Advisers not able to help with Grad School questions.

[Disaprovingrabbit]

Hard to work for a company you quit without giving 2 weeks notice though.. but I see your point. God I wish I had been born 50 years ago when the world still made sense. 

 

 

Honestly, I'm not sure why I believed my adviser and came here in the first place. Everything else they have told has been a lie, so their saying asking this question here would help shouldn't have been surprising that it wasn't. Plenty of you have been super friendly and helpful, but all things told it was a waste of my time and yours for me to ask this question. They pawned me off on you because they couldn't be assed dealing with my blowup/meltdown in their office when they admitted to lying to me for 3 years. And that is exactly what it has been, lying. Nothing about taking on a second major has done anything except run up my student loan debt. I haven't learned anything, my undergrad IA classes might as well have been regurgitated wikipedia articles. If I have to recover what realism or the prisoner's dilemma is I will puke. They screwed me out of thousands of dollars, a year of my life, and there isn't anything I can do about it. 

 

 

Thank you to those of your who offered genuine help, but this clearly isn't the place I need to be seeking advice. 

Edited March 10, 2015 by Disaprovingrabbit

[kaykaykay]

Hard to work for a company you quit without giving 2 weeks notice though.. but I see your point. God I wish I had been born 50 years ago when the world still made sense. 

 

LOL you are a very bad troll. Time of the Vietnam War and Martin Luther King Jr. Those were the times ... and that is just America.  Btw have you thought about joining the army / the police / firefighters or some related field? It seems like a well respected job, great hierarchy , many respect for willing and able people, and also I am sure they needed in your town or city.

 

 

I am also not seeing why you think your professors were lying when you are getting the same advice here. ...

Maybe they were telling the truth but you fail to see/ accept it?  (btw having meltdowns in offices is very counter productive, if you need to cry/yell do it in private and then engage in normal conversation-  I was on both ends of this)

 

also do not forget that you got the names of some universities here that may do what you want to specialize in. if you want to go down this path go read and contact the people who wrote your favorite articles (if none of them are alive you are in a bit of trouble).  they will be more help for you than this forum.

Edited March 10, 2015 by kaykaykay

[cooperstreet]

Yes, but I refuse to work long hours, sacrifice sleep, or social life. I'm not a slave, and I refuse to be treated as such. If that requires drastic measures so be it. 

Then don't get a PhD. Case closed.

[mb712]

You've flat out admitted you don't want to work hard or be bothered to live somewhere that might not be sunshine and rainbows. Your professors weren't lying to you, you just didn't want to listen when things weren't being handed to you on a silver platter. Maybe they even sent you here because you weren't listening to them.

Go get a retail job so you only work 40hrs/wk and if you want to stay employed, don't be so open about how you think your social life is more important than your job. It might help to think about how you say things and who your audience is more in general. You just came to a place where people want to work insane hours, do quant work, probably go into academia, and have done nothing but sacrifice things to prepare for grad school and you basically said "I think I'm too good to have to work hard or take a class I might not love, and obviously I'll never sacrifice anything in order to get a job." How exactly did you think you were going to be received?

[thepinkdragon76]

Wow. Just wow. Someone needs a dose of humility. You've got to be more flexible if you want to make it in this world, which means doing things you hate: like taking boring or mind strangling pre-requisites, or using methods you dislike. When I got my BA in Mass Comm, at the end of the program I was so disgusted with Journalism practices I decided not to become a journalist. I was a Poli Sci secondary also, but the math got in the way too. So I chose a different path. My real passion is helping people, so I'm applying for a Master in Social Work. Undergrad study prepares you for many things, not just the discipline you chose to follow. Figure out what it is you really want to do and then formulate a plan to make it happen. If need be dumb it down and write lists of your interests and dis interests and see what programs/jobs fit. No one is going to tell you what you want to hear, they tell you the harsh reality. No offense but I think you need to really sit down and think things through and reflect on all that has been said. My opinion of course.

[Pol]

"I suck at quant therefor it is shit"

 

Cool. Good luck in grad school if you get in.

[Eigen]

This thread is already fast devolving, but I wanted to put in this piece of general advice:

 

There's a difference between being able to do something capably and deciding you don't want to do it, and deciding you don't even want to learn how. 

