Jump to content

suerte

Members
  • Posts

    27
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by suerte

  1. (1) Durkheim, Émile. (1897). Suicide. New York: Simon and Schuster. (2) Putnam, Robert. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster. The Durkheim piece is on the importance of social contacts (the emotionally closer, the better) upon making life possible (i.e., preventing suicide) at all - a premise for it being "easier," ʻbetter," etc. Durkeim is one of the three cannonical figures of sociology (aside from Marx and Marx); this is one of his paramount texts. The Putnam piece includes several chapters on the importance of civic associations (roughly put, doing things with people or, more specifically, accumulating and investing "social capital." The latter is a phrase you may want to define and use) for the betterment of individuals and society at large. Good luck with your paper. PS - Never forget Arlie Hochschild's work when looking at the economy (exchange) emotional intimacy. Did you know that employers expect their employees to perform emotional labor (always smile no matter what, etc.) but do not pay them for it, resulting in exploitation of the worker in ways that Marx's economist perspective failed to consider? I love Sociology.
  2. Ann Lamott's "Bird by Bird", an excellent book on the soul-sanding process of writing, tells me to applaud this as a good first draft. Like they say about fatherhood but also applies to applying to grad school, 90% of the work is just showing up. Way to go for already having a draft of your SOP in circulation. But why are you assuming James is going to be on probation or in a detention facility in a few years? an analysis of how you arrived at that assumption, (and of the dangers of scholarship that propagates such assumptions [with state-sanctioned credentials] to perpetuate symbolic domination) would be an interesting place to begin a second draft. They say science is bending over backwards to prove yourself wrong. Try to identify the assumptions implicit in each line of this essay, and attack those. Without having too large of an existential moment, turn the mirror on the theories of deviance you have learned - what are their flaws? how can you not simply employ said theories, but reframe our understanding of the issue that the theories are only attempting to enunciate? The last paragraph sounds like an advertisement for the college you want to go to. Donʻt be a sycophant; trust me, it has failed me 3 application cycles in a row (i did get in somewhere and got my MA, but it was from an intellectual siberia of a program relative to my interests in political sociology). And the last sentence should be the first for the next draft. They need to know who you want to work with, and why, very early on in the essay. One might even dedicate 80-85% of the essay on how the research of specific faculty members jives nicely with your proposed intellectual goals. Keep up the diligent work. You inspire me to get my next draft out pronto (ie, revise last yearʻs essay, without completely discarding everything in frustration for not getting in anywhere last year...itʻs the perseverance card that I am banking on for this year).
  3. here we go again, another year. i chose not to apply to law school. (okay, i am applying to two low-ranking law schools for backup if my expensive Ph.D. pursuits fail to cash in for me...again. granted this is sociology i am applying for, so i use the word "cash" lightly. still would rather study it, love it, and be jobless than a lawyer who trades her youth for billable hours...but that is another post). strategy: - GET BETTER GRE SCORES (how is the new GRE test format, I wonder? i read that the math may be harder...shucks) - SEND LETTERS OF INTEREST BY 8/15 with CV on fancy paper (~35) - BUILD WEBSITE (already have domain name and hosting; site is up and running, just needs me to dump my lifeʻs work in sociology into it and arrange it with a semblance of order. lest possible faculty mentors shudder and click away...) - Contact letter writers by 8/15...preliminarily. Send them draft SOP by 9/1. - Send out transcripts by 9/1 (expensive!!). Some schools want 2 official ones from each school, others only accept scans. - Call secretaries re: fee waivers, application deadlines, when review begins, and fellowship forms by 8/10 - Revise papers I want to submit for sample (question: NSF proposal or something else? honors thesis from 4 years ago?) - Print out and line-edit last years personal history statement - Re-write SOP's (use what I already wrote about wanting to work with faculty; revamp intro and conclusion using little blurbs I have written in my notebook about my passion for the discipline). - And decide how to narrow down my proposed field of study? So difficult.... schools applying for: (or, the 'God hates cowards listʻ) Northwestern, UNC-Chapel Hill, U Penn, Penn State, University of Chicago, Wisconsin, Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton (pending availability of fee waivers for some. like my uncle, bless his soul, told me last year, ʻGod hates cowardsʻ) about me: - BA in Sociology at a school with a top 3-ranking Soc. Ph.D. program in 2007 w/ High Honors & departmental award - MA in Anthropology at a low-ranking school