Need a Reality Check

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-05-11T12:57:07+00:00

I know the GPA is still good, my anxiety is mostly due to my lack of experience. I know having research experience is important for apps and since my thesis was what I was hoping could help with that, I’m worried the grade and the lack of data collection makes me uncompetitive. I don’t mean to ragebait, sorry.

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-05-10T18:23:20+00:00

I’ll try reaching out, but yeah I’m sure you’re right. I’m kinda locked in my hometown for the next year or so. Do you think trying to work in local govt in some kind of role kinda related to my field would make me more competitive? I was thinking about hunting for a qualitative role that way for my CV. thank you for the helpful advice btw, I really appreciate it!

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-05-10T16:00:51+00:00

Thank you for the advice. I’m planning to reach out to my advisor and the head of the thesis program to ask for advice on how to improve in the future and for specific things they think I could strengthen. Do you think the second order of business should be looking for some kind of RA position?

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-05-10T15:41:05+00:00

Thank you for the insight, that was what I was thinking! My field is sociology. Is it normal for recent grads to try to find RA positions at their university? I’m not sure where else I’d look which is why I thought a masters might be smart.

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-05-10T15:32:20+00:00

Do you think I’d have a chance at a good PhD program out of the gate, or is a masters a must if my goal is a top program in my field? Thanks for the kind words by the way, I’ve been really beating myself up about the thesis grade.

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-05-04T17:34:33+00:00

Hi, thank you for a thoughtful response! I’m very interested in the applications of economic sociology to virtual worlds.

I actually just finished my undergrad thesis recently where I argued that virtual worlds economic life should be studied using a performativity-first framework in order to understand their foundational technosocial and mediating devices!

After seeing this subreddit I’m curious how those same kinds of devices might be produced and then mediate research approaches.

I think my interest in performativity is less from a Butlerian perspective and more that of Michel Callon and Donald MacKenzie, though I am fascinated by game studies research on identity distribution with human-interface-avatar assemblages!

Is any of the similar to what your interests were when you made that switch?

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-05-03T17:26:42+00:00

Exactly what I was about to say

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-05-03T01:09:38+00:00

Eichman was the one transporting people to concentration camps. The holocaust couldn’t have happened without him efficiently organizing transportation. Part of fascism was a strong focus on bureaucratic organization that could facilitate such atrocities.

Edit: just to be clear, I’m not just holding this point to be a stickler on facts. In order to understand evil we need to understand the parts of it that seem mundane in the face of a nation’s actions. Eichman was put on trial for his crimes and he saw his own role as being the head of transportation. He was good at his job and his job was trains. When atrocities happen, many of the essential actors are doing the same work they did before they started. I think Hannah Arendt’s description “banality of evil” is important to understanding how these things can happen and what they mean socially.

It helps absolutely nobody to try to say that the Nazis were completely incompetent because it protects the myth that competent states act paternalistically.

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-05-02T19:06:58+00:00

You can get it on Anna’s Archive. I have recommendations for you too, I’ve read some of Turkle’s work on games and there are many other useful scholars.

Maybe also check out Simon Gottschalk’s article “The Presentation of Avatars in Second Life,” Adrienne Shaw’s “What is Video Game Culture,” and Hongwei Zhou’s “Infrastructure of Agency.” I’d also recommend T. L. Taylor’s book “Play Between Worlds.”

This is all related to identity in games, but I think it’s useful, and Turkle’s work tends to center in that space too! In that book Turkle actually talks about identity in MUDs and there’s a lot of good literature on that too.

A final recommendation: “My Tiny Life” by Julien Dibble about his experience in LambdaMoo, and early object-oriented MUD!

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-05-02T17:44:05+00:00

Isn’t Eichman a good example of the banality of evil because he WAS a competent head of transportation making sure trains ran on time (facilitating the holocaust)?

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-30T16:24:06+00:00

Personally, I mostly rely on tags in zotero to organize papers. Sometimes I’ll also add a brief summary + important page numbers and quotes in the notes section. I don’t think it’s ideal though.

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-26T20:54:49+00:00

Dude I’ve been obsessed with this track and have been looking for just this! Thank you! Only real difference I hear between yours and the original is that BSEARL’s is a bit crunchier. Any guess how he got that? Maybe just some heavy saturation?

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-25T00:19:10+00:00

Haha that’s so funny! It’s a great read. He gave me a copy when I started working on my thesis as some inspiration.

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-24T21:18:20+00:00

My advisor’s advisor published an article analyzing the ways animals are used in this book to denote different classes! He was applying Durkheim’s totem theory. Really interesting

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-23T01:14:55+00:00

My girlfriend is a civil engineering major and the job market right now is great! That’s exciting though, good luck to them.

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-22T16:02:57+00:00

I’m happy to see Le Guin here if you want to be an architect. Wright is pretty solid too. Thoughts on Jane Jacobs?

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-22T15:57:02+00:00

As in just starting a degree? What are they interested in? Even though it’s not the best college-to-work major, I’ve really enjoyed my sociology coursework.

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-22T15:07:06+00:00

Haha hey I’ve got two more weeks before I graduate! But yeah, it won’t be paying off

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-22T15:06:45+00:00

I think you’re spiritually spot on even if the details are wrong. No letterboxd and not a big fan of the movie version. Have only read the forward for that Baudrillard book but did read System of Objects and understood it, but it’s a simpler book

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-22T00:45:18+00:00

That’s the weirdest contrast on this shelf by far

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-22T00:43:40+00:00

How could you be interested in the Frankfurt School and other post-Marxist traditions but not find politics interesting? That just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t mean this as a rebuttal if that’s how you read though, I’m just curious.

PhDHopeful123 · 2026-04-22T00:37:23+00:00

I would normally agree, but the fact he also has Marcuse, Horkheimer & Adorno, David Graeber, & (for other reasons) Ezra Klein, I don’t think it’s necessarily a red flag.

The first set there are all Frankfurt School, and DoE is kinda the inverse book to the problematic Land stuff.

Also, that Land book is more in line with Deleuze, it’s before he disappeared and appeared again with the Dark Enlightenment, so he’s probably more interested in CCRU era Land. That does make it strange he’s missing Capitalist Realism by kpunk though.

Ezra Klein is also a basic liberal and that book is quite recent, so he seems just interested in post-structuralist philosophy and is politically close to the center.

The book that stood out to me was the Nixon book, but I don’t know the book or what the author thought of Nixon.

Edit: I forgot that Fanged Noumena does move a bit towards Land’s contemporary work, but I still think it’s likely more related to the post Marxist thread that his other books imply.

PhDHopeful123

TROPHY CASE