msafiri

I just finished getting caught up on the Tiffany Aching books by Terry Pratchett (had to read Wintersmith and I Shall Wear Midnight) and have now begun reading Anne McCaffrey's Pegasus in Flight for probably the 10th time, though the first time in about a decade.

Whether or not this works varies a great deal by program. Several of the departments I applied to explicitly give everyone the same funding package, so there is no room to bargain for a better package whatsoever. That said, it's really not about the money at the end of the day. I turned down three financial packages that were better than the one I took (one that was $7K/year more) because, at the end of the day, having a well-known supervisor with an excellent track record with his graduate students matters more.

I have to say that that's an extreme perspective, particularly given that many of those attending Top 10 programs with funding have little desire to teach outside the top 25 or at the SLACs, HBCUs and other MSIs, and community colleges that are vital to ensuring that sociology remains a vibrant academic discipline. Given that many schools often have trouble attracting interested candidates because they are "small" or "no name" and thus scorned by top candidates reproduces inequalities in the discipline. I am sincerely curious to know where you're going to school where you can do this. Everyone, as far as I know, has constraints on their research, often imposed by their knowledge, funding agencies, their committee, and the amount of time available. Agreed on both counts. It is vital to think about where your POIs were working (if they even were!) 5-8 years ago, and then think about how this landscape might change in the upcoming 5-8 years. Until the "new" NRC rankings finally came out, my current department was very lowly ranked. But, in the years between the NRC surveys, they did a bunch of hiring at the assistant and full professor levels, bringing in new faculty and beefing up two specific areas within the department. As a result, when the "new" rankings came out, we found ourselves in the top 15. Now, those rankings came out *after* I'd already been here for a couple of years. If I had decided not to go to my current university because of its low ranking at the time, I could be in the position of having to smack myself in the face now because of its much higher ranking. Just some food for thought. Freedom can be a double-edged sword. It can mean that you get scorned for picking quality of life over prestige because you graduated from a Top 10 school and they don't want to be embarrassed when having to list where you now work on their website. (Or, they'll just not list it.) It can mean getting no support if you decide to pursue a nonacademic career, which, actually if your goals are like The_Epicure's and don't include teaching, can be an excellent choice. If you work at a research institute, you can pursue sociological research with funding and a handy team of interns and RAs, write books, and publish, without having the distractions that accompany academic life at a Reseach Intensive university. Anyway, sorry for the long comment. Just wanted to share another perspective on the comments in this thread. It's been an interesting conversation thus far.

When I went on these, I wore dark jeans (obviously without holes), a lightweight sweater, and a tank top underneath during the day in places where there was spring-like weather. For winter weather, I opted for a heavier sweater and long sleeve shirt, plus scarf, hat, and gloves that coordinated with my winter coat. For dinner and drinks with the grad students, I wore a fun t-shirt with the jeans. I went with comfortable Clark's shoes since I wasn't sure how much walking there would be during the day. I would say that you should wear what you're comfortable with. What I wore on visits wasn't a huge variation from my everyday wear, which is what I'd recommend anyone go with. You don't want your clothes to make you uncomfortable.

6 days really isn't that long...

I've done both, though admittedly in the social sciences and not the "hard sciences". I worked with a tenure-track assistant professor in my MA and now work with a full professor for my PhD. I think the difference comes down more to personality and how many students they have than it does to their title, in some cases. For example, my MA advisor had only two students, which meant she was able to give me lots of hands-on attention when I needed it (for things like writing my thesis, preparing for the defense, working on PhD applications). She wasn't working on churning out a million publications. Also, we never wrote anything together because though we used similar theoretical backgrounds and methodologies, we were actually researching completely different topics. My PhD advisor, on the other hand, is a prolific publisher. If you look at his CV, you'll see loads of publications with his grad students. That said, most of that has stopped since I got there since he no longer has research funds to employ grad students as RAs on his grants (that's where the pubs were coming from). He had 14 students when I got here, and still has 8. Consequently, it can be hard to get a meeting to discuss your research, get him to look over grant proposals, etc. That said, being part of a big group of his students means that we all review each others articles, chapters, and grants, some of which he never lays eyes on until after they've been submitted. I never considered somebody's ability to relate to life as a graduate student since every tenure-track or tenured professor will tell you that being a faculty member is far more work than being a graduate student. As a grad student, service is optional. As a prof, it's 20% of your job. Assistant professors are included in this and often get stuck with the more time-consuming service tasks because they are new(er) to the job. So, I wouldn't assume that assistant profs have more time to spend on research and teaching than full profs. In the end, I would say that you should decide based on research fit, personality, and funding. Talk to the people's graduate students so you can get a real sense of how closely they work with their students, if they mentor them, etc.

