wtncffts

I don't necessarily have a problem with the funding situation in comparative terms. It's obvious that science and engineering fields simply cost a whole lot more because of the technology and equipment involved. The LHC costs $9 billion; you can get the complete works of Shakespeare for, what, $26? (I just checked on Amazon). I expect that more funding will go into those resource-intensive fields, even on a per capita basis. What I take issue with is the utilitarian, 'tangible benefits', results-based paradigm which, unfortunately, seems to be on the upswing in many developed countries, certainly in Canada, the US, and the UK.

Now I'm in poli sci, not english, but I view both the humanities and social sciences as having the same basic purposes: making sense of society, relations among people and with their environment, finding better ways to govern ourselves, imputing value in an otherwise value-neutral physical reality, coming to terms with the human condition, finding beauty, and so on. These are things which you cannot measure in dollars and cents, but that doesn't mean they are any less valuable to a society. Science without culture is nothing, and a purely scientific world such as you seem to imagine would be unbearable. It's not either/or, or a question of science 'replacing' culture, as you seem to suggest (with the point about 'taking over'... what does that even mean?). I'm sorry, and don't take this as a personal attack, but there seems to be an incredibly narrow worldview going on here, far from the 'well-rounded individual' the academy is, ideally, supposed to cultivate. It just makes me sad, that's all.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the funding situation in comparative terms. It's obvious that science and engineering fields simply cost a whole lot more because of the technology and equipment involved. The LHC costs $9 billion; you can get the complete works of Shakespeare for, what, $26? (I just checked on Amazon). I expect that more funding will go into those resource-intensive fields, even on a per capita basis. What I take issue with is the utilitarian, 'tangible benefits', results-based paradigm which, unfortunately, seems to be on the upswing in many developed countries, certainly in Canada, the US, and the UK.

Now I'm in poli sci, not english, but I view both the humanities and social sciences as having the same basic purposes: making sense of society, relations among people and with their environment, finding better ways to govern ourselves, imputing value in an otherwise value-neutral physical reality, coming to terms with the human condition, finding beauty, and so on. These are things which you cannot measure in dollars and cents, but that doesn't mean they are any less valuable to a society. Science without culture is nothing, and a purely scientific world such as you seem to imagine would be unbearable. It's not either/or, or a question of science 'replacing' culture, as you seem to suggest (with the point about 'taking over'... what does that even mean?). I'm sorry, and don't take this as a personal attack, but there seems to be an incredibly narrow worldview going on here, far from the 'well-rounded individual' the academy is, ideally, supposed to cultivate. It just makes me sad, that's all.

Man, E.C.D., from this and all your other posts, you seem incredibly bitter about everything: your situation, department, fellow grad students, location. I wouldn't generalize about poli sci - where I did my MA there were a lot of fun and interesting people. Of course, being in grad school we're all 'nerds' to a certain degree, but there were plenty of outgoing, gregarious people. I don't really know what to say, but if your negativity and pessimism is this extreme, it would probably be better just to quit completely and take some time to think about what you want to do.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the funding situation in comparative terms. It's obvious that science and engineering fields simply cost a whole lot more because of the technology and equipment involved. The LHC costs $9 billion; you can get the complete works of Shakespeare for, what, $26? (I just checked on Amazon). I expect that more funding will go into those resource-intensive fields, even on a per capita basis. What I take issue with is the utilitarian, 'tangible benefits', results-based paradigm which, unfortunately, seems to be on the upswing in many developed countries, certainly in Canada, the US, and the UK.

Now I'm in poli sci, not english, but I view both the humanities and social sciences as having the same basic purposes: making sense of society, relations among people and with their environment, finding better ways to govern ourselves, imputing value in an otherwise value-neutral physical reality, coming to terms with the human condition, finding beauty, and so on. These are things which you cannot measure in dollars and cents, but that doesn't mean they are any less valuable to a society. Science without culture is nothing, and a purely scientific world such as you seem to imagine would be unbearable. It's not either/or, or a question of science 'replacing' culture, as you seem to suggest (with the point about 'taking over'... what does that even mean?). I'm sorry, and don't take this as a personal attack, but there seems to be an incredibly narrow worldview going on here, far from the 'well-rounded individual' the academy is, ideally, supposed to cultivate. It just makes me sad, that's all.

