goddess_imenja

Masha!!!!!!! You rock. Thank you thank you for this advice.

I read in a past posts that many of those accepted this year got in on their 2nd+ cycle. Would applicants in this category speak about their experience in this regard? How long they waited to apply again? How did they networ? Did they focus on publishing? Etc. thank you!

Splitends - I really appreciate your thorough post, please check out your inbox. Chuck - well, i am definitely one of those interdisicplinary people you speak of, and I certainly hope that grad schools would be interested in my international and professionally diverse profile. Nevertheless, I was rejected to the four universities I applied to (top soc schools) - maybe my over-interdisciplinary nature could be my handicap? Maybe I should be more focused? Or maybe my research interests are outdated? And, sadly I am suspecting that having not studied at a top-tiered research institution has hurt my CV. For these reasons and others, I am looking at this social research methods program at LSE. The hope is to remedy these deficiencies, exactly Splitends second point: "Master's Degrees are mostly useful as a way of making up for deficiencies in your undergraduate record." I have also thought of doing a summer course at a research institution like Harvard instead of doing a masters, taking classes in statistics and social research methods - this may be a cheaper way of going about it, but I still would not have access to faculty or the networking that masters would provide. Chuck and Splitends - thank you so much for your wisdom! I wish I had looked at this grad forum last year!!!

I am thinking about doing a Masters in Social Research Methods at LSE with a sociology track (meaning I get to take one full unit of sociology). I basically perceive this Masters as a stepping stone to doing a PhD in Sociology. Besides, I think it could fill in a lot of gaps in my CV: -I didn't study at a research institution (like Harvard, Berkeley, U of M, etc.) but rather at a mid-west liberal arts college and later on I did my Masters in International Business at a (highly ranked) French business school. -I didn't do stellar in my statistics and research methods classes at business school -I lack profound experience in quantitative methods -I did not major or get a masters in Sociology (-3.96 GPA in International Studies and German, 3.5 GPA in Masters in International Business) but I don't think getting a masters in Sociology would be as a helpful as a course like this since I have taken a lot of sociology courses or courses that are related to sociology - politics, international relations, anthro, soc, gender, language, etc. Neverthless, -I was a Fulbright research scholar in Brazil - I have much qualitative research experience: participant, ethnographic, interviews -I was a project/research assistant (again all qualitative) at an AIDS organization in Brazil during my Fulbright research. -I was a TA/TF at Harvard for the summer school and should be again this summer (I am really not sure if this counts for much since the summer school usually hires profs from outside the school and the curriculum does not seem as rigorous as the normal year) -1 article published by ECCH (case study database) -I speak 5 languages fluently (I don't know if sociology departments give a shit about this sort of thing) -All my past non-academic jobs are kind of research-oriented (competitor analysis, market entry strategies, etc.) I was wondering if anyone could provide me advice or tips on whether such a masters would be a valuable tool to getting into a PhD program. I talked with the program director and sociology-track coordinator and have the impression that I would gain a lot of methodological (quant and qual) and research design expertise in this program and that a lot of students end up doing a PhD after. Has anyone done something similar? Or has heard about this program? Or studied at LSE? LSE is a very reputable institution in social sciences so I am expecting to gain an invaluable network there... I am interested in globalization, political sociology and transnational social movements. This is the program website: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/methodologyInstitute/study/mscSocialResearchMethods/introduction.aspx Thank you very much for your help!