The idea is to broaden and deepen your knowledge in a particular area that's outside of your discipline of study. In that sense, it's kind of similar to an undergraduate minor. It shows that you've studied a particular area/field in depth, in addition to the other things you studied as part of your major discipline. Usually these are complementary areas of study, like psychologists doing a minor in neuroscience. So, for example, I do research in Central America so I took a lot of classes offered by or cross-listed with Latin American studies at my university. I guess you could formalize that and call it a PhD minor if you wanted, since we're talking 6 or so course. That said, the exact name varies from one university to the next. Some call them PhD minors, while others call them graduate certificates for example. I wouldn't let having to do a PhD minor or graduate certificate keep you from enrolling in a particular department. I'd see it as an opportunity to formalize learning that you're probably going to do anyway.

There seem to be a couple of things going on in this thread. hopefulJD, would you care to share more about your particular interests in history and sociology? Because, what you should do kind of depends. If you're more into qualitative methods, you might want to consider doing oral history work as part of your MA. If you're more into quantitative approaches, you should look into the body of literature where historians combine historiography, archival work, and statistics to tell us new things about the past. In either case, you'll likely need to take a methods course outside of your department to have the methodological background necessary to write a sound thesis. I'd worry less about the publication aspect since you can get into a PhD without publishing as a master's student AND because that lesser publication will follow you for the rest of your academic career. On the broader issue of methods training: As an undergraduate non-sociology major, I took a sociology methods course primarily to meet a requirement. The course was "Sociological Research Methods", was required for all sociology majors, and exclusively covered quantitative methods. We never talked about ethnography or open-ended surveys or anything like that. So yea, there are definitely gaps in undergrad methods training. That's why programs have a core methods sequence they require everyone to take regardless of their background and also a core sociological theory sequence for people to take. Even if you were exposed to that stuff as an undergrad (or hell, as a MA student), it's good to see it again, discuss it with different people, etc. If you're going to be a professor, you may be teaching these things one day so why not be exposed to it as much as possible first?

svh, I guess I left out an important part of those stories. I was applying to my MA program to do my PhD there and hadn't heard about admissions yet (internal applicants go through a ridiculous process to get in there and actually need far more votes than normal applicants do). My MA program admitted me, even though they knew about acceptances I'd gotten to other places. Hell, they (my three recommenders plus other profs whose class I was taking or had gotten to know well) knew I was visiting other places while they hadn't even looked at my application yet. Seriously, people, it's not the end of the world for them to know that you've applied to other places. It shows that you think of yourself as an attractive candidate and they should too.

I don't see why it'd be a big deal. It's likely they have some clue anyway since professors talk to their friends. True story: I applied to a half dozen PhD programs. There was one that I hadn't heard from (they are notorious for waiting until the end of March to send out acceptances), we'll call it School X. There was a prof from another school (School Y) visiting my MA program and we ended up talking about where I'd been accepted over beer along with another professor friend of his that teaches at my MA school. Now, the POI at School X, Y School visiting prof, and my MA program prof are all friends and drinking buddies. So they decided to call my POI to find out about admissions. Yes, literally, they called him while I was sitting there. I am freaking out while holding a cocktail in my had. Luckily, the POI didn't answer. Another true story: The same professor from my MA program? He called me into his office one day to tell me that I'd be hearing from a school very soon. Turns out, I'd been accepted but, before that happened, his friend (at the school I applied to) called him and told him this. So telling them yourself? Probably not going to be any worse than the things they do.

