Disaprovingrabbit

I know the tools and I reject them. People aren't numbers and can't be modeled by numbers. Talk about narrow minded. End of story. I may not have letters behind my name, but last I checked in the US, no one respects scientists anyway or we wouldn't be struggling with dealing with climate change. You want me to respect you? Fat chance. I love how, at first it's that I'm stupid, and now that I've shown I'm not stupid and I do understand the methods, that's still not good enough. Go fuck yourself. None of you care about teaching the paying customers who are paying your tuition, you all think your research is more important. I can't wait till MOOCs put you all out on the streets. You're service providers, and you're antiquated. The CS kids have decided to destroy all our futures for quick cash, and if you think you will last much longer than the dreaded humanities you're fooling yourselves. the more reliance you put into quant, the more easily a computer can do your job for you, and the more replaceable you make yourselves.

I just want to be completely clear here. I *never* approached my professors and adviser with the idea that I wanted to go to grad school, at first, I approached them for suggestions of what to do after I completed my undergrad career was over and *they* suggested I pursue graduate school, and *they* urged me to pursue graduate school. The more research I did the more I realized I was being guided into methodologies that I didn't want to pursue, that *I* didn't see any value in, (not that they had no inherent value) and then was quickly written up as being problematic by the self same faculty because I refused to see it from their perspective and jump on board. I stand by what I said, if they didn't want me to view qualitative and constructivist work as valid they shouldn't have introduced me to it. It's not my fault that they erected a strawman to tear down and I found more value in it than in their outdated realism and poverty propagating neo-liberalism. So they suggested I come here to gain some valuable insight, since I wouldn't quit with the idea that if I was going to Grad school it was going to be at a school that would have a program that would be in line with what I wanted to study. And yes, I am tired of being told that I don't have a future in this field because I choose to not make use of their chosen methodology (btw, I don't suck at Quant, I got an A in stat, both my quant heavy science courses, and my quant heavy sociology course, I just don't like applying those methods to people) and they don't like it. I've been told in this thread that I'm wrong for not wanting to do something I see no value in, I've been told I'm wrong for wanting to maintain human dignity, I've been told I'm wrong for wanting to study what I want to study, I've been told I need to leave my own country to study it, which I find even more frustrating because it will infer an enormous personal cost on me, even though I've been flat out told that I have no future in this field without a grad degree. So what exactly am I expected to do? If I go to school for what they feel I should, I won't enjoy it, and I won't do well at it because as you all state, it's a tremendous sacrifice. But I think I've started to understand what was meant by that, It doesn't really matter where I go, I was being told by my faculty and adviser that I have no future in the field unless I do exactly what they do. Well I stand by what I said before, I don't want to go to grad school, I've followed the advice of some previous posters and looked into the government affairs page and I think if anything some of those terminal degrees would be more what I need. You've all convinced me it isn't the right path for me, well done you. But you're telling me the exact opposite of what all of my faculty are telling me. I have no idea what to believe anymore, I'm even more confused now than I was when I came here. The amount of hostility that is clearly present here astounds me. So you know what? I realize this was a huge mistake and I'm gone.

Hard to work for a company you quit without giving 2 weeks notice though.. but I see your point. God I wish I had been born 50 years ago when the world still made sense. Honestly, I'm not sure why I believed my adviser and came here in the first place. Everything else they have told has been a lie, so their saying asking this question here would help shouldn't have been surprising that it wasn't. Plenty of you have been super friendly and helpful, but all things told it was a waste of my time and yours for me to ask this question. They pawned me off on you because they couldn't be assed dealing with my blowup/meltdown in their office when they admitted to lying to me for 3 years. And that is exactly what it has been, lying. Nothing about taking on a second major has done anything except run up my student loan debt. I haven't learned anything, my undergrad IA classes might as well have been regurgitated wikipedia articles. If I have to recover what realism or the prisoner's dilemma is I will puke. They screwed me out of thousands of dollars, a year of my life, and there isn't anything I can do about it. Thank you to those of your who offered genuine help, but this clearly isn't the place I need to be seeking advice.