where I wrote a great NSF proposal and further developed my Ph.D. goals (and learned cool words like ideographic and nomothetical, and a semblance of understanding to accurately use them when portraying my intellectual biography to others. I can also describe my cool Ph.D. goals in 10 words or less to mere non-academic mortals!) - 2 co-authored publications, but not in sociology - Undergrad GPA: 3.78 (3.86 only including the last 3 years; higher for soc-only courses; two A+'s, one in a soc. theory and one in a soc. methods course). - Grad GPA: 3.76 - GPA at community college I attended full-time for 2 years while concurrently enrolled in high school: 3.84 - 7 years Research Assistant experience, relevant to my Ph.D. goals - 3 strong letter writers/mentors (people I appreciated working for whom I learned a lot from) - I composed a well-written personal history statement last year - I also wrote a statement of purpose that does explicate why i want to work with specific faculty members, for last year. - Speak 4 languages weaknesses from last year's application - GRE of 1230 (or 1240) (terrible! i get soooo much higher on the practice tests; I just get nervous without a watch on my wrist to look at) - did not contact faculty i wanted to work wit until january or early february (shameful repercussions of being an over-worked procrastinator) - need to have more clearly defined Ph.D. goals Here's to not wasting my money entirely again this year!!
  4. It reminds me of dating! (ha ha jk) Seriously though, I'd say it depends. I satiated my need to know by calling one of the programs and asking whether "all applicants who have been admitted have been contacted." This was at U Mich. The graduate coordinator politely said yes. I wouldn't do it at the place i really, really want to go, for fear of upsetting the ever-so-underestimated staff. Unless March at least.
  5. Given the paucity of acceptances or rejections from them, I am trying to have an cautiously optimistic take on my application status with them. U Penn would be a great school to go to, and I'd be grateful for the opportunity to be challenged by their faculty there. (sending good thoughts towards those in the same boat. this is my last chance for admission this year)
  6. sorry to hear. as for the character-building bit, you are right on with that attitude. =)
  7. Masculine Domination (1998, Stanford University Press) captures Bourdieuʻs notion of symbolic violence (1) succinctly and (2) in a specific context (gender inequality) that can be applied to other forms of power/powerlessness. It would be a good book to warm up to Distinction with, although Invitation to a Reflexive Sociology is the one profs recommend you read to do just that. The latter text has a great appendix on ʻhow to read Bourdieuʻ or something. After you digest Marx: Selected Writings, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber), and The Division of Labor in Society (Durkheim), which I am sure was terribly uplifting for us to read the first time around, so many non-sociological texts take on a whole new richness. If I get in somewhere, I will find the syllabus of the soc. theory course I plan to take at where I (theoretically) get in at, and pick one text that sounds cool. Actually, it'd prolly be prudent to pick them up used on amazon and go through them all in a leisurely, non-committal way. It would help one to get their bearings for the Fall, and stay on track with how your department wants to shape your graduate-level introduction to the discipline. Or you can just read a bunch of Wacquantʻs work. That would be greatly recommended; for one thing his writing style and the rigor of his research is good to learn from.
  8. just to be clear - when you say you would apply next fall, do you mean you will submit your applications in December 2011? It would be a leap of faith perhaps, and I am sure there are counter-arguments against this that I have not considered, but I would lean towards option 3. It shows you are committed to going somewhere more rigorous. Perhaps you can see if you can line up a cool work/volunteer opportunity to put on your CV before deciding. I assume you finish up your MS in the middle of this year (may/june?). That would leave you wide open, work aside, to focus whole-heartedly on applying to other programs. Of course - make sure to "look before you leap" if you go that route: Are your GRE scores near 1300 or above? Do you have a well-articulated sociology PhD research agenda? How was the strength of your undergrad program? Do you have good research experience in sociology? Are your grades good/competitive? Are your recommendation letters strong, and can you 100% trust that they have no negative stuff in them? etc. etc. Admission to top-20 soc. PhD programs is elephantitically difficult thesse days. You will want to be logically (and not just sentimentally - as is my weakness) certain - as much as possible - that moving on after your master's. and applying to better-fit programs is something that has a chance of working out. If you do, be sure to apply to comparable-ranking programs where perhaps there are faculty who match your interests better. If you can't answer questions like the above with a 85-90% confidence, option 1 or 2 you mention may be better after all.
