LJ Idol Open Topic: Where's your PASSION?
PSY 0035: Research Methods.
It's required for Psychology majors, and certainly not suggested to people outside the major. You have to have a few prerequisite psychology courses. I will assume, then, that if you're in this class you're relatively decided on your major.
Now, if you have ANY idea what a career in psychology entails, you know you have to do at least some research to get yourself out there. Whether it's your dissertation, a job as a research assistant, or just research for other undergraduate classes, you will encounter research, and you better know how to do it. That's not even mentioning the research you'll do in your post-graduate career.
I can only think that these fuck-faced bimbos in my Wednesday night 3 hour lab section imagine that psychology is about handing out bottles of Prozac to kids on street corners and doing outreach programs for the homeless and then writing in your blog about it.
I, personally, LOVE Research Methods. I'm currently a research assistant, and learning hands-on how incredibly relevant the skills I'm learning in class are is extremely empowering. But even without that experience, I would recognize the importance of a 4-credit writing course required for my major, and at least take it seriously! These people in my class whine incessantly about how boring this assignment is, or how much bullshit that one is, or how much they hate everything you could possibly say about the class. Really, now - why are they psych majors?
Why would you major in something that has a core, practical component that you can't stand so vehemently? Why would you waste your time struggling through a "bullshit" course that you're paying for, acting like a bored high school student in math class? How could you be so out of touch with the reality of your major that you don't feel embarrassed to look like a spoiled, ignorant piece of shit sitting there writing "research methods fucking sucks" on your desk?*
Not only do they whine and complain, they half-ass everything, too. And we do group experiments where we combine our data at the end -- REALLY great feeling to have our instructor tell us one-third of the class "probably faked their data." REALLY MATURE.
In a way, I feel bad. Here are kids who are so lost and clueless that they commit to one major long enough to get to Research Methods, and find out their passion isn't here. I guess, in a way, it's a logical place for this to happen - up until this class, you're only learning about theories and established literature that actually paints a very rosy picture of the profession, because we only see the completed end of things. Once you begin to dig into the meat of the profession -- research -- maybe, to those not paying so much attention to the "science" in "social science," maybe it becomes overwhelming and tedious.
At least one of them had the guts to say, before our professor got to class this week, "I'm reconsidering the whole psychology major thing, I didn't sign up to write papers on stupid shit like this."
I feel damn good that these people are my competition.
---
*Seriously, this is written in pencil on my desk, followed by "i SOOO agree" and "yeah lol fuck this."
It's required for Psychology majors, and certainly not suggested to people outside the major. You have to have a few prerequisite psychology courses. I will assume, then, that if you're in this class you're relatively decided on your major.
Now, if you have ANY idea what a career in psychology entails, you know you have to do at least some research to get yourself out there. Whether it's your dissertation, a job as a research assistant, or just research for other undergraduate classes, you will encounter research, and you better know how to do it. That's not even mentioning the research you'll do in your post-graduate career.
I can only think that these fuck-faced bimbos in my Wednesday night 3 hour lab section imagine that psychology is about handing out bottles of Prozac to kids on street corners and doing outreach programs for the homeless and then writing in your blog about it.
I, personally, LOVE Research Methods. I'm currently a research assistant, and learning hands-on how incredibly relevant the skills I'm learning in class are is extremely empowering. But even without that experience, I would recognize the importance of a 4-credit writing course required for my major, and at least take it seriously! These people in my class whine incessantly about how boring this assignment is, or how much bullshit that one is, or how much they hate everything you could possibly say about the class. Really, now - why are they psych majors?
Why would you major in something that has a core, practical component that you can't stand so vehemently? Why would you waste your time struggling through a "bullshit" course that you're paying for, acting like a bored high school student in math class? How could you be so out of touch with the reality of your major that you don't feel embarrassed to look like a spoiled, ignorant piece of shit sitting there writing "research methods fucking sucks" on your desk?*
Not only do they whine and complain, they half-ass everything, too. And we do group experiments where we combine our data at the end -- REALLY great feeling to have our instructor tell us one-third of the class "probably faked their data." REALLY MATURE.
In a way, I feel bad. Here are kids who are so lost and clueless that they commit to one major long enough to get to Research Methods, and find out their passion isn't here. I guess, in a way, it's a logical place for this to happen - up until this class, you're only learning about theories and established literature that actually paints a very rosy picture of the profession, because we only see the completed end of things. Once you begin to dig into the meat of the profession -- research -- maybe, to those not paying so much attention to the "science" in "social science," maybe it becomes overwhelming and tedious.
At least one of them had the guts to say, before our professor got to class this week, "I'm reconsidering the whole psychology major thing, I didn't sign up to write papers on stupid shit like this."
I feel damn good that these people are my competition.
---
*Seriously, this is written in pencil on my desk, followed by "i SOOO agree" and "yeah lol fuck this."