Staying on track for Sociology grad schools...

[psyched_trojan2015]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm a sophomore at USC and I just recently realized that I have a knack for my Sociology classes - and I love it! I have an amazing professor here from Berkeley and she really inspired me to start my own research papers and publications. I'm primarily focused on culture/media, and how these socially influence our desire to conform or to distinguish ourselves from the so-called "mainstream" pack. I'm currently working on a research topic that revolves around Western media influences on South Korean culture...pertaining to the proliferating rate of plastic surgery (eyelids, etc.) amongst our current generation students. Anyway, I did an internship last year at a film studio, which gave a nice glimpse into the entertainment industry and the social behaviors of the workplace environment...that's basically the epitome of my realization of wanting to pursue higher ed in Sociology.

 

My question is, am I preparing myself well? I have a 3.51 cumulative GPA, but I plan to bring this up as close to a 4.0 as possible. My major (Sociology) GPA is 4.0 thus far. I'm actually applying to the progressive degree program (BA/MA joint program) because I hope to actually work in media after graduation for a few years before applying to graduate school. With hard work, I know I can score well on the GRE...I plan to get at least a 1300. Given my interest in media sociology, which programs shall I look into? Any tips and advice? Thank you.

[sociologyinthepast]

@Darin - I'll take a crack at it. This is my perspective as someone who went straight from undergrad in a big public school, entered a competitive PhD program, completed my MA, left the program, and is currently reapplying to PhD programs. You may find some of this useful, some of this pointless and long-winded, and some of this irrelevant; I'm just brain-dumping. Assume all my words are more haphazard suggestions than anything else, but this is mostly in the vein of "things I wish someone told me."

 

 

Here's what you should prioritize:

 

- Get strong grades (you're doing that; a good GPA is always helpful to have, but it might not distinguish you from many others)

- Do as well as possible on the GREs (some programs care a lot more than others, but it's never a bad thing)

- Get some research experience with undergrad professors - if you can be a research assistant, do so, and if you can squeeze that into a co-authorship, do that too 

- Build relationships with key folks in the department who you'd like letters of rec from down the road - just be engaged, friendly, go to office hours, cultivate a professional relationship. (Again, sounds like you're already doing that. This is pretty important everywhere in academia so it's good to make sure you enjoy or at least tolerate it now.)

- Build your writing skills. Take as many taxing writing-intensive courses as you can without becoming overloaded. Being a good writer is one of the few skills that transfers across disciplines, methodologies, subfields, and departments. A good writing sample will help your application a lot. Find contests/scholarships/fellowships/other ways to test your writing in a competitive setting.

 

In terms of "mental/emotional prep," a good resource to look up if you're interested in sociology grad school is Fabio Rojas' ebook/blog post series "Grad Skool Rulz." (Posts are free to read, ebook is a little more complete/fleshed out and costs two bucks.) It's written to provide lots of "straight dope" about the do's and don'ts of the PhD, especially in the social sciences. Some of it might seem a little harsh, but it's mostly just realistic, and I wish I'd read it before I started grad school.

 

Also, in terms of preparing yourself academically, try to read a lot of work that's not necessarily the type you like. For example, you're interested in how media affects our cultural attitudes toward conformity; I'll guess that you probably read more qualitative/interpretive work vs big survey-style stuff (though I could be wrong). Even if you're a sociologist who does one thing really well, you will be expected to know what the "shape" of other subfields looks like. A key part of being a professional sociologist is being at least minimally fluent in the whole discipline. So, if you can take classes on topics that don't seem interesting at first, do so; and if you can drive yourself to read research on your downtime (like i would ever have done that in undergrad), do some of that too.

 

Also: Don't commit to a substantive area now, or even while you're applying; it's good to have defined interests, but I found that I essentially knew nothing about sociology once I actually got to grad school. Your interests are likely to change, so be prepared to be flexible. Nobody expects your dissertation topic in your first year.

 

Re: picking a school. Rankings are (mostly) supreme. A good rule of thumb is attend the most highly ranked program that you're admitted to, with full funding, and with faculty who you can see yourself working with. Don't go to a program solely because of rank if you can't see anyone there you want to work with (or if it's only one person; soc departments can be bumpy places and that faculty member might leave, go on sabbatical, or be full-up on students). And some programs with very high rankings might be bad environments for some kinds of students - i.e. could be highly competitive when you'd prefer a collaborative environment, or have very "hands-off" advising when you'd prefer to stay in touch with your advisor regularly. But in general, highly ranked programs tend to have more resources, better connections, (theoretically) better students, and reputations that will ease your applications for fellowships, grants, and other goodies.