This reminds me of my continual frustration with Obama and other policymakers who, when speaking of funding higher education, always and only talk about STEM fields, i.e., those fields which are seen as commercially/economically 'useful' to society. Whenever there are cutbacks, the first place they look is 'soft' fields like philosophy, languages, etc. I'm in a 'social science', so we're somewhat less denigrated, I guess, but it's still annoying.

This reminds me of my continual frustration with Obama and other policymakers who, when speaking of funding higher education, always and only talk about STEM fields, i.e., those fields which are seen as commercially/economically 'useful' to society. Whenever there are cutbacks, the first place they look is 'soft' fields like philosophy, languages, etc. I'm in a 'social science', so we're somewhat less denigrated, I guess, but it's still annoying.

This reminds me of my continual frustration with Obama and other policymakers who, when speaking of funding higher education, always and only talk about STEM fields, i.e., those fields which are seen as commercially/economically 'useful' to society. Whenever there are cutbacks, the first place they look is 'soft' fields like philosophy, languages, etc. I'm in a 'social science', so we're somewhat less denigrated, I guess, but it's still annoying.

This reminds me of my continual frustration with Obama and other policymakers who, when speaking of funding higher education, always and only talk about STEM fields, i.e., those fields which are seen as commercially/economically 'useful' to society. Whenever there are cutbacks, the first place they look is 'soft' fields like philosophy, languages, etc. I'm in a 'social science', so we're somewhat less denigrated, I guess, but it's still annoying.

The Peloponnesian War?

I don't think it's good form to bump your post for no reason. What more do you want to know? I think you've received some pretty good answers.

The Peloponnesian War?

I can certainly understand someone preferring to teach rather than research, but I have to say: if you "don't even like politics or political science anymore", why would you want to teach it? Your unenthusiasm for the subject won't put you in very good stead. Now, maybe this is just a result of your current situation, and you feel your passion for poli sci will be regained with time and distance. I don't know.

Well, if you were given instructions to that effect, you should carry them out. As a TA, you're essentially just an agent for a principal (i.e., the professor). It's their course, and they are ultimately responsible for the grades given.

If you're worried about appearing 'mean' to your students, then I have to say that maybe the answer is 'yes' to your original question. You're there to help the professor teach the course and evaluate student performance, not be their friends. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't be friendly on a personal level, and there's nothing wrong with doing things to make the class atmosphere more pleasant for yourself and for students, but remember, you're doing a job.

SOG25, as I've said before, I don't consider you to be a troll and I don't think this discussion has been all that incivil , bar a few personal comments. I do think, though, that you haven't really responded to any of the arguments made, but rather keep on repeating basically the same points. It seems to me that you had a genuine curiosity about this in the beginning but now don't really have the information to defend your position but continue to hold it anyway.

I said in my last post that it was up to you to show evidence/argument for the following claims (basically just copying from earlier):

1) JDs, as a matter of course, engage with the poli sci literature and have thought about these areas of inquiry in sustained and serious fashion.

2) Even given some preparation in law school, JDs can competently answer student questions and curiosity about the literature and the discipline in general.

3) The universal structure and methods of hiring in poli sci faculties, in terms of what they consider to be adequate preparation and background, is seriously flawed. I invited you to e-mail chairs of the top departments, since I'm sure they'd love to hear about the fundamental flaws in their hiring processes and their egregious discrimination against JDs.

4) A JD education, in general, provides the same level of preparation a PhD should provide, not merely anecdotal or subjective feeling. I've acknowledged that some JDs, because of their interests, independent research, etc., may compare better than others. As a class, though, the difference between PhDs and JDs in terms of 'poli sci aptitude' will be significant.

5) Law constitutes the greater portion of the study of political phenomena, i.e., political science. I and others have repeatedly emphasized that this is not the case, and I don't think you have yet to confront this directly.

