What are you studying and why?

[red_crayons]

I haven't posted here yet, and I probably should.

I'm applying to science journalism/communications/writing Master's programs. And, science and technology studies PhD program at a school I already know well, where the department is closely linked to the communications department, and some of the faculty stress community involvement and actual on-the-ground public communication of science as a necessary part of graduate student life.

I was a biology major, with a minor in French and a second almost-minor in linguistics. I like talking and thinking about science more than doing it, so this seems like a logical move.

As far as what I want to write about, that's a long story. Food and agriculture, mostly.

I grew up in a community of organic farmers. I worked in a lab researching organic cultural techniques. I DON'T like Michael Pollan-style organic advocacy, because he's perpetuating the "supermarket pastoral" myth that he villainizes in his writing. But it's important that someone's gotten the media and public to pay attention to non-"conventional" agriculture. I'm interested in trying to be more honest to the public about how the research process affects what people know about food, the relationship between food and health, and how people market these things. I'd like to drive home the idea that correlation does not equal causation when it comes to health, but that's so tricky, it's a tough distinction for most people...

My elevator speech.

[Matilda_Tone]

History- mostly 18^th and 19^th century British and Irish politics.

And I have to give an honest/lame “why”: Because it is fun, I’m obsessed, and I love writing about things I find interesting.

[sometimesiexist]

What: Philosophy-Continental, specifically speech, language, and power dynamics, specifically as it relates to moral/ethical and political philosophy.

Why: Who knows? For some reason I decided my life was best spent talking about the power dynamics and ethical relations of persons and others in public contexts. I guess since high school I've been interested in "individuals" and how they interact, what makes them individuals, and what disqualifies others. I have a specific interest in those marginalized from public speech communities, and why we should (morally) try to include them. I think this is kind of an expression of my feminism (and my own marginalization at times). I also go weak in the knees for phenomenology, I could read it all the time. Generally, I want to teach in philosophy, I think it's relevant and useful for a number of reasons and applications to the so-called 'real world'. I had a few teachers and professors who made it seem that way for me, and I want to be a part of that.

[Jennszoo]

Undergrad: Business Mgmt

Grad: Applying to speech/lang pathology prpgrams

Why? Because business bores me ( ) and since having children (one of whom is special needs) I want a career with flexibility and something more interesting than sitting in a cube farm for 9 hrs a day. I would love to work in a school while my children are school aged so I can have summers off with them to travel the world. I also have dreams of creating low cost social skills groups/camps for autistic children, since all of the ones I know of are so damn expensive, normal middle/working class families have no chance to afford them (low income folks get stuff covered by medicaid, rich folks can pay for it, everyone else gets kind of squeezed out in the middle since private insurance sucks for therapies, camps and such). So once I have the skills as an SLP, I plan to do a lot of volunteering my time. (yeah, it sounds bad to volunteer for the middle class, eh? )