On September 07 2013 10:40 stuneedsfood wrote: Almost everybody, this thread included, gets a Ph.D to validate they're otherwise meaningless existence and to give them a higher position to shit on those with less education than themselves.
Or to teach at the university level, where a doctorate is preferred by many colleges... >.>
Teaching at a university level is basically meaningless. Academia's no different from a circus at heart. In fact, it's probably worse due to all the bureaucratic and political bullshit you have to put up with.
It's a dream for the people who make it though. People pay me to entertain myself and them with esoteric knowledge that nobody really cares about? Hell yeah!
I agree with you about how there is a ton of political bullshit that prevents educators from being as successful as possible... but teaching- at any level- is never meaningless.
On September 07 2013 10:40 stuneedsfood wrote: Almost everybody, this thread included, gets a Ph.D to validate they're otherwise meaningless existence and to give them a higher position to shit on those with less education than themselves.
When you're done, try to be less of a dick than most others who get one. Knowing a shit-ton about some stupidly precise subject does not make you as special as you think, and your precious discoveries are not going to be of any use, to anyone, ever. It just makes you feel good about yourself.
I have a Ph.D.
No. People get PhDs to sleep with undergrads.
sounds good to me, when does this start
I'm going to continue to believe that political science is a training camp for technocratic overlords and electoral puppetmasters, because nothing called 'political science' can be a real field, the whole term just reeks of ideology :p
On September 07 2013 10:40 stuneedsfood wrote: Almost everybody, this thread included, gets a Ph.D to validate they're otherwise meaningless existence and to give them a higher position to shit on those with less education than themselves.
Or to teach at the university level, where a doctorate is preferred by many colleges... >.>
Teaching at a university level is basically meaningless. Academia's no different from a circus at heart. In fact, it's probably worse due to all the bureaucratic and political bullshit you have to put up with.
It's a dream for the people who make it though. People pay me to entertain myself and them with esoteric knowledge that nobody really cares about? Hell yeah!
I agree with you about how there is a ton of political bullshit that prevents educators from being as successful as possible... but teaching- at any level- is never meaningless.
At the university level, that will depend on the perceived value of your field/subject, your teaching (which will suffer from all sorts of factors depending on which school you end up at), and your students' receptiveness. Chances are one of those will go wrong.
I do think that we need better educators in secondary education in the USA, but there's such a stigma attached to becoming a high/middle school teacher (reflected in salary) that the job is most often delegated to second-rate teachers who don't know their subjects and/or can't teach, while all the more knowledgeable and/or better educators traipse off to becoming professors, where they ultimately have less of an impact on a student's development.
On September 07 2013 10:40 stuneedsfood wrote: Almost everybody, this thread included, gets a Ph.D to validate they're otherwise meaningless existence and to give them a higher position to shit on those with less education than themselves.
When you're done, try to be less of a dick than most others who get one. Knowing a shit-ton about some stupidly precise subject does not make you as special as you think, and your precious discoveries are not going to be of any use, to anyone, ever. It just makes you feel good about yourself.
I have a Ph.D.
No. People get PhDs to sleep with undergrads.
sounds good to me, when does this start
I'm going to continue to believe that political science is a training camp for technocratic overlords and electoral puppetmasters, because nothing called 'political science' can be a real field, the whole term just reeks of ideology :p
That's a bad, complacent attitude to have for a PhD student jsyk.
if they would rename their field I might care less. If I rename my field 'meaning of life science' will I get more respect? It's just stupid.
and I really do have a grudge against pollsters and election strategists, and I think that this aspect of political science is the undoing of democracy
the more you calculate your democracy, the less democracy there is. This paradox is inscribed in the very name 'political science'. That's why I hate it. If they want to say they are studying political philosophy, or governance, fine. But 'political science'? Ick
edit: I also think economics a bullshit field full of inbred ideologues. Does that also make me a bad phd student?
edit: also, babylon, you've already made self-denigrating jokes in this thread. Lots of people hurl opprobrium at humanists and everyone thinks it is funny because humanists don't study things that are 'real'. But the reality is that what you do is far more valuable than any 'political scientist'. Why should we be expected to diss ourselves for our 'esoteric' fields of study (which is bs btw) while the reified ideologues pat themselves on the back for their 'hardheaded pragmatism' and everyone plays along?