IgnorantVeil also pointed to a list of books in American politics which are, as he/she said, essential poli sci reading. There are similar 'classics' in other fields. I posted the comp exam samples and reading lists. These are the foundations of political science and anyone teaching the discipline needs to be familiar with them. Now, I know you gave the dismissive answer before about poli sci being a 'language' with many 'made up theories', familiarity with which teachers of poli sci need not have. Well, I'm sorry but that's the case for any discipline. You could equally say the same thing for the law (moreso, since obviously legal language is a lot more obscurantist than whatever 'poli sci language' may be). You are teaching the discipline: its methods and ways of looking at the world, not just facts. You don't need a teacher for facts, only wikipedia. Of course there are theories which don't seem to hold up; that's the whole point of scientific inquiry. People propose theories, these theories are tested by observation and evaluated by others. They propose alternatives, or changes, and so on.

The fifth point is a crucial one, I think, and you have yet to respond or even really acknowledge the point. I can't recall if you've stated this explicitly, but you seem to simply assume that law is basically all there is to the political world, that political phenomena are basically legal phenomena and that a corresponding understanding of the legal phenomena means you have sufficient understanding of the political. Moreover, this seems to imply that PhDs in political science are not competent to teach poli sci because they have relatively little or no training in law and therefore don't understand what, to you, is almost the entirety of political reality. As others have said, this is not the case. Stephen Breyer talks about judging as 'patrolling the boundaries', Chief Justice Roberts famously talked about 'calling balls and strikes'. I don't deny the importance of law (it's certainly not 'residual' to the political process), but it really only sets certain structures and constraints in place, within which political events occur. That space is vast, and most importantly, it is not wholly or even majorly determined by the legal structures in place. As I pointed out a long time ago, an intro American politics course will have perhaps 10% of its substantive content in which JDs might have more expertise than a PhD. They may be able to teach important constitutional cases better (though I'm not sure they would be able to explicate the wider political ramifications). But 90% of the material is not something a JD has had engagement with as a matter of course.

Now, I know your reply will be something about just teaching undergraduates and intro courses, such that you don't need to know much more than the basics. Well, having a professor who only has extensive training in 10% of the content dramatically shortchanges those students, does it not?

SOG25, I really wish you would confront the questions I and others have posed, instead of retreating to the same basic line of argument.

Well, if you were given instructions to that effect, you should carry them out. As a TA, you're essentially just an agent for a principal (i.e., the professor). It's their course, and they are ultimately responsible for the grades given.

If you're worried about appearing 'mean' to your students, then I have to say that maybe the answer is 'yes' to your original question. You're there to help the professor teach the course and evaluate student performance, not be their friends. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't be friendly on a personal level, and there's nothing wrong with doing things to make the class atmosphere more pleasant for yourself and for students, but remember, you're doing a job.

SOG25, as I've said before, I don't consider you to be a troll and I don't think this discussion has been all that incivil , bar a few personal comments. I do think, though, that you haven't really responded to any of the arguments made, but rather keep on repeating basically the same points. It seems to me that you had a genuine curiosity about this in the beginning but now don't really have the information to defend your position but continue to hold it anyway.

I said in my last post that it was up to you to show evidence/argument for the following claims (basically just copying from earlier):

1) JDs, as a matter of course, engage with the poli sci literature and have thought about these areas of inquiry in sustained and serious fashion.

2) Even given some preparation in law school, JDs can competently answer student questions and curiosity about the literature and the discipline in general.

3) The universal structure and methods of hiring in poli sci faculties, in terms of what they consider to be adequate preparation and background, is seriously flawed. I invited you to e-mail chairs of the top departments, since I'm sure they'd love to hear about the fundamental flaws in their hiring processes and their egregious discrimination against JDs.

4) A JD education, in general, provides the same level of preparation a PhD should provide, not merely anecdotal or subjective feeling. I've acknowledged that some JDs, because of their interests, independent research, etc., may compare better than others. As a class, though, the difference between PhDs and JDs in terms of 'poli sci aptitude' will be significant.

5) Law constitutes the greater portion of the study of political phenomena, i.e., political science. I and others have repeatedly emphasized that this is not the case, and I don't think you have yet to confront this directly.