 

Having skillsets that you are capable of using, but decide you don't want to use in your research for defined reasons can be fine- you know what you do and don't want to study, and what the utility is. If you don't have those skillets, no one will take you seriously when you say you don't want to use them or they aren't useful, because it comes across like you just don't have the right background/don't know enough to know they'd be useful. 

[esotericish]

Then don't get a PhD. Case closed.

 

Or have basically any decent paying job, ever.

[NYCBluenose]

I don't like the way the OP has overreacted in this thread, and I certainly don't approve of some of his comments. That said, I generally think that most people on this thread need to understand the context in which qualitatively-oriented people are operating. And that is being told that our approach has no place in the discipline. This is something that the quantitatively-inclined will never hear in their careers.

 

Quantitative methods can absolutely be useful for a huge variety of questions, and have a valuable place in political science. I would never dispute that. But when you hear comments to the effect that even a mixed-methods dissertation 'sends off the wrong signals', and that qualitative dissertations belong in sociology or the humanities, we've gone way too far in the direction of conformist groupthink. How can we read the work of giants like Peter Hall, Paul Pierson, Theda Skocpol, and Alexander Wendt (to name only a few) and then casually say that qualitative work is not political science?

So try to view people's frustrations in context: they feel like they're being pushed out.      

Edited March 10, 2015 by NYCBluenose

[Pol]

I don't like the way the OP has overreacted in this thread, and I certainly don't approve of some of his comments. That said, I generally think that most people on this thread need to understand the context in which qualitatively-oriented people are operating. And that is being told that our approach has no place in the discipline. This is something that the quantitatively-inclined will never hear in their careers.

 

Quantitative methods can absolutely be useful for a huge variety of questions, and have a valuable place in political science. I would never dispute that. But when you hear comments to the effect that even a mixed-methods dissertation 'sends off the wrong signals', and that qualitative dissertations belong in sociology or the humanities, we've gone way too far in the direction of conformist groupthink. How can we read the work of giants like Peter Hall, Paul Pierson, Theda Skocpol, and Alexander Wendt (to name only a few) and then casually say that qualitative work is not political science?

So try to view people's frustrations in context: they feel like they're being pushed out.      

 

This might be true of America, but my personal experience is that it is the opposite elsewhere. You would not believe the number of qualitative researchers that told me that quant is useless and brings nothing to political science.

[kaykaykay]

I don't like the way the OP has overreacted in this thread, and I certainly don't approve of some of his comments. That said, I generally think that most people on this thread need to understand the context in which qualitatively-oriented people are operating. And that is being told that our approach has no place in the discipline. This is something that the quantitatively-inclined will never hear in their careers.

 

In Canada quantitative people are basically shunned. So if you chose your country/ department  differently this is the other way around. OP does not want to do that. (see all the posts above)

[NYCBluenose]

That was never the case at the well-known Continental European university where I did my MA, and it didn't seem like it was at the UK schools I applied to either. But to the extent that quantitative people are deliberately marginalized in Canada or elsewhere, that's just as stupid. Pluralism makes the discipline stronger, not exclusionary groupthink (be it quantitative or qualitative).

 

Just one example. Constructivism makes rational choice stronger, by forcing it to address the weaknesses of some of its core assumptions (subjectivity of interests, importance of non-material interests). Similarly, rational choice makes constructivism stronger, by forcing it to specify and operationalize 'ideas' as an analytical concept, and consider the links between ideas and material interests. 

Edited March 10, 2015 by NYCBluenose

[cooperstreet]

I don't like the way the OP has overreacted in this thread, and I certainly don't approve of some of his comments. That said, I generally think that most people on this thread need to understand the context in which qualitatively-oriented people are operating. And that is being told that our approach has no place in the discipline. This is something that the quantitatively-inclined will never hear in their careers.

 

Quantitative methods can absolutely be useful for a huge variety of questions, and have a valuable place in political science. I would never dispute that. But when you hear comments to the effect that even a mixed-methods dissertation 'sends off the wrong signals', and that qualitative dissertations belong in sociology or the humanities, we've gone way too far in the direction of conformist groupthink. How can we read the work of giants like Peter Hall, Paul Pierson, Theda Skocpol, and Alexander Wendt (to name only a few) and then casually say that qualitative work is not political science?

So try to view people's frustrations in context: they feel like they're being pushed out.      

FWIW, I've never heard anyone say this, ever.

[Pol]

FWIW, I've never heard anyone say this, ever.