On September 07 2013 10:40 stuneedsfood wrote: Almost everybody, this thread included, gets a Ph.D to validate they're otherwise meaningless existence and to give them a higher position to shit on those with less education than themselves.
Or to teach at the university level, where a doctorate is preferred by many colleges... >.>
Teaching at a university level is basically meaningless. Academia's no different from a circus at heart. In fact, it's probably worse due to all the bureaucratic and political bullshit you have to put up with.
It's a dream for the people who make it though. People pay me to entertain myself and them with esoteric knowledge that nobody really cares about? Hell yeah!
I agree with you about how there is a ton of political bullshit that prevents educators from being as successful as possible... but teaching- at any level- is never meaningless.
At the university level, that will depend on the perceived value of your field/subject, your teaching (which will suffer from all sorts of factors depending on which school you end up at), and your students' receptiveness. Chances are one of those will go wrong.
I do think that we need better educators in secondary education in the USA, but there's such a stigma attached to becoming a high/middle school teacher (reflected in salary) that the job is most often delegated to second-rate teachers who don't know their subjects and/or can't teach, while all the more knowledgeable and/or better educators traipse off to becoming professors, where they ultimately have less of an impact on a student's development.
I think it's even worse at the secondary level than in university. It's certainly harder to teach in high school, although you may have more of an impact than with older students. There is even more political bullshit at the high school level, where teachers need to bend over backwards for any ignorant parent or any student who doesn't take school seriously... not to mention standardized testing. And then after all of those hoops are jumped through and eggshells are walked on, every teacher (regardless of level and field) has to consider general points like teaching, student receptiveness, and how valuable your curriculum will be to your students.
But either way, the teaching profession is definitely the Rodney Dangerfield job of the United States.
I would love to teach high school if I could teach what I wanted, say dangerous things, burn the standardized tests, and be respected as one of the only actually useful members of society (which is what teachers are).
edit: oh, and also have some time to pursue research
On September 08 2013 02:07 Count9 wrote: So many ppl from my school go for masters/phd cause they couldn't line up a job straight out of college. The "well, couldn't find a job, might as apply for grad school" mentality is quite huge here. (and getting into a masters program is impossible to fail, some phd programs are more selective but isn't too difficult)
I can vouch for this. I have quite a number of PhD student fellows who couldn't have possibly found a job after their master (because... they're not competent in anything, harshly yet simply put). So they ended up "doing research". Wonderful researchers indeed.
As someone who actually does a PhD, I can state with utmost certainty that the majority of the claims in this thread are false and highly subjective.
Just because you did a study in some loser field noone cares about doesn't mean all the work being done in University is 'meaningless'. Nor is the fact that you are talentless an implication for the supposed fact that a PhD student can not make a real contribution to anything. And if you haven't even had any experience with doing research you most likely won't know what you are talking about.
I've seen numerous cases of people around me making actual contributions to both science and the real world, from creating optimization frameworks for all kinds of processes in industry to cancer treatment.
Seriously this petty Universities are political entities bla bla nonsense needs to stop. It's worse than those idiots that claim going to school is pointless and you might as well read stuff yourself on wikipedia. [/rant]
On September 08 2013 03:35 sam!zdat wrote: if they would rename their field I might care less. If I rename my field 'meaning of life science' will I get more respect? It's just stupid.
and I really do have a grudge against pollsters and election strategists, and I think that this aspect of political science is the undoing of democracy
the more you calculate your democracy, the less democracy there is. This paradox is inscribed in the very name 'political science'. That's why I hate it. If they want to say they are studying political philosophy, or governance, fine. But 'political science'? Ick
edit: I also think economics a bullshit field full of inbred ideologues. Does that also make me a bad phd student?
edit: also, babylon, you've already made self-denigrating jokes in this thread. Lots of people hurl opprobrium at humanists and everyone thinks it is funny because humanists don't study things that are 'real'. But the reality is that what you do is far more valuable than any 'political scientist'. Why should we be expected to diss ourselves for our 'esoteric' fields of study (which is bs btw) while the reified ideologues pat themselves on the back for their 'hardheaded pragmatism' and everyone plays along?
you are doing a phd in economics? is that what I get from your post here?
so far in this thread people have thought that I hate the humanities and am studying economics. I must be communicating even more poorly than usual
edit: for the record, I'm an insufferable troll and I don't actually think that either economics or 'political science' are completely bullshit. But I do think they are much more ideological and not nearly as 'scientific' as their adherents would like everyone to believe.
edit: and I do passionately resent the fact that I have voted in two presidential elections and neither time has my vote mattered, even theoretically, and I blame this on 'political science'. And 'political science' views politics as a system to be objectively administered and calculated, rather than as what it actually is, which is the battlefield of class struggle.