IgnorantVeil also pointed to a list of books in American politics which are, as he/she said, essential poli sci reading. There are similar 'classics' in other fields. I posted the comp exam samples and reading lists. These are the foundations of political science and anyone teaching the discipline needs to be familiar with them. Now, I know you gave the dismissive answer before about poli sci being a 'language' with many 'made up theories', familiarity with which teachers of poli sci need not have. Well, I'm sorry but that's the case for any discipline. You could equally say the same thing for the law (moreso, since obviously legal language is a lot more obscurantist than whatever 'poli sci language' may be). You are teaching the discipline: its methods and ways of looking at the world, not just facts. You don't need a teacher for facts, only wikipedia. Of course there are theories which don't seem to hold up; that's the whole point of scientific inquiry. People propose theories, these theories are tested by observation and evaluated by others. They propose alternatives, or changes, and so on.

The fifth point is a crucial one, I think, and you have yet to respond or even really acknowledge the point. I can't recall if you've stated this explicitly, but you seem to simply assume that law is basically all there is to the political world, that political phenomena are basically legal phenomena and that a corresponding understanding of the legal phenomena means you have sufficient understanding of the political. Moreover, this seems to imply that PhDs in political science are not competent to teach poli sci because they have relatively little or no training in law and therefore don't understand what, to you, is almost the entirety of political reality. As others have said, this is not the case. Stephen Breyer talks about judging as 'patrolling the boundaries', Chief Justice Roberts famously talked about 'calling balls and strikes'. I don't deny the importance of law (it's certainly not 'residual' to the political process), but it really only sets certain structures and constraints in place, within which political events occur. That space is vast, and most importantly, it is not wholly or even majorly determined by the legal structures in place. As I pointed out a long time ago, an intro American politics course will have perhaps 10% of its substantive content in which JDs might have more expertise than a PhD. They may be able to teach important constitutional cases better (though I'm not sure they would be able to explicate the wider political ramifications). But 90% of the material is not something a JD has had engagement with as a matter of course.

Now, I know your reply will be something about just teaching undergraduates and intro courses, such that you don't need to know much more than the basics. Well, having a professor who only has extensive training in 10% of the content dramatically shortchanges those students, does it not?

SOG25, I really wish you would confront the questions I and others have posed, instead of retreating to the same basic line of argument.

SOG25, as I've said before, I don't consider you to be a troll and I don't think this discussion has been all that incivil , bar a few personal comments. I do think, though, that you haven't really responded to any of the arguments made, but rather keep on repeating basically the same points. It seems to me that you had a genuine curiosity about this in the beginning but now don't really have the information to defend your position but continue to hold it anyway.

I said in my last post that it was up to you to show evidence/argument for the following claims (basically just copying from earlier):

1) JDs, as a matter of course, engage with the poli sci literature and have thought about these areas of inquiry in sustained and serious fashion.

2) Even given some preparation in law school, JDs can competently answer student questions and curiosity about the literature and the discipline in general.

3) The universal structure and methods of hiring in poli sci faculties, in terms of what they consider to be adequate preparation and background, is seriously flawed. I invited you to e-mail chairs of the top departments, since I'm sure they'd love to hear about the fundamental flaws in their hiring processes and their egregious discrimination against JDs.

4) A JD education, in general, provides the same level of preparation a PhD should provide, not merely anecdotal or subjective feeling. I've acknowledged that some JDs, because of their interests, independent research, etc., may compare better than others. As a class, though, the difference between PhDs and JDs in terms of 'poli sci aptitude' will be significant.

5) Law constitutes the greater portion of the study of political phenomena, i.e., political science. I and others have repeatedly emphasized that this is not the case, and I don't think you have yet to confront this directly.

IgnorantVeil also pointed to a list of books in American politics which are, as he/she said, essential poli sci reading. There are similar 'classics' in other fields. I posted the comp exam samples and reading lists. These are the foundations of political science and anyone teaching the discipline needs to be familiar with them. Now, I know you gave the dismissive answer before about poli sci being a 'language' with many 'made up theories', familiarity with which teachers of poli sci need not have. Well, I'm sorry but that's the case for any discipline. You could equally say the same thing for the law (moreso, since obviously legal language is a lot more obscurantist than whatever 'poli sci language' may be). You are teaching the discipline: its methods and ways of looking at the world, not just facts. You don't need a teacher for facts, only wikipedia. Of course there are theories which don't seem to hold up; that's the whole point of scientific inquiry. People propose theories, these theories are tested by observation and evaluated by others. They propose alternatives, or changes, and so on.

