What I Hate About Academia: Part II
Okay, so maybe this isn't so much about 'academia' as an aggregate, but it certainly does concern what I hate about one class I'm taking within the academic context: STATS. Fuck stats.
And no, I don't hate it for the typical undergraduate reason of 'it's soooooooo hard.' The thing is, it's actually not that hard! My problem with it is that it represents everything from my undergraduate experience that I thought I'd checked at the grad school door.
For example, when I left my BA, I thought I'd finished having to regurgitate 'black-boxed' knowledge (if you can call it that) on an exam. But alas, we now have to know "you use this for that, but don't worry about why. Just answer it." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.....that'll really help me on the test, particularly when we're asked to explain why we're using it, 'cause no doubt we will be asked to if the first test was any indication. While this might be good enough for some, I simply don't have the ability to understand sociological concepts PARTIALLY; I need to know WHY I use them, and when I use them. Context counts, dammit! Why don't quantitative people realize this??!!?!??!?! Sociology is NOT about memorization, at least not in my books. Especially not at the M.A. or PhD. level.
And about those exams: Why the fuck do they have to have a multiple choice component? That's another thing I thought I left in the great land of 400 person geography and geology lectures. There's like 14 people in the class, so making us circle boxes is just fucking lazy. Further, I always fuck up on multiple choice, and I'll bet a survey of my class would tell you that the majority of classmates feel the same way about the first test: if they lost marks at all, that's probably where it happened. All m/c questions at this level do is test your ability to take a test.
Oh, and another thing about it: we're actually expected to complete labs on material we've never learned! Am I taking crazy pills, or is this just about the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? Labs are supposed to be about PRACTICE, and in my many years of 'practice' experience (I did do 16 years of piano, after all), you PRACTICE WHAT YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN TAUGHT!!!! This is theoretically equivalent to telling my 4th grade piano students to go home and learn ARCT-level Chopin nocturnes with absolutely no knowledge of romantic music and related techniques, and then getting pissed when they don't 'try.' Needless to say, I wouldn't, 'cause I'd recognize that it's a complete waste of both my time and theirs. And this is exactly what the last 3 weeks has been, which is just fantastic, considering that the last three weeks comprise the basis of next Friday's test.
And perhaps most importantly: if it hasn't been done by about 109e0483045703485734875 other researchers in about 20934802875938475038457 other boring journals, you can't even DO stats, 'cause you wouldn't know about what "theoretically relevant variables to include." And of course you couldn't go and try to figure it out without extant literature, 'cause that would be the big statistical 'no no' of data mining.... So, any original, exciting, or current analysis is precluded from even being examined in this quantitative fashion, confirming what I've always thought: STATS ARE USELESS, unless of course your main goal as a sociologist is to replicate the tired old regression analyses that other sociologists have already been producing since the mid 70's.
My conclusion: when it comes to stats, it's all been done. So why can't we just be done with it?
And no, I don't hate it for the typical undergraduate reason of 'it's soooooooo hard.' The thing is, it's actually not that hard! My problem with it is that it represents everything from my undergraduate experience that I thought I'd checked at the grad school door.
For example, when I left my BA, I thought I'd finished having to regurgitate 'black-boxed' knowledge (if you can call it that) on an exam. But alas, we now have to know "you use this for that, but don't worry about why. Just answer it." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.....that'll really help me on the test, particularly when we're asked to explain why we're using it, 'cause no doubt we will be asked to if the first test was any indication. While this might be good enough for some, I simply don't have the ability to understand sociological concepts PARTIALLY; I need to know WHY I use them, and when I use them. Context counts, dammit! Why don't quantitative people realize this??!!?!??!?! Sociology is NOT about memorization, at least not in my books. Especially not at the M.A. or PhD. level.
And about those exams: Why the fuck do they have to have a multiple choice component? That's another thing I thought I left in the great land of 400 person geography and geology lectures. There's like 14 people in the class, so making us circle boxes is just fucking lazy. Further, I always fuck up on multiple choice, and I'll bet a survey of my class would tell you that the majority of classmates feel the same way about the first test: if they lost marks at all, that's probably where it happened. All m/c questions at this level do is test your ability to take a test.
Oh, and another thing about it: we're actually expected to complete labs on material we've never learned! Am I taking crazy pills, or is this just about the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? Labs are supposed to be about PRACTICE, and in my many years of 'practice' experience (I did do 16 years of piano, after all), you PRACTICE WHAT YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN TAUGHT!!!! This is theoretically equivalent to telling my 4th grade piano students to go home and learn ARCT-level Chopin nocturnes with absolutely no knowledge of romantic music and related techniques, and then getting pissed when they don't 'try.' Needless to say, I wouldn't, 'cause I'd recognize that it's a complete waste of both my time and theirs. And this is exactly what the last 3 weeks has been, which is just fantastic, considering that the last three weeks comprise the basis of next Friday's test.
And perhaps most importantly: if it hasn't been done by about 109e0483045703485734875 other researchers in about 20934802875938475038457 other boring journals, you can't even DO stats, 'cause you wouldn't know about what "theoretically relevant variables to include." And of course you couldn't go and try to figure it out without extant literature, 'cause that would be the big statistical 'no no' of data mining.... So, any original, exciting, or current analysis is precluded from even being examined in this quantitative fashion, confirming what I've always thought: STATS ARE USELESS, unless of course your main goal as a sociologist is to replicate the tired old regression analyses that other sociologists have already been producing since the mid 70's.
My conclusion: when it comes to stats, it's all been done. So why can't we just be done with it?
posted by Soci Womyn at 3:56 PM
1 Comments:
Ya ya ya. FUCK STATS! FUCK exams at the graduate level...PERIOD! FUCK 6 hours of class time per week! FUCK the end of term project which will be guesswork for the most part!
When I think of how great my life would be right now if I didnt have to deal with this garbage which I am FORCED to take and which I will NEVER use again...EVER...well, I cant even imagine it to be honest.
Quanti sociology is a dead horse! Quit beating it and move on. I can make stats say anything I want them to say. Sociology is not "science", stop pretending that it is. We don't need to be competing with the damn economists or hard sciences. That war is over. Compte's project of "knowing in order to predict, predicting in order to control" is TOAST. Kant's enlightenment project is TOAST. Popper's scientific penis envy is TOAST. Get over it.
The front of our war now is facing the journalists and media in general...a war that will be fought with words, not numbers.
In taking some liberties with the lyrics of the great Bob Dylan...I sing...
Come quantitative sociologists throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your graduate students are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend a hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
God that felt good!!!
Now excuse me while I go back to the hell that is my current stats assignment.
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