soc_gradGuy
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Posts posted by soc_gradGuy
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I don't think having a masters would go against you, it just might not really help you either.
It sounds like you already have a strong academic record so I think you could probably get into a PhD program just with your BA work alone. In some situations a Masters is nice because it conveys your seriousness and ability to do research if the program has a thesis attached to it (it can also make up for a less than stellar BA background). I guess one question is how much is the masters going to cost you? You mentioned you got a fellowship for most of it, but I imagine there will still be a portion that you will have to pay out of pocket or take out a loan. In which case what are you plans with this masters? I think if you have interests in teaching for a few years and want to hold off the PhD for a bit, it probably makes sense. You can teach at junior colleges or even some state schools with a masters so if it serves this purpose for you, go for it.
I don't think most PhD programs would hold that against you (personally I'm not a big fan of people who directly go from undergrad to PhD--it's good on many levels to do something else for a bit). But like I said it may not help you in an additive sense to have a masters get into a PhD program itself. I guess you should ask yourself, what kind of training am I getting with this masters? What can I do with it?
In terms of math/GREs:
If you are thinking about taking the GRE I highly recommend giving yourself a few months to go over some basic junior hight math--I think I bought this Kaplan or some other general book on math that had all these lessons going over basic algebra/trig concepts. Take a practice test of course, but i would say it's more important to brush up on some basics first before getting into the strategies of taking the GRE. I did this the summer before I took the GRE's and relearned all this basic stuff related to "FOIL" and general algebra. In the end I got a 740 on the math section which I was surprised with. The test seemed really hard on the actual day but that's because I was answering most of the questions correctly (which increases the difficulty of the subsequent questions). The questions never went beyond trig or pre-calculus I feel, but rather the increasing difficulty tested one's familiarity and comfort with the basic concepts.
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I found this forum because I've recently had several students ask me if I would write them a letter of rec. for grad programs that they want to apply to in the Fall. When I got into conversations with these students about the application process, a few them mentioned that they've been reading gradcafe for advice/ideas which is great. Wish I knew about it/it existed when I was applying
I'm actually a fifth year grad student and last year I started teaching my own class--I think because of my slightly relaxed demeanor and younger age students felt comfortable approaching me during office hours and now I have the perhaps problem of too many letters to write. Incidentally, I told all of the students that I would be their back-up letter if they couldn't get 3 faculty members to write for them (just because my letter may not carry all of the esteem of a tenured faculty since I'm still just a doctoral candidate). Nonetheless, I'm not sure how much this may really matter for some types of programs.
But, the point of this post, is that I just wanted to give my 2 cents about this whole "fit" issue. This is what I told my students, and perhaps it may be helpful for others.
Now there are sorts of reasons to apply to highly-esteemed programs given the name branding of certain schools (look mom, I have a PhD from Wisconsin/Harvard) but talking to a couple of students they seemed somewhat confused about this whole "fit" issue when it comes to choosing a school. Some things to consider, from my point of view:
1.) When you're applying to a PhD program, you're applying less to study sociology or even study a particular issue, but rather to learn and do RESEARCH
2.) Given that, what kind of RESEARCH broadly do you think you might be interested in doing yourself--and devoting big chunks of your life doing (what kind of research activities do you see yourself enjoying)
3.) What are the empirical projects and questions do you see yourself interrogating
4.) How will the faculty in said department help you in becoming this supposed future researcher that you envision for yourself
This is naturally difficult I think for students mainly because many undergrad programs give them very little experience in the way of reading and doing research (like actually going through soc journals or talking about the leading areas of research). At least in our school, undergrads may have a methods course or an honor thesis seminar but most have little experience going through journals and thinking about current studies. The problem is worse in sociology because we write in a very dry and off-putting language in our top journals, I feel. Graduate school is almost about learning the language and style that goes into reading/submitting something to a specific journal. Sociologists also define their interest areas with some rather broad strokes. "I'm interested in stratification" the life course, marriage, Gender and so forth. Consequently searching for your niche program can be a little alienating because it's hard to get a sense of faculty interests/expertise.
My advice:
1.) I bet most programs know this, and don't expect applicants to know their exact dissertation interests--so don't beat yourself up if you feel you don't have an area/topic of research that you have feel 100% about
2.) However, most programs will gauge your research abilities for being able to identify the DEPARTMENT'S RESEARCH areas (can they go to our webpage and figure out our key areas)
3.) Consequently you will need to frame what you think may be your research interests in terms of these key strengths of the department (specify your interests a little bit more forceful, though)
4.) And lastly...