There's definitely no ramen in my diet unless I'm hungover, in which case I totally crave it. Anyway, typical workday food varies a great deal. I currently live outside the USA doing fieldwork, so I'll describe both situations to you. USA: - Breakfast at home, which can vary. Favorites include oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins (made from buying regular oats in bulk at the store) served alongside two scrambled eggs, or a three egg omelet. Sometimes, I switch the oatmeal for granola (again, bought in bulk) that I eat either warm or cold depending on the weather. If I'm in a hurry, I'll grab an Odwalla bar, which I keep around for precisely that reason. - Lunch tends to be leftovers from dinner. Failing that, any variety of bean salad or beans and rice or pasta salad with beans and veggies. Exactly which of these depends on my mood and what's available and other factors like how hot it will be at lunch time. The hotter it is, the less likely I am to eat dinner leftovers and go instead with something like a garbanzo bean salad over whole wheat couscous. - Dinner tends to fall into either the slow cooker category or be something that I can make fairly quickly. I tend not to fuss over dinner too much as I have nighttime commitments two evenings per week, which almost always falls on the same days I teach meaning that I have very little time in the evening to cook and eat. I've got a set of staples I'll cook though: spaghetti; chili; chicken sausages cooked with onions and other veggies; pot roast; and a few more. I tend to shop sales and buy in bulk where I can. For example, when strawberries were $1/pint, I bought 5 pints and ate them all. I have this mild obsession with fresh fruit and tend to eat it with every meal and as dessert. I also try very hard not to let anything go to waste. My biggest way to save is to shop at the discount grocery store (Grocery Outlet in my case) and use that to buy things I might otherwise go without, like fancy cheese, organic dairy products, and various organic shelf-stable stuff. Life Abroad: - Breakfast: two eggs scrambled with tortillas and beans. Sometimes I switch it up and have yogurt with cereal and fruit. - Lunch: I buy this every day. I can't help myself! It's cheap and delicious and helps the local economy. I spent about $4/day on lunch, which I never did back in the USA. But, when you're working on an independent project in a foreign country, sometimes you just have to get out of the house. - Dinner: I'll cook something usually, but end up eating out 1-3 times per week. There aren't really sales here on anything ever. The trick is knowing where something is cheaper since all the stores carry pretty much all of the same stuff. For example, I can save ~$0.50 US by buying cheddar cheese at the store to the left of my house rather than the one to the right. It may not seem like a lot, but it does add up eventually. I sometimes get caught up doing fieldwork in the evening so, on those days, it's likely that I'll go to dinner with other people. I've been trying to reign in the eating out though.

I'm decidedly mixed methods owing to a belief that you should use the methods that the project requires. But, for my current project, I'm drawing primarily on qualitative methods (semi-structured interviews, participant observation, observation, etc.). I had envisioned having a quant component but, due to some limitations of participants, it wouldn't be possible to get a sufficiently random data set for the analyses I'd like to do.

I get the sense this varies from one country to the next. I had to provide the local embassy with my local address and cell phone number, so they can contact me in the event of an emergency. But, other than that, I'm basically on my own. Some of this is likely because there isn't a Fulbright Commission where I am. That said, I know of Fulbrighters in SE Asia who could no travel outside the country without letting Fulbright know because the local commission had their passports. The two week thing is not really two weeks. You can take two weeks outside your host country without it affecting your pay. Months of pay are based on being in the country for more than half the month (16-31 days out of the month). Read between the lines.

What about Texas State-San Marcos? http://www.soci.txst...s/graduate.html to work with this guy They offer assistantships and the deadline to apply is March 1. As an added bonus, it's not far from Austin... Just something to consider in case you're still worried, Supernovasky.