The fifth point is a crucial one, I think, and you have yet to respond or even really acknowledge the point. I can't recall if you've stated this explicitly, but you seem to simply assume that law is basically all there is to the political world, that political phenomena are basically legal phenomena and that a corresponding understanding of the legal phenomena means you have sufficient understanding of the political. Moreover, this seems to imply that PhDs in political science are not competent to teach poli sci because they have relatively little or no training in law and therefore don't understand what, to you, is almost the entirety of political reality. As others have said, this is not the case. Stephen Breyer talks about judging as 'patrolling the boundaries', Chief Justice Roberts famously talked about 'calling balls and strikes'. I don't deny the importance of law (it's certainly not 'residual' to the political process), but it really only sets certain structures and constraints in place, within which political events occur. That space is vast, and most importantly, it is not wholly or even majorly determined by the legal structures in place. As I pointed out a long time ago, an intro American politics course will have perhaps 10% of its substantive content in which JDs might have more expertise than a PhD. They may be able to teach important constitutional cases better (though I'm not sure they would be able to explicate the wider political ramifications). But 90% of the material is not something a JD has had engagement with as a matter of course.

Now, I know your reply will be something about just teaching undergraduates and intro courses, such that you don't need to know much more than the basics. Well, having a professor who only has extensive training in 10% of the content dramatically shortchanges those students, does it not?

SOG25, I really wish you would confront the questions I and others have posed, instead of retreating to the same basic line of argument.

I don't know how your school works, but if you're really interested in psych, perhaps you can change your major? In any case, I think you need to try to find what you're really passionate about, rather than just having a vague notion that you want to teach. After all, you do have to actually teach something.

SOG25, you haven't provided any evidence as far as I can tell, only dubious assertions restated again and again. I posted links to comp exam samples and reading lists. That is what political science, roughly, looks like. It is up to you to show us that JDs, as a matter of course, engage with that literature and have thought about these areas of inquiry in sustained and serious fashion.

It is up to you to show us that, even given some preparation in law school, JDs can competently answer student questions and curiosity about the literature and the discipline in general.

It is up to you to show us that the universal structure and methods of hiring in poli sci faculties, in terms of what they consider to be adequate preparation and background, is seriously flawed. I invited you to e-mail chairs of the top departments, since I'm sure they'd love to hear about the fundamental flaws in their hiring processes and their egregious discrimination against JDs.

It is up to you to show that a JD education, in general, provides the same level of preparation a PhD should provide, not merely anecdotal or subjective feeling. I've acknowledged that some JDs, because of their interests, independent research, etc., may compare better than others. As a class, though, the difference between PhDs and JDs in terms of 'poli sci aptitude' will be significant.

It is up to you to show that law constitutes the greater portion of the study of political phenomena, i.e., political science. I and others have repeatedly emphasized that this is not the case, and I don't think you have yet to confront this directly.

I don't know, this seems rather dismissive. I think fuzzylogician has it exactly right: don't take them too seriously, but look to what you can improve for the future. Reading your description, you yourself suggest that at least one of the criticisms was essentially right, about you sitting in front of the room (though not about you not caring). Surely, you aren't that pressed for time that you have to do your own work while running a lab; I can see very easily why some students might be irked by that. Perhaps you should be walking around, actively asking and soliciting questions and checking up on things.

Were there any positive comments? As you say, voluntary evaluations usually mean you get either the very positive or very negative, but if there were no positive comments, you should consider what you could change for the future.

SOG25, you haven't provided any evidence as far as I can tell, only dubious assertions restated again and again. I posted links to comp exam samples and reading lists. That is what political science, roughly, looks like. It is up to you to show us that JDs, as a matter of course, engage with that literature and have thought about these areas of inquiry in sustained and serious fashion.

It is up to you to show us that, even given some preparation in law school, JDs can competently answer student questions and curiosity about the literature and the discipline in general.

It is up to you to show us that the universal structure and methods of hiring in poli sci faculties, in terms of what they consider to be adequate preparation and background, is seriously flawed. I invited you to e-mail chairs of the top departments, since I'm sure they'd love to hear about the fundamental flaws in their hiring processes and their egregious discrimination against JDs.

