just got into grad school

[PhillyB]

two years ago i decided to go back to school and earn a bachelors degree in anthropology, adding on to the BA i hold in history. it's been an insane two years, juggling classes with working 60 hours a week and raising a kid. a lengthy application process led to a letter in the mail this morning, an acceptance letter admitting me to the anthropology masters program at UNC Charlotte.

 

this is the thread where i brag about it. it's unbelievably exciting and i'm freaking pumped to be in charlotte a couple days a week.

[thefuzz]

Cool.

 

Now what will you do with it?

[PhillyB]

if i find my niche i'll go on and get a phd, but i'm not going to do it just for its own sake. i am a huge proponent of the community college system and i originally set a masters degree as a goal for the specific purpose of teaching at that level (which an MA will allow me to do; you generally need a doctorate to teach at the university level.)

 

i'm setting myself up to be able to teach full time at an institution while writing on the side and running the phillyb cult commune i'm trying to start

[SmokinwithWilly]

 

i'm setting myself up to be able to teach full time at an institution while writing on the side and running the phillyb cult commune i'm trying to start

 What flavor Kool-Aid will you be serving at your resort?

[frash.exe]

Yeeeaaaaa buddy

[thefuzz]

if i find my niche i'll go on and get a phd, but i'm not going to do it just for its own sake. i am a huge proponent of the community college system and i originally set a masters degree as a goal for the specific purpose of teaching at that level (which an MA will allow me to do; you generally need a doctorate to teach at the university level.)

 

i'm setting myself up to be able to teach full time at an institution while writing on the side and running the phillyb cult commune i'm trying to start

 

Gotcha.

 

I have always had a bit of an issue with folks who go to school just to go.

 

Racking up huge debt, and getting so specialized that you can't find a job doesn't seem like a very good plan.

[Happy Panther]

What's the difference between anthropology and sociology?

 

[PhillyB]

Gotcha.

 

I have always had a bit of an issue with folks who go to school just to go.

 

Racking up huge debt, and getting so specialized that you can't find a job doesn't seem like a very good plan.

 

part of me bucks against this thinking. i'm a huge advocate of higher education and i think pursuing an education for its own value is noble, useful, and incredibly important to maintain an educated society. i would never discourage anyone from going to college "because you don't need a college degree" or any such propaganda that seems to get passed around from particular sources with such frequency.

 

that said, if you want to get an education for the sake of an education, there is zero reason to go drop a hundred grand in students loans without any real plan to go pay it back with a job you land. despite the fact that i'm confident i will land a job very quickly after graduation, i'm still paying less than 15k for my degree, and i'm paying cash for the entire thing. this, and utilizing the community college system, is far and away the smartest way to go.

[thefuzz]

part of me bucks against this thinking. i'm a huge advocate of higher education and i think pursuing an education for its own value is noble, useful, and incredibly important to maintain an educated society. i would never discourage anyone from going to college "because you don't need a college degree" or any such propaganda that seems to get passed around from particular sources with such frequency.

 

that said, if you want to get an education for the sake of an education, there is zero reason to go drop a hundred grand in students loans without any real plan to go pay it back with a job you land. despite the fact that i'm confident i will land a job very quickly after graduation, i'm still paying less than 15k for my degree, and i'm paying cash for the entire thing. this, and utilizing the community college system, is far and away the smartest way to go.

 

Agreed.

 

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be educated, just that going to extremely expensive private schools, while earning your masters in 16th century Italian art is probably not a very good life choice.

[PhillyB]

What's the difference between anthropology and sociology?

 

both are human sciences, and as such they have a ton of overlap, but historically anthropology has always concerned itself with the "other" by attempting to understand things people do in different places. anthropology tends to study culture - the things people do, believe, wear, eat, think, contemporarily and historically - through the holistic lenses of biology, culture, language, and archaeology. social formations are only a fragment (granted a large one) of anthropology as a discipline, whereas sociology is wholly concerned with it. in that sense, sociology could be considered a subset of anthropology, which is a much larger umbrella.

[PhillyB]

Agreed.

 

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be educated, just that going to extremely expensive private schools, while earning your masters in 16th century Italian art is probably not a very good life choice.

 

yep. although at the same time i would argue that in an ideal society everyone would be educated, but a fully educated society would still need trash collectors and pizza delivery drivers and cash register operators, so while a utilitarian approach to fields of study sounds practical, i think it lends itself to abandonment of important humanities studies absolutely critical to a functioning society (a la pat mccrory's infamous deemphasis of them there ***** studies or whatever) which is ultimately detrimental.

 

so if you get a degree in art history and end up working at starbucks, the difference between that being a success and a failure is how much you spent on the degree. if you dropped 80k at a private university then yes, you're a dumbass. if you spent a couple grand at local community college for core courses and then an inexpensive state university system then you're an educated person with a job and functioning as a contributing member of society.

 

this is one of the reasons i am dismayed to see the incredible shrinking of the middle class we've observed in the last 20-30 years, and the incredible gap between productivity and wages since then, as well as the massive inflation of compensation for upper economic echelons and relative stasis of compensation for the lower ones. among other things it leads to the educational utilitarianism i referenced above.

[Happy Panther]

interesting stuff

[Anybodyhome]

Congrats, man.

 

My wife went back and got her MBA at the age of 40 (it was either that or flying lessons... seriously) and she teaches as an adjunct at a couple CCs when she's in the slower season at work.

[The Saltman]

Awesome bro. I'm going back to finish my bachelors with a 40 Hr a week job and two kids. Wish me luck and give me some pointers.