I'm bragging, I don't often bring up my educational / academic achievements because I feel like many individuals don't view them in a good way. My friends an family view it like I must be highly intelligent, a model citizen and better than others who have not gotten degrees but chose to work and have families. In reality it's a combination of amazing opportunities I've had and hard work; some of my friends are more intelligent but just haven't applied themselves yet. For me it was the same with sports awards; the trophies and certifications hang on my wall to encourage me to keep working hard but are never brought up in conversation.

Along a similar train of thought, I'm of the belief that school ranking overall is less important than ranking or situation for your particular discipline at that university. For example, my undergrad was at a university with a low ranking (high acceptance rate, low graduation rate) but my discipline at that university was very good and known about by the schools I applied to. This could be another consideration.

1) I have not seen the movie. 2) Start by writing out all of the tenets of Social Disorganization Theory 3) A 12 minute powerpoint can be a cake-walk if you know the theory and relevant other theories (I would go w/ environmental theories, but I'm biased). 4) This is not an ideal place to solicit help for assignments. I would consider asking faculty or other students at your institution.

Thank you. The schools i was interested in applying for ended up not allowing Bachelor students to apply straight for their PhD's, though if they did I would have attempted that route instead. As far as I can tell at the school's I've looked at the masters program is practitioner oriented instead of PhD programs which were researcher oriented. I used to think this was a subtle difference until it dawned on me that at my undergrad institution faculty were preparing students mostly to be line level officers and such. Because the curriculum was focused on that, there really wasn't a whole lot of talk about graduate programs or being in research. At the MA level I'm curious how many folks at SFU go on to apply for PhD's (and what the attrition rate is for that) compared to going on to work in executive positions in policing or corrections. An anecdote from my life about your "I want a PhD" person example- my girlfriend romanticized for a while about getting a PhD because she liked the idea of the prestige associated with that. I'm not there yet so this is just speculation, but I imagine you need better motivations to successfully pursue and complete that degree than just wanting everyone to call you "Dr."

Yeah, I'm an MA student for the fall. I applied for and was accepted to Texas State, University of Cincinnati and Simon Fraser University (Vancouver Canada). I ended up going with Simon Fraser, and will be moving come August time frame. Funding was a big deal to me and all three of the programs had some sort of funding, even if it was just tuition remission. Texas State and SFU have really good opportunities to be a TA or RA and the pay from that is pretty solid. I imagine it all depends on the school you apply for and the political climate in that area influencing the schools and whatnot, but its not impossible to receive funding as a masters student, either in the form of scholarships or as a graduate worker. I learned quite a bit about graduate funding opportunities from the faculty in my undergraduate institution; they all went through that themselves and were able to provide a lot of insight. I'm more nervous about moving to Canada and all the paperwork associated than I am with starting graduate study. I'm finishing an undergraduate honors thesis at my school that used original data collection and fortunately have had a lot of research opportunities here. Maybe this is wrong of me, but I don't see a whole lot of difference yet between MA students and PhD students, in part because I'm going on to a PhD program after my MA and in part because at the conference I went to in March, there were just as many horrible PhD presenters as there were MA presenters. Obviously one has been doing it longer, but it isn't always reflected in the quality of their work, it just means they're older or have been around the scene longer.

Slightly off topic but I found it similarly interesting when I was in Australia and U.S. citizens were stigmatized as internationally ignorant and gun crazy. Sure some people in the U.S. are interestingly staunch gun supporters and support politicians who "meddle" in other country's affairs, but that is clearly not all U.S. citizens.

You may be better off looking in the city forum if you have general questions about the city / university. Assuming that there are no criminology students at that school on this website, you may consider contacting current PhD students through that university's website or asking to get in touch with them through the graduate secretary.

1) Yes, it is possible to get a master's degree in a field other than what your bachelor's degree(s) is in. 2) The U.S. News Report lists school prestige based on acceptance and graduation rates (I believe), but I honestly think individuals are better off applying to schools based on research interest and funding opportunities. Different schools have different requirements; minimally it would require taking the GRE, taking an English proficiency test (TOEFL), performing well as an undergraduate (3.0 + generally) and having a few letters of recommendation from previous faculty (2-3 letters normally). 3) ...Why do you think it would require computer programming? In graduate school for Criminology / Criminal Justice individuals need to be proficient with statistics software such as: SPSS, Stata, R, etc, they do not generally need to be able to write code or design software.

I decided Simon Fraser b/c they had more faculty with my research interests and were able to offer me a WAY more competitive funding package. About 10 days after I decided SFU, Texas State said they'd be able to offer a better package than originally thought, full tuition coverage and 1400/month as a TA/RA. If they had been able to lead with that, there is a pretty solid chance I would have chosen there instead. So Canada it is apparently. I'll be "back on the market" in about 1.5-2 years for PhD applications so we'll see how it looks then whether I stay at SFU, go to Texas State or choose a different place. Good luck at Texas State!

[what you just described] = My worst nightmare about applying for an apartment in a different country than my own.

I can totally understand your point of view about that- I hate living with female roommates in general. It still sucks though, looking for a place by your grad program an realizing that many of the houses renting out rooms or roommates are selectively looking for female roommates. I found this to be in true in my search but was discouraged because many of the houses are owned by couples, it's not always a female individual just looking for a female individual.