If it's not a pursuit of knowledge, what the fuck good is it? I can't live at home and work, there isn't any work at home, that's why I went to university in the first place. I come from a town that was decimated by small minded globalization when all the mills shut down. there isn't fuck all here to work at apart from Walmart which I already quit. I don't have any interest in any career path, I just want to do something to pay the bills. I went back to school because I was told I had to or I had no hope of getting a job. It was a choice between school and a prescription painkiller addiction. I still think I made the right choice, but the more I read here and the more my advisers tell me the more I question that. Also, if they weren't shit holes they wouldn't need our help to be fixed would they? Still doesn't mean I actually want to go there and get bot-fly or dysentery or something.

That's fine. I'd rather have nothing than something I'm not happy with. I think I'm entitled to nothing, which is what I'm getting: nothing. The real world exists this way because people like us refuse to change it. But accepting rigid methodologies as fact is what this is all about right? At least that is what I'm getting from this whole conversation. *edited* that should have all been one post, not two. Sorry for double posting.

Well in that case at least, I've already taken a Stat class, I just took it 3 years ago and already forgot all of it because I never expected to need any of it again. I'm reluctant to take any more math classes at this point when they could still negatively impact my GPA. Language wise, I really have no interest in any that are considered "Critical" because I haven't got any interest in the regions they are from. I'd honestly rather work for Wal-mart at minimum wage (already done it) than be paid well to work in sub Saharan Africa or Asia or some 3rd world shit hole. I'm already from the rural Southeast US, I don't want to go to some place worse. I know they exist in theory, but I don't want to risk actually finding out via experience. I'm also significantly older than your average undergrad due to returning to school after working in the public sector for a long period of time. I'm quickly going to be "aged out" of entry level positions.

Yes, but I refuse to work long hours, sacrifice sleep, or social life. I'm not a slave, and I refuse to be treated as such. If that requires drastic measures so be it.

Look, I'm not trying to be mean or ungrateful here because at least an inkling of what you say is true, I'm not super ambitious because I have a rather mercenary approach to employment. I know I'll never enjoy what I'm doing, so it doesn't really matter what I'm doing. It's just a job. But exactly how am I supposed to combat some of these problems this late in the game? I'm already a second semester senior, next year I'll be a super senior. I haven't got endless hours of undergrad to devote to learning more languages, or taking more classes in the one I've already at least gotten to reading level comprehension in. I haven't got endless hours to take pre-reqs in order to unlock undergrad level quant classes. I have to take certain classes or else I won't graduate before my financial aid runs out. I haven't got endless funding to pay to live on while doing an unpaid internship. And I can't change my school's policy on honors, if my professors don't want to work for free, who can blame them? I wouldn't. It's extremely unfair of you to lay those things at my feet, but I'll happily own my lack of ambition and apathy towards my job.

Which I haven't got, but honestly if it doesn't pay then it's a complete non starter as I have no money to live on while doing unpaid work for someone and I can't work two full time jobs and commute since no job I could probably get during the hours I wouldn't be working at the internship would pay enough for me to live close enough the internship not to have at least an hour commute each way.. I unfortunately don't live in an area of the country that has plentiful internships, at least not in the sort of things I'm interested in, and the closest big city I might be able to find one in is at least 2 hours commute each way.

Thanks, I'll have a look at that. I'm not really sure how to go about getting an internship like that, I was generally given to understand that internships don't pay, which basically makes it impossible for me to get one since I would then have to have a second job in order to pay for living expenses while doing that, and is the reason I haven't really looked into it that much. General notation: Just going to point this out, downvoting my posts isn't going to make me change my mind in the slightest. So why bother?

That sounds fairly miserable, if I'm being honest. I'm not sure what an MPP is, but a thing a lot of people have mentioned to me is to get some sort of degree like an MPA or something but honestly i find those really confusing because they aren't uniformly available at all schools. I'm not really interested in domestic politics either, but I'm not sure if the MPA is a catch all that includes international stuff as well? since I'd probably be just as content working for an NGO or INGO or IO as I would a specific government agency. But again, no one in my department can really advise me on them specifically other than that they exist and I should look into them. Doing Quant work for a job is different than doing it for research or my education. With that I care deeply about it, or I wouldn't be doing it. For the job I'm just doing it to get paid, whatever they want is what I'll endeavor to give them.

