Your CIOS file request: COMGRADS hotline item

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Received:  by CIOS Mailer; Thursday 10 Jun 1999 10:16:34
Date:          Thu, 10 Jun 99 10:02 -0400
To: "Multiple recipients of COMGRADS" 
From: rs7  at uakron.edu
Subject:       Re: Too Quiet!

Hi Jen & y'all:

[Jen wrote:]
        

>My problem is
>that I am interested in everything, well, not everything, but a vast area
>of stuff.  I've come with about 5 topics in the last month that I think
>would be cool to do.   Will I just wake up one day and say Ah Ha!
>(no >reference to
>one-hit wonder Swedish band intended).  Or, is there some systematic way
>of figuring this out.

I think Lisa's suggestion to "follow your heart" ("Trust the force, Luke" -
sorry, succumbed to Star Wars hype) is a good one. Is there a topic for
which you have more than an "intellectual" interest? If you could do this
project for your own curiosity, without any strings or rewards (such as a
degree) attached to it, which topic would you pick?

(Now, concerns of relevance, utility, 'fit' with your coursework and
program, and so on will ultimately need to be considered and addressed, but
it seems to me that these will come about as the research questions, theory
and methods are refined.)

I don't think there is a "systematic way" of selecting that is the same for
all people. I did my studies at U of I in Urbana-Champaign. I was kicking
around topics a bit as I was taking coursework. I began to question when I
had become comfortable refering to myself as a 'graduate student' and then
a 'speech com graduate student' (I had come to grad school 8 years after
the undergrad.) I wondered about the development of membership and
self-identification with a group. I was taking a language acquisition
course and a sociology of scientific knowledge course that semester. The
two courses 'clicked;' I decided to investigate the acquisition and
pragmatic use of discourse for graduate science students as they moved
toward membership within a scientific community (such as a life sciences
lab). I couldn't call this a "systematic" process, nor was it quite an "Ah
ha" experience, but the topic felt comfortable for me -- an important
consideration since you will be facing it each day for an extended period
of time.

Re: taking classes when your coursework is done. I too wanted to continue
taking classes, partly because, as you say, "there is so much out there
that I still don't know." But realistically, you can't know it all; you
have to be selective in your knowledge-gathering and trust that what you do
know is sufficient for beginning the undertaking of your interests. (If it
weren't sufficient, the faculty would have told you long ago.) I ended up
sitting in on a couple of classes; they were helpful. But my time was more
valuably spent preparing and undertaking my own research (and time can be a
precious commodity). And consider as well: the dissertation, its planning
and execution, is as valuable a learning experience as any class.

Well, I've gone on long enough; sorry! (But hey - it's summertime and the
typing is easy...) Hope it was of some use for you.

Cheers,
Bob

Robert C. Swieringa, Ph. D.
Visiting Instructor
School of Communication
University of Akron
108 Kolbe Hall
Akron, OH 44325

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