  9. Got my official rejection from Michigan today. Yay!
  10. Saw that Cal sent out their rejection notes today. Sending good thoughts towards those who are terribly disappointed by that. Godspeed.
  11. I am still hopeful. Itʻs not over till itʻs over (or itʻs March). =)
  12. The four-field program was a noble effort. Post-modernists have placed even that into an existential crisis. =) (Caveat: I know Cal does not have an orthodox four-field anthro program; the comment still holds though).
  13. Hi NB - best of luck in getting into the other Anthro programs! =)
  14. omg fields&charts, I cannot believe you listed "sociology as a martial art." I haven't thought of that film in far too long. i watched it for a class back in 06. i wish the movie dune was as good as the book. that would be my #1 movie if it were. 1. [spot saved for dune] cabin fever, a terrible movie, will hold its spot in the interim 2. most movies with Johnny Depp in it (clearly, i am a girl with defensible cinematographic priorities. although, he does tend to pick good scripts) 3. matrix (my soc. theory professor and I once had a cool conversation about how the matrix was "really" about commodity fetishism. i think it is equally if not moreso about god versus evil, which makes for an otherwise impossible parallel b/w marx & judeo-christianity). 4. shawshank redemption 5. orphan (the one about the adopted daughter from russia who is really a 35-year old killer w/ ugly teeth) 6. falling down (the one w/ michael douglas, when he goes bonkers in traffic then takes "road rage" and being an angry american to a whole new low) 7. robin williams: live at the met / george carlin: what am i doing in new jersey / denis leary: no cure for cancer 8. the game (at least grad school isn't as bad as what happens to michael douglas in this movie) 9. cinderella man (big-up working-class irish boxers, and cute romance stories) 10. regarding henry (just kidding)
  15. Waking up to the reality that I may have spent all my money applying to graduate programs, in vain. Still holding out for UPenn - all the while attempting to not relegate myself to becoming inured.
  16. If you are coming from Psychology into Sociology, strong quantitative skills may help your application stand out. If you do choose Sociology, you can take part of what you wrote in this forum as a very early beginning for your statement of purpose. =)
  17. I have co-authored two articles in peer-reviewed journals, in another social science discipline. But then again, things aren't looking that great for me this round.
  18. Getting your master's, perhaps at a program that is not the most difficult to get into, when you know you are PhD bound is like going to a community college after high school. It can bring benefits, but it is one huge risk when it comes to getting back in the game for Ph.D. programs - especially in regards to maintaining strong professional contacts. Hope things have worked themselves out for you by now, re: your GRE and such.
  19. Oh, I can handle the stats and I love them (took a 2nd semester graduate course in social statistics as an undergrad, it was one of 2 rigorous sociology grad courses I took as an undergrad. Got an A+ in the upper-division undergrad version of this course too). My quant skills are just stubbornly reluctant to reflect themselves in a 30-minute exam, again and again. Thank you for the kind support all the same, Alissa, Derrick and Maximus. Alissa: nope, I did not hear official word from UNC. thanks for any feedback you could share from your correspondence about second-round offers from them. I am dealing with the disappointment by downloading an IPUMS extract and playing around with my data using R. I wish telling the programs that could get them to change their minds.
  20. There are so many fewer rejection posts than acceptance posts. Like my grandfather said, "when you laugh, the world laughs with you. when you cry, you cry alone" I graduated from a top-tier sociology program, with accolades, three years ago. I just received my MA from a different-but-related discipline. I had 3 solid recommendation letters, and used a meritorious NSF proposal for my writing sample. I have a 610 verbal and 620 quantitative GRE score. My UG GPA is 3.74, and was 3.9 for Soc courses. My grad school GPA is 3.86. My SOP was rather quite decent. I have considerable RA experience, since sophomore year. The only thing I did not do was correspond with faculty members from each program I applied to, only at 3/4 of them. I guess the flagrant rejections I must now deal with reflects the omnipotence of good quant GRE scores (even if one has taken 9 college math/social statistics courses). And yet: Application to Wisconsin: rejected Application to Michigan: rejected Application to Princeton: rejected Application to UNC: waiting on an official rejection Application to U Penn: still waiting From the loser's corner, have a great day. Please.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use