What's your research?

[katalytik]

A lot of us have an idea of what others are doing here for their grad school research.

What are you guys going to do if you get into your first choice? How about a quick idea in a few words what you guys are going to do? It seems we've got the gamut of academia represented here...

Me: I'm in healthcare and my interest is in information technology and how it will impact health reform in this country. I want to do stuff like cost-effectiveness studies etc. on health information technology. My ideal place is Harvard because the school hospitals are real pioneers in the field, and the faculty is really interested in this arena. Doesn't hurt to have the Harvard name on my resume either!

[anxiousapplicant]

at this point I swear I don't even have any research plans. i feel like I don't know enough to even have questions, let alone have a way of going about answering them. But I am into political theory and philosophy. I would like to study Kant or Nietzsche or Heidegger. I am interested in the way people talk about politics. But like I said, i feel so ignorant that all I can do is read and learn, not come up with stuff. Hopefully I can remedy this soon.

[rising_star]

A similar thread is here:

[grad_wannabe]

Ooh this is interesting!

I work through video, installation and performance in an effort to better understand the way that narrative structures affect how we form memories and, by extension, how we build our own identities. I want to explore how technology and story-telling intertwine to affect the way we formulate our very selves.

[APHI224]

Right now I am doing an undergraduate independent research project on students' perceptions of crime on campus and their opinions on certain punitive justice policies. I have written my proposal and survey and am planning on fielding it when I get back to school in a week. I can't wait to see everyones responses it should be fun!

[Summit_Bid]

I'm obsessed with tween girl stuff: Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez etc. especially Disney channel. Kinda embarrassing I know. It was fun writing my SOP and talking about my connection to Hannah Montana.

Anyways, I like looking at the changing roles of teen and tween girls in TV and Movies. I especially like looking at the the types of roles they played in the late 80's/early 90's and comparing them to the rolls of today. Basically girls are portrayed in more career oriented/power roles than they were before. The same is happening in movies but at a slower rate I think. comparing the TV side the movie side is fun.

I can't wait to start my PhD and not feel guilty watching the Disney channel-hey, in my case that's considered research.

[katalytik]

Man, this is so cool! Wow, you guys have such cool ideas and diverse interests.........just nothing i am ever exposed to!

[poli90]

My main research interest is (currently) to look at Kant and Hegel's reactions to the French Revolution, and what that says about the relationship between the Enlightenment/modernity and the French Revolution more broadly, as well as specific theoretical issues such as the faith in progress/teleological view of history that is supposedly endemic to Enlightenment thought. I'm more generally interested in modern political thought and contemporary democratic theory and political theory. I like reading Hobbes, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Arendt, Foucault, Frankfurt School writers, Habermas...

[Serric]

I'm interested in three areas of neuroscience: neural stem cells, viral vector-mediated gene transfer (in regards to stem cells and therapies), and synaptic plasticity/development.

I've always been interested in how the brain could be induced to regenerate, and how all the myriad synaptic connections form to make 'us'. I love studying and trying to understand human nature, and I feel this path is one of the purest I could take on the road to that knowledge.

[starfish]

I'm interested in exploring the use of the human figure in pre-World War I European modern art. As artists strove toward abstraction in some facets of their work, how and why did they continue to use the human body? I'm curious about the ways this use of the body is inflected with political ideology such as social Darwinism, a Victorian-influenced gendered understanding of the body and contemporary concepts of a universal visual iconography available to artists through formal abstraction.

[Sparky]

Hell.

[tarski]

Hell.

Yar, I can do one-word too .

Thoughts.

[piccgeek]

You all sound so FOCUSED. I'm envious. Right now in my literature studies I'm primarily interested in looking at the cultural scripts that underlie late eighteenth century and early Victorian novels, and I'm particularly interested in two things: the genderization of the scripts, and how the everchanging technology and evolving philosophies of science (Pasteur up to Darwin...ish. Like I said, not that focused) shaped and effected cultural ideas about humanity, humanity's place in the world, and particularly the many manifold ways science was used to explain/define gender and gender relationships. At least, that's what I'm doing today. Tomorrow, it might be something different. That's the beauty of a master's program...no need to commit quite yet.

If I get into the science writing program (and that's a big if) I will be completely switching gears. My proposed research project has to do with hearing loss young adults, how it happens and what's being done to fix it. There's been some fascinating breakthrough research in the biology and audiology departments at my current school on the particular molecular reasons for hearing loss, and potential treatments or even cures for several previously uncurable hearing-loss conditions, including tinnitus. I'd actually be able to use some of my UG studies in linguistics and audiology for this project, so even though it's a total change of pace, I would not be completely lost. Theoretically.

[jacib]

Yar, I can do one-word too .

Thoughts.

Secularism.

[Zamis]

Can't do one word, but I can do a few:

Sensory perception in the Middle Ages (especially smell)

[piccgeek]

Can't do one word, but I can do a few:

Sensory perception in the Middle Ages (especially smell)

I'm not gonna lie, I would hate to have to smell the Middle Ages. My nose is glad I live in the twenty-first century.

[tarski]

Can't do one word, but I can do a few:

Sensory perception in the Middle Ages (especially smell)

I just did some quick reading about that and it looks very interesting! Unfortunately my medieval experience is limited to an essay Chalmers wrote about Ockham's mental language (my interests in thoughts).

[Zamis]

I'm not gonna lie, I would hate to have to smell the Middle Ages. My nose is glad I live in the twenty-first century.

Ah, but if you got the chance to smell the body of a saint who died in the odor of sanctity, you might think differently. Supposedly, it would have smelled like roses, or honey, or incense...mmmm...

[Sparky]

Can't do one word, but I can do a few:

Sensory perception in the Middle Ages (especially smell)

How about just:

Smell.

[tskinner]

I'm interested in conflict and cooperation between countries. Why war happens happens...why it doesn't happen...what steps to states take to prevent it that are effective (or ineffective)...how/why/when do states stop war when they are already in it...etc.