I feel less qualified to answer this as I'm a social science person, and it's my understanding that neurology can be anywhere from psychology to biology but I will give you my limited input. 1. Not necessarily- some PhD programs accept applicants who don't have MS degrees. Some of my faculty went straight from undergrads to PhD programs though their PhD programs took them about the same amount of time as if they had gotten MS degrees before going into a PhD program (4 yr undergrad + 5/6 yr PhD versus 4 yr undergrad +1/2 year MS + 3/4 yr PhD). For those faculty members, they typically scored highly on standardized testing, namely the GRE. They also had promising GPA's and were more focused in my understanding of what they wanted to do prior to entering grad school, hence why they went after their PhD immediately and subsequently successfully completed it. 2. What Brown_Eyed_Girl said, most recent work is preferential to older work. I think master's work is preferential to undergrad work also on the basis of it substantively being more equatable to PhD work. An undergrad honors thesis may be 30 pages but a master's thesis could easily be 2-3 times that and cover more impressive material. Obviously this all depends on how you perform as a master's student and how you performed as an undergrad student. You indicated having a lack of experience and publication; by experience did you mean relevant research experience as an undergrad or work experience in a relevant field or both? 3. This is a point of contention for most people I have spoken with, and it understandably varies by discipline so I can only speak to mine. In crime science (Criminology), a high prestige school may open some doors for you early on as a prospective faculty member or researcher, but only in the beginning of your career. It's great that you were supposedly taught by so and so, but after a few years it's all on you to prove to the world, independent of your school, you are highly competent and proven capable. 4. Being in debt should never be a consideration for a PhD program [in my discipline and in my opinion]. I say this because if you are not funded for a PhD program you should not go. 30-40k a year for 3-4 years is not worth it, and if the program wants you to be there, they will pay you to be there. Reputation of your school, and reputation of your dissertation chair and/or senior adviser can make some difference, but again like the MS, in Criminology its a fleeting benefit that after a few years will make less and less difference. In my opinion, if you are serious about pursuing a PhD you should focus on the long term benefits associated with going to a particular school (with school prestige being a shorter term benefit). Example: in my case I decided to attend a school in Canada despite being a US citizen. One of the reasons I chose this is because it will allow me to establish connections and network with professionals in my field in Canada so when I'm pursuing careers I will be able to apply for jobs in the U.S. and have an easier time applying for jobs in Canada if I see some that are more worthwhile.

Yeah, that is at the basis of why I philosophize about the morality of having versus not having children. Fundamentally I question whether individuals have an obligation to society to do what they are most capable of doing. Again, not that having a graduate degree makes you 'most capable' of being a good parent, but lets say you have the potential to be a phenomenal engineer or world renown surgeon, but decide to instead do something for the rest of your life that does not directly contribute to society. Is this morally reprehensible? I feel like I'm skirting the topic of eugenics by hinting at requirements to be a parent, I do not mean to. Just curious about whether or not individuals have a moral obligation to society with respect to child rearing. Seems like a difficult dialogue to me.

"Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't"

From a social science perspective, I still agree with MathCat about many of their points. Different programs weigh various application elements differently. I too am coming from a poorly ranked university (in terms of acceptance rates) but was accepted with funding into all of the graduate programs I applied for. Something that was surprising to me while looking through this forum is how many schools some individuals apply to attend. The research area I am most interested in pursuing is only relevant at MAYBE 6 schools in the United States and Canada. Less than six have multiple faculty specializing in it. It blew my mind when I saw that individuals applied for 10 separate schools. First it blew my mind because for me, each application took about 10-15 hours of work and about 100 dollars (after statement letters, requests for LOR's, essays about research interests, communications with the programs, etc). Secondly it blew my mind because, again, my research focus is very specific. I would not limit your applications to schools entirely based on school prestige and I would keep in mind all of the informal interactions you have with the program in addition to formal interactions. This sounds shallow, but the schools that had horribly not-user friendly websites and secretarial or graduate admissions staff that weren't helpful I was less interested in attending. Consider your long term happiness in that location as well- I think I'm pretty easy going in terms of where I live, but I was cognizant of the fact that some places I'd rather not be for 3 or more years (sorry University of Rutgers, Newark). Lastly, I got loads of helpful information from my academic adviser and other faculty as an undergrad. Those people all successfully navigated PhD programs and are a source of information if you have those connections. I looked at the two faculty who currently do research in areas I want to do research in, and spoke with them about schools they attended and would recommend. They had connections in the field and their LOR's greatly aided me in my pursuit.

When I'm in the lower 48 states, I hate how individuals always bring up one of the multiple popularized Alaska related TV shows. No, I don't watch Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, Alaska State Troopers, Klondike or anything about the Bering Sea. Stop asking me.

Definitely something I've thought about- don't have to worry about the bearing children bit, but unsure whether it'd be 'appropriate' to ask my fiancee about the prospects of children while I'm attending graduate school. Certainly want kids at some point though. One of the faculty at my institution had a child after she gained tenure, both her and her husband are late 30's/early 40's tenured faculty an the move makes sense to me but thats a long wait an then there's thinking about having kids into your older age (50's - 60's). Perhaps this is wrong, but I almost feel like I have a moral obligation to have children. Discouraging to see many of my former f***-up high school classmates with multiple children. Irrational fear that the movie Idiocracy (2006) is predicting the future. Edit: This was apparently unclear but what I meant by appropriate was that having children while I'm pursuing a PhD program would likely mean more work for my significant other as my focus would not be on children but on academic success. Physically speaking with her is not the issue, the issue is roles and responsibilities of parenthood while focusing on other endeavors. I like to think I'd be a good father, but my focus would not be on kids despite wanting kids, until I'm done with the program.

Communicate with three schools, two of them assure me they offered the maximum amount they can so I select and accept the offer from a third school that is able to financially cover my costs the best. 10 days later one of the two schools changes its mind and tells me they can offer a significantly increased amount that would have easily made me consider attending that school instead.

Yeah, like Cosmojo indicated, having multiple research interests is not strange or peculiar. I'm a pretty strong proponent of interdisciplinary work, though I was still surprised to find out one of the faculty members I want to conduct research with completed graduate degrees in economics and geography (but teaches in a criminology department).