 

Well I mean, you're probably aware of Political Analysis 2006 symposium special issue; the whole Brady, Collier, Seawright VS Beck, Benett on the topic of causal inference. Or, to a lesser extent, KKV pushing a "quant mindset" on qualitative research and RSI pretty much saying "that's not how we operate". (I'm operating from memory here, slightly caricaturing)

 

Quants claiming causal inference can't be achieved through qualitative research does happen.

 

On the other hand, I'm in Canada and what kaykaykay is saying echoes my experience.

[cooperstreet]

 

 

Quants claiming causal inference can't be achieved through qualitative research does happen.

 

Which is entirely different than the content of the post I was responding to.

[NYCBluenose]

Is it entirely different, cooperstreet? It's not exactly a wild flight of fancy. People who claim causal inference as the core mission of political science, and assert that only quantitative research can lead to causal inference delegitimize alternate approaches, sometimes implicitly, and sometimes explicitly.   

Edited March 10, 2015 by NYCBluenose

[cooperstreet]

People dismiss all sorts of methods for causal inference all of the time. Its part and parcel of using a method. Do people who think that the Rubin causal model is wrong and isn't useful for causal inference mean that they are in effect saying that whoever uses the model model belongs in a different discipline? What about if I point out that someone's model's errors are serially correlated and therefore its misspecified, does that delegitimize and marginalize them? No, of course not. Criticism of a method is not criticism of a person.

[Pol]

People dismiss all sorts of methods for causal inference all of the time. Its part and parcel of using a method. Do people who think that the Rubin causal model is wrong and isn't useful for causal inference mean that they are in effect saying that whoever uses the model model belongs in a different discipline? What about if I point out that someone's model's errors are serially correlated and therefore its misspecified, does that delegitimize and marginalize them? No, of course not. Criticism of a method is not criticism of a person.

 

Because pointing out a model is misspecified is the same as saying qualitative research can't achieve causal inference. Right.

[cooperstreet]

Pointing out a model is misspecified means that it can't reliably be used for causal inference. My point is that saying something can't be used for causal inference is not a harsh criticism and certainly doesn't mean that someone is not legitimate, should be in the humanities, or is not political science.

[alphazeta]

This has turned into a rather nasty back and forth, but perhaps the following will be helpful.

 

1) Different people use different research methods.  Take a look at the TRIP data (https://trip.wm.edu/reports/2014/rp_2014/index.php) and you'll notice that in the United States only about a quarter of scholars use quantitative methods as their primary approach.  It's certainly not true that American IR is overrun by number crunchers, although it's certainly true that far more than a quarter of younger scholars and scholars at top departments use statistical analysis heavily.  If, on the other hand, you find that what you wish to do is totally divorced from the work you see occurring in American political science departments, then you might rethink whether or not you actually want to be in a field where, in your own estimate, your approach is unwelcome.  It's another story if you would like to live and work in the UK/Canada/Australia for the rest of your career, but be forewarned that the American job market is much larger, so deciding that you would like to spend a career overseas is risky.

 

2) While quantitative methods are not hegemonic, you'll certainly find that ignorance about them in not acceptable in the field.  Students are expected to go through a year or two of training to learn the approach.  The early years of graduate school involve broadening your horizons before you narrow down into something specific, and frankly undergraduates are rarely in a position to judge what parts of this will prove useful (or not).  

 

3) If you try to pick where to go to school on the basis of methodology, you're doing it wrong.  People who succeed in this field are interested in questions, and find the tool that let's them answer the interesting questions.  That's why it's so important to have many tools in your toolbox and not to enter the process overwhelmed with preconceptions.  Look for programs where there are scholars working on the kinds of questions that you interest you and developing answer to them that you find compelling (or at least interesting).  If you end up not ever using quantitative methods, it won't put you outside the mainstream and it won't kill you if you spent some unpleasant hours in graduate school on problem sets.