 

(A brief caveat/aside about rankings: like many academic disciplines, sociology as an institution is fairly status-obsessed. Can you get good training outside the top 10, 20, or 35 programs? Definitely, especially when a school is known for a given subfield. Will smart, motivated students attend programs outside the top 10? Of course. Will you learn a lot anywhere you go? Sure. But at the end of the day, the job market cares about rankings a lot and a highly ranked program is almost always a leg up.)

 

In a similar vein: definitely don't go anywhere that won't fund you completely. (dunno how much research you've already done, but standard packages are full tuition plus a 15k-25k stipend for 4 or 5 years. Most are probably between 17-21k.) Grad school is headache enough without needing to worry about whether your funding will be renewed next year, and the sociology job market isn't so lucrative that you'll be able to easily pay off a PhD's worth of student loans. 

 

Hoo. Anything else, for now? That might be it. There are many others on this forum with more experience who are better able to speak to some of these issues, but I hope my thoughts are helpful. This is an awesome discipline, and academic sociology is a fascinating way to spend your career, so if you're interested then I say go for it! (You can feel free to PM with other q's, too!)

Edited February 12, 2013 by Farragoshy

[socgrad2013]

^that's good advice. Speaking as someone who also entered an extremely competitive graduate program out of undergrad, I found the most prescient bit of it to be that no one really knows what sociology is when they enter a sociology Ph.D. program. It's like doing well in undergrad calculus and wanting to pursue a math Ph.D. -- you may have shown a talent for sociology but there are so many facets of the discipline that undergrads are simply not exposed to: research for the purpose of publishing, publishing for the sake of getting a job, and trying to develop a professional/intellectual persona. All while teaching undergraduate sections for 20 hours a week. So you kind of want to consider whether these are actually the things you want to do for the rest of your life, so much so that you're willing to tolerate six to eight years of making around $20,000 a year (when other members of your undergrad class are going to making $40,000 to $60,000 as new graduates and getting raises during that time) in order to accumulate the human capital necessary to get employed afterwards. Oh, and getting a job or a Ph.D. is never guaranteed, nor is it necessarily a function of hard work and intelligence -- you have to get lucky. You have to have supportive advisors and peers who will guide you through the hoops (MA paper, qualifying exams, dissertation), you have to be strategic about who is on your dissertation committee so you get good letters of recommendation for the job market, and you have to hit the market when your speciality (media, qual methods, culture, etc.) is in demand. I knew one person who was purely unlucky in all of these dimensions (young advisor who ended up being a terrible dissertation chair, older advisor who decided to check out of his responsibilities, unpopular subfield and methodology), and is now nearing a decade in grad school. You don't want to be that person, but he didn't want to be that person either.

 

My advice is to *avoid* planning your life like you want to go to a sociology graduate program, especially if you want to work for a few years anyway. Your GPA and GRE don't matter as much as you think they do, and your interests will change much, much more than you think they will. Take advantage of the fact that you're at one of the best universities in the world, take a lot of different classes and do well at them, study abroad, work for a few years, etc... then if you still want to be a sociologist, look at who has won the ASA book/article awards in culture, migration, race & ethnicity, and so on and read their books and articles. Then apply to work with the ones you want to work with. 

[psyched_trojan2015]

I truly appreciate all the help. You all are right - I shouldn't plan my life out too specifically...at least not yet. I've been meaning to study abroad in London (LSE) for Econ and Sociology before I graduate from SC and I want to go out there in the workforce and actually experience the media industry before I apply to grad school. That's so interesting both of you felt like you didn't really know Sociology upon the start of the program...very interesting insight. 

[jmu]

Some advice from the "other" side.

 

One of my BA's is in Sociology/Anthropology, which I focused on Anthropology and only took a few (3) sociology courses. My other BA is in Geography, from the same department. Being in an interdisciplinary department means people take classes in all of the fields within it and, likewise, professors teach in all of the fields based on their sub-disciplines. A lot of the S/A students I've talked to never really had a feel for the difference between the disciplines coming from this department and neither really understood Geography, outside of the physical aspects. (Which has left people perplexed when I told them that I don't know all that much about geomorphology, which comes up a lot for some reason.)

 

Because of my ties with undergraduate student groups and my role as an unofficial undergraduate mentor, I've stayed in contact with a number of graduates from both sides and, after starting an MA or PhD in their chosen discipline, they realized that the other is actually a better fit for what they want to do and planned to change programs. In a few cases they realized that Geography was actually the right choice for them. All three disciplines are so close that training and understanding all three should really be considered.

 

Also, it may not seem like it, but you are really early on in your undergrad... I promise you that your research interests will change. That's totally normal and actually a good thing. It will not hurt your grad school chances if you have a broad understanding of the field/sub-field. You don't want to apply for grad school with really narrow interests nor do you want to shut out broader sources of information which can help you formulate ideas.

 

Sorry if these seems rambling or choppy or is otherwise not helpful...