So, I've dealt with the kind of situation asked about originally a few times. When I moved for my PhD, I did it knowing that I was going to be ending a 1+ year relationship. But, TBH, I didn't feel that bad about because my ex had never said the words "I love you" in 14+ months together and I knew that the relationship wouldn't last. I could've stayed at my MA school for my PhD but didn't, which obviously caused drama and stress. And yet, we stayed together until August when I actually moved, even though I made the decision in April. More recently, I moved abroad to do my fieldwork. A major stumbling block in my last relationship was that whether or not I'd actually be moving was pending and I was always applying for things but it'd be months before anything was for sure. I offered my ex the opportunity to move with me but ze has uninterested in leaving the city of my PhD university. We actually broke up before I heard about grants but were moving towards getting back together when I found out I got a Fulbright, which totally killed that. In both cases, I think things have worked out for the best. I've spent most of grad school without a significant other and have a small cadre of friends that have been in the same situation. We turn to each other, rather than a significant other for emotional supports and someone to B&M to. It works okay-ish for us all but there are some times where you wish you had someone in your house to give you a massage and cuddle up with at night. Oh well, maybe one day, right? In the mean time, I really appreciate the freedom that being single has afforded me in terms of the ability to pursue my research interests in another country without having to worry that someone will be angry about being left behind or forced to live in another country whose language they don't speak or any of that sort of thing.

Personally, I think grad school would be sort of miserable without alcohol. I tend to drink a few glasses of wine while grading papers, for example. Then there's the weekly departmental happy hour, which is fun. Granted, some attend but don't drink, but I'm such a regular that the bartender knows my drink order.

I had this happened when I went on grad school interviews and you'll have it happen on faculty job interviews too. Be prepared for them to talk about their research, ask questions about yours, and to ask you more general questions. You should at least read what they have online about their research and be prepared to ask a few questions about it, explain your research interests to a non-specialist, and maybe have some questions about the department or area more generally. Oh, and don't blow these people off. They may be on the adcom and/or could be future committee members. You'd be amazed at how different people's real work can be from what they've last posted on their website. (Example: full professor whose research has focused on fire history and fire ecology that now studies why national parks get degazetted and how this affects their ecology, but the latter interests isn't mentioned anywhere online.)

Definitely keep looking! Use keyword searches in journal databases and use them smartly. If that fails, browse the Table of Contents of the major computer science journals and those in your subfield. You'll find something if you look!

Jahiliyya, I completely understand. I'm in the same position. Interview recordings and transcriptions are saved on my hard drive and backed up on a portable external HD and on a cloud storage service (SugarSync). I haven't accumulated books so I haven't had to deal with that. For pamphlets, I'm scanning and saving them digitally and putting them in a plastic folder so I can bring them back to the US. Business cards are in a state of disarray at the moment but I need to start organizing them ASAP. Thanks for the reminder on that one. Good luck!

Maybe you should think about it from a different perspective. How would you feel if you were a potential employer and someone lied to you? Would you want to work with them in the future? Would you consider them for a job in the future? You should be honest with people in the graduate admissions process because all of these people, whether you attend their university or not, are your future colleagues.

It's not even *good* social science work. Usually, you try to become part of the community or at least make an effort to understand how it works before participating in or joining it.

This is SOOOO true. I know many professors at regional universities that are struggling to do their research since they have to self-fund it out of their $45K/year salaries, without the help of RAs or even necessarily being able to download the journal articles they need to reference. Do not discount this as it will affect you even as a graduate student. For example, I had to change the region in which I work due to funding availabilities. Am I happy? Sure but, I'm not doing what I had my heart set on doing when I applied to PhD programs. If you don't know, then do the research and/or don't pursue the degree. Seriously, there's a wealth of information about this available on the web. Agreed wholeheartedly. I have NEVER taught a course in my field (much less my subfield) in 3+ years as a PhD student. I'm currently in the field doing research. And guess what? When I get back I will be teaching more courses outside of my field. (And, btw, I'm talking not even close. I study human-environment stuff and teach urban stuff from a non-environmental perspective.)