It is up to you to show that a JD education, in general, provides the same level of preparation a PhD should provide, not merely anecdotal or subjective feeling. I've acknowledged that some JDs, because of their interests, independent research, etc., may compare better than others. As a class, though, the difference between PhDs and JDs in terms of 'poli sci aptitude' will be significant.

It is up to you to show that law constitutes the greater portion of the study of political phenomena, i.e., political science. I and others have repeatedly emphasized that this is not the case, and I don't think you have yet to confront this directly.

SOG25, you haven't provided any evidence as far as I can tell, only dubious assertions restated again and again. I posted links to comp exam samples and reading lists. That is what political science, roughly, looks like. It is up to you to show us that JDs, as a matter of course, engage with that literature and have thought about these areas of inquiry in sustained and serious fashion.

It is up to you to show us that, even given some preparation in law school, JDs can competently answer student questions and curiosity about the literature and the discipline in general.

It is up to you to show us that the universal structure and methods of hiring in poli sci faculties, in terms of what they consider to be adequate preparation and background, is seriously flawed. I invited you to e-mail chairs of the top departments, since I'm sure they'd love to hear about the fundamental flaws in their hiring processes and their egregious discrimination against JDs.

It is up to you to show that a JD education, in general, provides the same level of preparation a PhD should provide, not merely anecdotal or subjective feeling. I've acknowledged that some JDs, because of their interests, independent research, etc., may compare better than others. As a class, though, the difference between PhDs and JDs in terms of 'poli sci aptitude' will be significant.

It is up to you to show that law constitutes the greater portion of the study of political phenomena, i.e., political science. I and others have repeatedly emphasized that this is not the case, and I don't think you have yet to confront this directly.

I don't mean to be flippant, but your 'goal' should really be 800 on each. I never understood the studying philosophy of aiming for a particular grade rather than just preparing as much as possible and doing your best.

For the preparation, I have to say my GRE scores (770 on each part) were obtained through luck and, frankly, previous education. I did no studying at all but for flipping through a guide in a bookstore a couple days prior. I don't know if there's any correlation at all between paying hundreds or thousands of dollars on 'GRE courses' or books and actual performance. The posts on this forum make me think that there's no relation, or even a negative one - I've read some people have gotten worse scores after such efforts.

Edit: I did do the free Powerprep tests, but not very rigorously, just to see the kinds of questions that would be asked.

The first point: no, look at the poli sci faculty page: http://www.yale.edu/polisci/faculty/index.html . The only faculty member with a law degree as their highest degree is Ackerman, and that was actually an LL.B. in 1967.

Second point: I'm assuming GopherGrad wasn't conceding that the other eleven were exceptions, but only speaking to one of your examples. None of us has the time to go through each one. And I'd be grateful if you could find real instances of such "common political science courses" as Administrative Law.

As for American Government, I go back to my earlier anecdote about TAing for such a course. As I said, we spent perhaps three or four weeks of a full-year course on topics in a JD's wheelhouse, and even then the discussion wasn't exclusively law-focused. Can you point to something on that list of Harvard law courses, or a similar source, which necessitates law student engagement with the literature on political parties, party systems, partisanship, electoral realignment, American political culture, participation, voting behavior, interest groups, media... I could go on.

The first point: no, look at the poli sci faculty page: http://www.yale.edu/polisci/faculty/index.html . The only faculty member with a law degree as their highest degree is Ackerman, and that was actually an LL.B. in 1967.

Second point: I'm assuming GopherGrad wasn't conceding that the other eleven were exceptions, but only speaking to one of your examples. None of us has the time to go through each one. And I'd be grateful if you could find real instances of such "common political science courses" as Administrative Law.

As for American Government, I go back to my earlier anecdote about TAing for such a course. As I said, we spent perhaps three or four weeks of a full-year course on topics in a JD's wheelhouse, and even then the discussion wasn't exclusively law-focused. Can you point to something on that list of Harvard law courses, or a similar source, which necessitates law student engagement with the literature on political parties, party systems, partisanship, electoral realignment, American political culture, participation, voting behavior, interest groups, media... I could go on.