If you have time on hand (maybe you have a year or a couple of months before applying) skimming current journals may be a good way to go to get a feel of the land, but more importantly get a sense of what you may like doing. But like I said, sociologists write in these journals in a very dry style. So I've been also recommending my students to check out magazine like Contexts or Psychology Today as well as blogs/podcasts/forums that report on recent research in an accesiable way. Contexts has this research discovery section for instance that is very good and they post some of these online http://contexts.org/discoveries/ (search the tags for topics you like).
Another good place to check out is http://thesocietypages.org/ (the blogs are decent, and check out their podcasts--good especially for long runs)
Social Psych. Quarterly, if you have access, also has articles in condensed format that is pretty nice,
The ASA site itself has good stuff to check out. Do people know of others?
My point here is just to get yourself a bit more familiar with the world of "Current Research" before applying to programs. That way you're search for a niche will feel a little bit more genuine. Alright back to grading
- newms and soc_gradGuy
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I would say hoobers is generally right....post-structuralist researchers tend to be in anthropology but a group of sociologists who are taking off in this area are at UCSF. Alde Clark and a couple of other people there do a lot of stuff with post-structuralist critiques of medicine...check out literatures related to "biomedicalization" if you're interested....I'm not sure but the program may even have ties with the medical anthro program at UCB (which would make sense with the previous comment)...in terms of jobs maybe hoobers is correct, I think getting a job in medical anthro can be difficult these days but I think there may be more jobs in "science & technology" programs, medical schools and other settings looking for critical researchers interested in technology and bioethics...
Poststructuralist theory never really took root in sociology in the United States, though it did in Britain. You are unlikely to find a program that will offer you a strong training in it, though I am sure a few departments will have a professor or two versed in it. More importantly, you are going to have a hell of a hard time on the US sociology job market with a poststructuralist dissertation. You are also unlikely to get any respected US sociology journals to publish this kind of work. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but going into a US sociology program expecting to study poststructuralism is a bad idea. If you are determined to stay in the United States, you should really look into Anthropology. That is the main disciplinary home of poststructuralism in the US social sciences. (Communication, Cultural/Media/Ethnic Studies, and Comp Lit departments are other places to consider.)
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I agree with what's been stated above and would just add that you should consider to applying to both types of programs. Political Sociology and Political Science are so similar that it would probably be easy enough to craft similar applications to these types of programs (though, of course citing different literatures). It's not my field but I've taken a couple of Political Soc class in grad school that were cross-listed (faculty taught in both and grad students were from both) but I would say there's a slightly more conservative stance to how Political Science views certain problems (or at least that's the sense I got from their students--great, smart people but a little more conventional in how they framed problems).
I am attending a school, which would be said as good by people, and at least one in my cohort majored in PS for undergrad. So don't worry about your background, just let the adcomm know how smart, well-trained and committed you are!
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Hi OverTheBridge,
Congrats on graduating. I think it's okay not to have a defined topic defined when you apply to a PhD program though you will have to fudge your personal statement a bit in this regard when you apply, particularly because personal statements should identify some key faculty you want to work with given their narrow topic area. If you're going to be applying to several different schools it can be a bit tiring creating these narratives, specifying this or that topice, when you are yourself so unsure what exactly you want to study. A masters might be a good choice just because it would give you a sense of what areas might spark your interests enough to commit to a dis project.
