(no subject)
I'm getting really restless and bored with my life. I'm already missing school and dreading spending a year or two not making any progress towards my real career. I'm also at a total loss as to what I ought to pursue in grad school. I know what I'm interested in: civil liberties, citizen vs. state, power politics in government, political rhetoric, propaganda, etc. But I don't know what discipline will get me where I want to go. Political science is pretty quantitative, and although some political scientists do field work, I'm not sure I'll get the interdisciplinary-ness and freedom that comes with anthropological field work. Plus I've already made so much progress networking and getting involved in the anthropology community, it'd really be a pain to start all over with a different major. Especially trying to do all that schmoozing in grad school.
However...no one pays attention to anthropology. No one reads it but anthropology students. I don't want to spend my life researching things that I feel are extremely important and that everyone should be more aware of, only to have no impact on anything but some whiny college students' GPAs. Political scientists are a lot more prominent, respected, and heeded. But political science also doesn't get below the surface very often. I want to break down political institutions and reveal them for what they are--people. The State Department is not a faceless institution, it's a group of people with a culture all their own. They hate the CIA (another group of people with their own dynamics and practices), who hates them in return, and the resulting effects on foreign policy and especially the war in Iraq are costing lives. That's what I find compelling, and that's what anthropology is good at.
Unfortunately, there's hardly anyone studying anything current in anthropology. It's all too obscure, too outdated, or too academic. I've found four people at four universities I can study under and that's it. I don't know what kind of support I'll get in this field. Cultural anthropologists also have very lax procedures for...uhh...proving their claims. I feel like (and a lot of people seem to agree) that cultural anthropology is often just mental masturbation for its practitioners. I think I can do my own research with integrity and purpose, regardless of what my colleagues do, but I really don't want to be irrelevant. That's my biggest fear. I'm not content just being a stuffy academic. I want my research to have some impact.
Annnnd the worst part is, I have no idea how to figure this stuff out.
However...no one pays attention to anthropology. No one reads it but anthropology students. I don't want to spend my life researching things that I feel are extremely important and that everyone should be more aware of, only to have no impact on anything but some whiny college students' GPAs. Political scientists are a lot more prominent, respected, and heeded. But political science also doesn't get below the surface very often. I want to break down political institutions and reveal them for what they are--people. The State Department is not a faceless institution, it's a group of people with a culture all their own. They hate the CIA (another group of people with their own dynamics and practices), who hates them in return, and the resulting effects on foreign policy and especially the war in Iraq are costing lives. That's what I find compelling, and that's what anthropology is good at.
Unfortunately, there's hardly anyone studying anything current in anthropology. It's all too obscure, too outdated, or too academic. I've found four people at four universities I can study under and that's it. I don't know what kind of support I'll get in this field. Cultural anthropologists also have very lax procedures for...uhh...proving their claims. I feel like (and a lot of people seem to agree) that cultural anthropology is often just mental masturbation for its practitioners. I think I can do my own research with integrity and purpose, regardless of what my colleagues do, but I really don't want to be irrelevant. That's my biggest fear. I'm not content just being a stuffy academic. I want my research to have some impact.
Annnnd the worst part is, I have no idea how to figure this stuff out.