[Disaprovingrabbit]

I just want to be completely clear here. I *never* approached my professors and adviser with the idea that I wanted to go to grad school, at first, I approached them for suggestions of what to do after I completed my undergrad career was over and *they* suggested I pursue graduate school, and *they* urged me to pursue graduate school. The more research I did the more I realized I was being guided into methodologies that I didn't want to pursue, that *I* didn't see any value in, (not that they had no inherent value) and then was quickly written up as being problematic by the self same faculty because I refused to see it from their perspective and jump on board. I stand by what I said, if they didn't want me to view qualitative and constructivist work as valid they shouldn't have introduced me to it. It's not my fault that they erected a strawman to tear down and I found more value in it than in their outdated realism and poverty propagating neo-liberalism. So they suggested I come here to gain some valuable insight, since I wouldn't quit with the idea that if I was going to Grad school it was going to be at a school that would have a program that would be in line with what I wanted to study.  And yes, I am tired of being told that I don't have a future in this field because I choose to not make use of their chosen methodology (btw, I don't suck at Quant, I got an A in stat, both my quant heavy science courses, and my quant heavy sociology course, I just don't like applying those methods to people) and they don't like it. 

I've been told in this thread that I'm wrong for not wanting to do something I see no value in, I've been told I'm wrong for wanting to maintain human dignity, I've been told I'm wrong for wanting to study what I want to study, I've been told I need to leave my own country to study it, which I find even more frustrating because it will infer an enormous personal cost on me, even though I've been flat out told that I have no future in this field without a grad degree. So what exactly am I expected to do? If I go to school for what they feel I should, I won't enjoy it, and I won't do well at  it because as you all state, it's a tremendous sacrifice. But I think I've started to understand what was meant by that, It doesn't really matter where I go, I was being told by my faculty and adviser that I have no future in the field unless I do exactly what they do. Well I stand by what I said before, I don't want to go to grad school, I've followed the advice of some previous posters and looked into the government affairs page and I think if anything some of those terminal degrees would be more what I need. You've all convinced me it isn't the right path for me, well done you. But you're telling me the exact opposite of what all of my faculty are telling me. I have no idea what to believe anymore, I'm even more confused now than I was when I came here. The amount of hostility that is clearly present here astounds me. So you know what? I realize this was a huge mistake and I'm gone. 

[Pol]

OMG an A in undergrad stats? Wow. You know all there is to know about quant and research.

 

On a serious note, what we're telling you is to stop being so narrow minded. As it was rightfully pointed out you need to know the tools before discarding them.

 

Pointing out a model is misspecified means that it can't reliably be used for causal inference. My point is that saying something can't be used for causal inference is not a harsh criticism and certainly doesn't mean that someone is not legitimate, should be in the humanities, or is not political science.

 

Comparing a whole range of approaches (qual) to the misuse of single model is inadequate. An adequate comparison would be somebody saying you can't use any form of modelling as it can't be used for causal inference. 

Edited March 11, 2015 by Pol

[Disaprovingrabbit]

I know the tools and I reject them. People aren't numbers and can't be modeled by numbers. Talk about narrow minded. End of story. I may not have letters behind my name, but last I checked in the US, no one respects scientists anyway or we wouldn't be struggling with dealing with climate change. You want me to respect you? Fat chance. 

 

I love how, at first it's that I'm stupid, and now that I've shown I'm not stupid and I do understand the methods, that's still not good enough. Go fuck yourself.  None of you care about teaching the paying customers who are paying your tuition, you all think your research is more important. I can't wait till MOOCs put you all out on the streets. You're service providers, and you're antiquated. The CS kids have decided to destroy all our futures for quick cash, and if you think you will last much longer than the dreaded humanities you're fooling yourselves. the more reliance you put into quant, the more easily a computer can do your job for you, and the more replaceable you make yourselves. 

Edited March 11, 2015 by Disaprovingrabbit

[gr22]

 And unfortunately while I know how to do some of that type of thing, though my school, for all it pushes Quant, doesn't offer a single undergrad Quant class in any of it's social science departments.. you just have to take it in the Stats department which requires you to have a whole host of pre-reqs like Calc and CS. 

 

 

 I suppose now is as good a time as any to mention the reason my GPA is a 3.74 but my majors are 4.0's is because I failed a math class, so taking more is likely to result in similar grades and is the reason I haven't taken the GRE yet

 

 

btw, I don't suck at Quant, I got an A in stat, both my quant heavy science courses, and my quant heavy sociology course, I just don't like applying those methods to people

 

 

I know the tools and I reject them. 

[cooperstreet]

I know the tools and I reject them. 

 

You are an undergrad. You don't know the statistical methods that researchers in political science use. You may know what they are, but you don't know how to properly use them. That's fine, I can't imagine any undergrad knowing them.

 

 

 the more reliance you put into quant, the more easily a computer can do your job for you, and the more replaceable you make yourselves. 

More evidence you don't know what you are talking about.