If I were you I would consider looking at UCSF as well as the medical anthropology, and Public Health programs at your old school UC Berkeley (if you're still in the Bay area they are nearby and you could probably meet with some faculty there) UCSF has several prominent sociologists working at that medical center and they have this hybrid program there with nursing I believe. Even though it's in the nursing school it has a formal PhD sociology program and the crowd that works there (A. Clarke, for example) tend to be very critically orientated (see articles about biomedicalization). It's a lot of re-examing the positivistic positions of medicine and stuff like that. It might not be your cup of tea depending on you what think may be your orientation, but they probably do some interesting things there. The medical anthropology program at Berkeley is world renowned and I think they have a joint program with UCSF as well, so I would say that medical center in general might be good place to start. Both of these programs would be great I would say (though for anthropology keep in mind it has a much worse job market than sociology-i think-so it might be difficult to get into that program as well as difficult to get a job afterward--though I would check with people there)
Now med soc. can also be very positivistic itself and there are people who are a little more quantitative in their orientation and thus view medicine and health a bit differently. Programs in Indiana, UCLA, Rutgers in NJ and some others have more formal med soc. programs that you might want to look at. There are also critical work done in those schools but it's not really the "de-constructing the bodies" kind of an approach. It may be more looking at health disparities, health-seeking behaviors, ideas of medicalization (how things become labeled a disease) as well as how the profession operates and so forth. I guess one thing to think about is what kind of research do see yourself interested broadly (trying to understand health and well being of families, and social groups OR examining the institution of medicine itself). People in the field discuss this distinction in terms of: the sociology for medicine (health disparities) VS the sociology of medicine (studying the institution). If you think it's more the former for you, another option is to think about getting an MPH at the school of public health first before moving onto to a PhD. I'm not a super fan of berkeley but they also have a pretty well-known PH program as well. Public health tends to be very lite on theory so it's not exactly like sociology but in some ways the overall orientation of PH can be very similar to what many medical soc people are doing (in fact many medical sociologists work in public health settings) . If I were you, I would see if there are some sociologists working in the UCB PH school and check out their work, and possibly try and connect with them. Having an MPH would probably make you a better candidate to soc program in the future, so it might be a good way to go.
Anyway, I hope I gave you some info to think about. Before looking at far away places I would first do some research on what's around and what you may have access to. While the soc faculty you know may not be familiar with this area, you're actually pretty close by to some impressive resources.
Good luck!
oh, one more thing, two soc/anthro blog sites I would recommend to check out occasionally (a good way to get a taste of research):
the society pages does a nice job presenting ongoing research in sociology in a very easy format, (search in their tags for health related topics and see what comes up)
they also have a nice podcast called "Office Hours" which occasionally has some interesting medical sociologists talking about their research (listen to the episode with Peter Conrad or Debra Carr).
Somasphere is more of a medical anthro blog, which has some pretty interesting stuff as well, but there you'll get the more cultural/critical approaches to medicine
out that make "research"
Hello All -- I'm new here!
Just this past May I graduated from UC Berkeley w/ a B.A in sociology and I am now considering applying to Phd programs in sociology. I'm a year away from beginning my applications, so I have the current time in which to research programs, obtain Letters of Rec, polish up a personal statement (etc.). My GPA is 3.33 and while I have not yet taken the GRE, I am enrolled in a prep class and plan to take it in November or January at the latest. I expect to do well.
As an undergrad, I always gravitated towards topics in soc of marriage/family and culture, most of my coursework is in classes like these. I was also very interested in urban studies and medical soc...however, I have practically no coursework in medical soc, as my school didn't have faculty that specialized in it, and therefor, no undergrad classes in the subject. As a graduate student i would like to have my research focused on health/medicine through the framework of race/class/gender/marriage or family, so I'm looking to apply to programs that emphasize medical sociology. However, given the fact that I only have this B.A degree under my belt (and am currently working at an office job which has no connection to my sociological interests) i'm worried that I'm not qualified to be applying to PhD programs in my stated field of interest. Is this a valid concern?
Also, I figure that in applying to a Phd program, one must have a narrowed and purposeful research concentration. If at this point, coming straight out of college, I don't have this narrowly focused concentration in the field of sociology, then should I reconsider applying to a Phd program? Should instead opt for a masters program to help me flesh out my interests a bit more? Also, do you think that with my low undergrad GPA I could benefit from the boost of potentially better performance in a masters program? How much specificity are PhD programs looking for from applicants?
Is applying for a PhD program next fall even a realistic option for me given my background, current employment as an office drone and lack of undergrad coursework in my stated field of interest? If, perhaps, my research interest changed from medical soc to just marriage and family and health would I stand a better chance?
Sociology PhD Chances?
in Sociology Forum
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I would say you have a very decent chance of getting accepted in those programs especially with the MPH and work experience, though with many budget cuts there is a fair amount of luck to get into many programs these days....our incoming cohort in our school used to be 12-15 each year, and now has dropped to 5-7....places like Wisc. may still be accepting large cohorts but not everybody is funded in those programs in the first couple of years....my suggestions would be to apply to as many of those programs listed as possible,: why not pursue a PhD in the school where you did the MPH (is there a joint PH/sociology program there?)