ziraffa

I'm tinkering with masculinities stuff.... Not too serious about it (yet.... If I can study with Kimmel, though, I'll be doing more than tinkering.) I mostly consider myself in American studies, I think. I dunno--my current grad advisor tells me it's perfectly normal to go through some disciplinary schizophrenia at this point in my academic life. I've got Boyland on my summer reading list. You read it yet?

This.

I can't read, I can't work, I can't eat. My friends all know I'm doing the wait-thing but they still don't seem to understand. Gotta love them for trying to be supportive. I'm not much on movies or TV, but I'm starting to think I should catch up on The Wire since I dropped out after the third season (because I was writing all my statements and applying for the schools I'm now waiting to hear from.... What a vicious cycle.) The question remains: Does thegradcafe make waiting easier or harder? Haha.

Nothing from Stony Brook. I keep threatening to email Michael Kimmel with a lot of capital letters.... But I don't.

I applied at UK and I currently live about two hours south. I hear many good things about UK's sociology program--especially for folks who are going into rural sociology or collective behavior (why I applied there). They have a Social Theory program--it's a graduate certificate program that used to be headed by Wolfgang Natter who is now at Virginia Tech. And they have Susan Bordo.

Unless that $120 is an investment in 30 more days of electricity, instead. People who live paycheck to paycheck don't see the future in terms of investment--rather, "Will I have a place to live?" "Will I have a job?"

Bump! Let's keep this one active! I'm a first generation college graduate and I think there are definitely hurdles we face that others do not. First, there are--undoubtedly--family issues. My mom kept telling her friends (and sisters) that I was getting an AA in Sociology and that I would graduate and then get a BA. It was cute, at first, but then it was confusing... Especially when she crossed out "BA" on my graduation invitations, thinking I had made a typo. And as supportive as she is, she and other members of my family think I'm an elitist--they think I think I'm better than them. It's stupid family drama, I know, and we all love each other... but it makes the holidays a little harder every year. Second, there are--undoubtedly--class issues that change your college experience. Working a full-time job and trying to be a full-time student with extracurricular activities is trying. My senior year of undergrad, I switched to a part-time job in order to get my GPA up to a 2.85 (which I managed to do). My boss offered to pay for me to take the GRE and I cried at work that day. I read (especially on this forum) about folks who take the GRE multiple times and I cringe a little. Even taking it twice would keep me from paying the rent. And people without these experiences will ask, "Well, just because you don't have money doesn't mean you can't do well in school. It's your own fault." And I'll admit that I could have gotten better grades, but I also ask them to kindly imagine having to walk 2 miles to school five days a week because your loser boyfriend disappeared or was got drunk after he promised you a ride; and to imagine the one or two days a week you just didn't want to walk that far for something that seemed so pointless. Or the nights you spent in the emergency room with your dramatic grandmother who wanted a tube in her nose while she told you how disappointed she is in you--feigning heart attacks all night. Or the cold that turns into pneumonia (twice), strep turns into mono, broken glasses make you read with a magnifying glass for a few weeks, that jerk-of-a-boss changes your schedule and you don't get to take the final (because, really, I could deal with a C easier than I could with living in my car, again). Then, when you finally apply for grad school, you're instructed not to "tell some sob story" in your SOP. "Don't be so maudlin." Well, I'm not trying to. I'm trying to communicate to my future graduate school that the difference between working at McDonald's forever and getting a PhD is going to be in the funding available. I want them to know that I come from a long history of generational poverty--the kind that reaches up and grabs the nearest ankle almost out of sheer spite. And that I've clawed my way out of that pit through dedication (though not as much as I would have liked) and stubbornness. I fought to get where I am now. If my dedication doesn't make up for something as meaningless as a GPA, then that school is not right for me. (And, for the record, my graduate GPA is a 3.9--I've made one B.) Living in a drastically undereducated part of the country (Kentucky), I can tell you that some folks are given opportunities and the ones who aren't almost never get them. This is a part of the country that relies on creating a boundary between insiders and outsiders--and getting an education makes you an outsider. You grow a love and a hatred for your home and your family--you love your family but you hate their ignorance and their unfounded distrust in you. You. The same you you've always been--the little sister who got her pigtails pulled or the daughter that always spilled her food onto the table. You feel the constant need to remind your family and friends that you're still that person. And thanks for letting me let off some of that steam.

This is exactly how I feel. Especially when I read that some of the people on this forum have taken the GRE multiple times to get their scores as high as they are! My boss paid for me to take the GRE, and she wouldn't pay twice. I imagine that a lot of people here are embellishing their real stats. Then again, half of the sociologists have been waitlisted by U Minn (where I applied as a long shot) and even Stanford (where I applied because someone else paid my application fee). I'm just letting you know that I'm a Joe, too.