Fata Morgana (chimerically) wrote,
Fata Morgana
chimerically

"So what?"

I got my project proposal for my social psychology class back today with less-than-glowing comments. I was hoping to carve off a piece of my ongoing research on photography and cameraphones, and proposed studying the ways in which people create identities (e.g. through constructed memories and self-representation) with photographs, narrowing my scope to those online for the purposes of a semester project. The professor responded with, "I don't think I buy 'online photo-sharing identities' as something of sociological interest. I'd encourage you not to do this project. If, however, you are really sold on it, come to my office hours and try to sell it to me." At first, I felt devastated. Why wasn't it interesting? I thought it was interesting ... I was even thinking of expand it into a master's thesis next semester. The fact that I'm getting some "so what" responses from both sides - technological and social - worries me and eats away at my self-esteem. And I just don't know enough about the fields of social psychology or science and technology studies to effectively justify my work to those audiences. But then I thought about the readings of the course, many of whose themes focused on various forms of racial and gender discrimination. Is that what he's expecting? What does he mean by "something of sociological interest?" So it's my plan to review the readings this weekend and try to formulate a rejoinder for office hours next week, and a few questions for him. We'll see how it goes.

In the late afternoon I practiced ballroom for a couple of hours. Practices the last couple of weeks have been really good - we have some new choreography and I feel like we're making headway on some technique issues our coaches have been mentioning for a while now. Tomorrow night we're competing in the Autumn Classic at the Cathedral Hill Hotel in SF, if anyone's interested. :~)
Tags: academics, berkeley, research
Subscribe

  • bee harvest

    So, as some of you know, I keep bees. Why I would interact, willingly and on a regular basis, with thousands of venomous insects may baffle you - it…

  • cat-sitting + Stanislaw Lem = awesomeness.

    cat-sitting + Stanislaw Lem = awesomeness. Originally uploaded by morganya

  • blinded with (solar panel) science!

    Our solar panel system has been running for about a year and a quarter now. One awesome thing about using Enphase microinverters (other than the fact…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    switch
    default userpic

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    Help
  • 9 comments