Supernovasky, have you looked into things like Housing Dept assistantships that might be available at the schools that have MA programs? Something like that could help you pay for a degree that might otherwise be unfunded... Jobs: http://www.higheredjobs.com/search/details.cfm?JobCode=175594567&Title=Research%20Assistant http://www.higheredjobs.com/search/details.cfm?JobCode=175591128&Title=Social%20Science%20Research%20Assistant http://www.higheredjobs.com/search/details.cfm?JobCode=175586623&Title=Research%20Assistant%20-%20LIFT http://www.higheredjobs.com/search/details.cfm?JobCode=175584885&Title=Social%20Science%20Research%20Assistant http://www.quirks.com/jobs/details.aspx?searchID=337589686&sort=4&pg=1&jobID=27281 http://www.higheredjobs.com/admin/details.cfm?JobCode=175592169&Title=Research%20Data%20Analyst%20-%2018600 I'm sure you could find more if you searched yourself.

Caveat: I'm not Latin@ but I am a minority graduate student and I use ethnographic methods in my research to study a community that is NOT my own. And because people, for whatever reason, seem to think that minorities in the discipline are there studying people like them, I'm often dealing with the assumption that I study my own ethnic group, even though I don't. Well said, maximus, and something that applies to any community a researcher is studying. SocialGroovements, I may be "perfectly capable" of studying the group but that doesn't mean that I want to! If you're sensitive to the power dynamics and the issues that studying a group as an outsider poses. Moreover, the very idea that a Latin@ is more socially proximate to other Latin@s they might study is a bit jarring to me because it comes across as homogenizing the Latin@ (or any other) minority community. Just assuming that someone is more "socially proximate to the object of study" because they are also Latin@, Asian, African-American, etc. ignores the very real social and cultural differences that are within these communities and groups. I guess I'm still trying to make sense of what it is you're suggesting and what you're looking for. Are you looking for reassurance that it's okay for you to study what you're studying? Or for us to say that you can code switch if you want to? (I have to admit, the code switching lost me but that's because 1) I do it fairly regularly* and 2) I have been friends with many Latin@s friends that "look white" and also do it and while people may have briefly looked askance [at them or me!] that didn't really become an obstacle of any sort.) Do you feel like someone else should be studying the topic or that people will think that it's weird for you and not someone else to be studying it or what? I think there's starting to be a broader recognition that whites can study non-whites and do it in a sensitive way that doesn't reproduce colonial discourses and power dynamics. I say this because in searching for dissertation writing fellowships I've found quite a few aimed at "African or African diaspora studies" which seems to say that anyone studying those topics, regardless of his/her ethnicity, is eligible because those topics are still understudied. If you're concerned with the power dynamics and the issue of speaking FOR someone else, you really should get into postcolonial theory if you haven't already. Read Spivak, Bhabha, Said, and other postcolonial theorists. And remember that sociology (and the social sciences more generally) has a broad tradition of people studying communities they aren't part of and writing about them in intelligent, honest ways. Think about Dunier's Sidewalk, where he took the time to go over the text with the people represented in it and gave them a chance to correct things. Maximus82's suggestion of Venkatesh is also a good one. I've used some of his work on gangs and the underground economy when teaching to show students an aspect of society they often haven't thought of as being something one can do research on. Anyway, I hope this isn't too rambly and that we can engage in a productive dialogue on this topic because it's something that really interests me. ----- *I live in a place where almost everyone is bilingual so conversations flow back and forth between English and Spanish all the time.

Supernovasky, I don't think you can or should update your SOP, unless you're going to use the new SOP to apply to a different set of programs. At this point, you need to relax and wait for decisions, search for MA programs and apply to them, etc. You may want to apply to MA programs and look for funding elsewhere in the university, if that's something that interests you. Alternately, look on indeed.com for jobs that might get you some relevant experience.