No that comment was for the one specific poster who it followed, not for the general thread as whole which has been quite helpful and full of good information. So, here is the thing, as I mentioned just a minute ago, I'm not looking to ever be a faculty member. I don't want to actually teach, I'd really be happy just researching other people's projects or doing some sort of analysis job in government. If you had asked me a year ago I wasn't even considering a Master's degree in either of my fields, let alone a PhD. I'm only in school to get a piece of paper, I chose my majors because they were interesting and I read a lot of stuff in both of them in my free time. What I'm looking for is a qualification for a job, 90% of the jobs I have looked at that involve things I like, lots of sitting, working at a desk, decent pay and low responsibility, all require a university degree. Unfortunately in the 4 years I've been in school it seems it has now become mandatory to have at least a basic Grad level degree as well, and I'm already being told that by the time I finish that, having a PhD will be the minimum.. even though I see plenty of sites around the net saying that there are entirely too many PhD's and that PhD's don't prepare you to do anything except work in Academia. I'm not sure what other fields I could really do, as an above poster mentioned, even History is now jumping on the big data bandwagon, and I just attended a lecture saying that English is some how doing it too. Personally I don't know what they are expecting to find by doing it, but it's their time to spend however they wish.

Being told how to approach *my* education is a problem for me because it's just that, *my* education. If I'm going to invest years of my life, and tens of thousands of dollars, then I have the right to expect what I want out of it. You're right though that I went into the field expecting something that is proving to be very different. The undergrad IA major at my school does not require a single quant class beyond a basic intro to stat class, and then none of the actual classes use any quant methods at all. So in my opinion it's somewhat justifiable on my end to be frustrated that the major I picked specifically because it involved virtually zero math, suddenly turns into a math degree in the grad school level.. but that is what I have to have to get a job. I feel as though I've been lied to, and conned into taking on an extra year of school and thousands of dollars in additional loan debt for a second major that isn't any more valuable than my history degree. However, I think we are looking at this in cross purposes, I'm not looking for a faculty position, and I'm not looking to work in a theory heavy field. I am not looking to ask any questions, certainly not ones I have to write a 300 page book to attempt to answer. I simply have my own thoughts and opinions about what I want to study while working to earn my "Piece of paper ©" that says I'm qualified to do X job. I honestly don't know what qualifications I need to get X job, because I don't know what X job is. I just know that as a virtual certainty all of my faculty members and my adviser say I need a grad degree, but they also aren't happy with the ones that I'm picking that align with my world view, which makes it harder to get anything moving. As for why I can't get anyone in the department to oversee my projects, I thought I had mentioned earlier that is because all undergrad projects at my school are handled through the Honors department, which I am not part of because I didn't know I needed to join my first semester and missed out, which means that if the faculty do agree to oversee my projects, they won't get paid for it, and it's much harder to get academic credit for them. I am not actually that upset with them for not wanting to take them on, but if I'm not going to get academic credit for them then I see no reason to pursue them or to ask faculty members to go out of their way to facilitate it. So if I am simply mis-remembering and didn't actually include that detail I'm sorry and I guess that explains where a lot of confusion is coming from. As far as letters go, that's as I mentioned much earlier, already become something I feel is problematic because 90% of my professors are just PhD candidates and not actual PhD's since they are all too busy doing research to actually teach. In so far as my IA degree goes, I don't think I have a single person to ask for a letter from anyway, even though I feel I get on pretty well with most of them.

'You don't like what I like, therefore you are stupid'. Great advice, I'll keep that in mind.

I don't understand how I am being a "troll", I simply want to study what I find interesting rather than what you obviously find interesting. Oh boo hoo, life is full of dissapointments. I've just been told by half a dozen people that if I want to continue my education I basically will have little choice but to leave my own country to do so, or I just have to give up on my desire to learn more because no one will fund me even if I get into a school in the UK. It's not a very rosy picture, or I have to study something I have zero interest in studying, or hope to get accepted to a tiny handful of schools in the US that actually offer something similar to what I want.