On September 08 2013 10:43 sam!zdat wrote: so far in this thread people have thought that I hate the humanities and am studying economics. I must be communicating even more poorly than usual
edit: for the record, I'm an insufferable troll and I don't actually think that either economics or 'political science' are completely bullshit. But I do think they are much more ideological and not nearly as 'scientific' as their adherents would like everyone to believe.
edit: and I do passionately resent the fact that I have voted in two presidential elections and neither time has my vote mattered, even theoretically, and I blame this on 'political science'. And 'political science' views politics as a system to be objectively administered and calculated, rather than as what it actually is, which is the battlefield of class struggle.
I thought it was pretty clear your comments on humanities implied you're an insider. From your 'meaning of life science' comment I'd guess Philosophy, but from what you usually post I'd guess Geography.
On September 08 2013 10:43 sam!zdat wrote: so far in this thread people have thought that I hate the humanities and am studying economics. I must be communicating even more poorly than usual
edit: for the record, I'm an insufferable troll and I don't actually think that either economics or 'political science' are completely bullshit. But I do think they are much more ideological and not nearly as 'scientific' as their adherents would like everyone to believe.
edit: and I do passionately resent the fact that I have voted in two presidential elections and neither time has my vote mattered, even theoretically, and I blame this on 'political science'. And 'political science' views politics as a system to be objectively administered and calculated, rather than as what it actually is, which is the battlefield of class struggle.
I thought it was pretty clear your comments on humanities implied you're an insider. From your 'meaning of life science' comment I'd guess Philosophy, but from what you usually post I'd guess Geography.
Sam's not always the clearest poster, but he really couldn't have telegraphed his sarcasm in that post any more strongly. It was obviously meant to parody anti-humanities thinking.
edit: assuming the post that started all the original "sam hates humanities" talk was this:
On September 07 2013 01:40 sam!zdat wrote: yes yes, we know, our entire field is useless and we should just become scientists because the only knowledge worth having is scientific knowledge. If you can't express it quantitatively, it simply is not worth knowing
On September 07 2013 10:40 stuneedsfood wrote: Almost everybody, this thread included, gets a Ph.D to validate they're otherwise meaningless existence and to give them a higher position to shit on those with less education than themselves.
When you're done, try to be less of a dick than most others who get one. Knowing a shit-ton about some stupidly precise subject does not make you as special as you think, and your precious discoveries are not going to be of any use, to anyone, ever. It just makes you feel good about yourself.
I have a Ph.D.
No. People get PhDs to sleep with undergrads.
sounds good to me, when does this start
I'm going to continue to believe that political science is a training camp for technocratic overlords and electoral puppetmasters, because nothing called 'political science' can be a real field, the whole term just reeks of ideology :p
what's wrong with reeking of ideology? if you're hiding your ideology, you're evil. and you can never escape ideology after all.
edit: my field is literature but I take that as an excuse to study whatever the hell I want because literature is about the world and the world is everything. In other words I'm a dilettante
On September 08 2013 12:28 sam!zdat wrote: ha! Caught at my own game
it's just the wrong ideology, is the problem
edit: my field is literature but I take that as an excuse to study whatever the hell I want because literature is about the world and the world is everything. In other words I'm a dilettante
On September 08 2013 12:28 sam!zdat wrote: ha! Caught at my own game
it's just the wrong ideology, is the problem
edit: my field is literature but I take that as an excuse to study whatever the hell I want because literature is about the world and the world is everything. In other words I'm a dilettante
On September 08 2013 12:28 sam!zdat wrote: ha! Caught at my own game
it's just the wrong ideology, is the problem
edit: my field is literature but I take that as an excuse to study whatever the hell I want because literature is about the world and the world is everything. In other words I'm a dilettante
EPT
