I will think of an appropriate topic name at some point

Haha, that’s good! Although my background in Academia has taught me to fear no Gods! I’ve gone through the review process for publications. That kind of pain and frustration cannot be replicated in any medium! I’ll try to be stylistically somewhat accessible, and refrain from too many citations. It’s a bad habit, along with my incessant need for bad segues.

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Out of interest, what do you study?

Simply put, I study what could be defined as ‘Economic Geography’. What it boils down to is just spatial dynamics of capital movement, understanding how people play a part in it, and how greater (worldly) schemas then alter these worlds.

What my work has generally revolved around is the provision of welfare, industrial development (and labour practices) in East Asia. China to be exact, but there is some amazing literature on Korea as well. I’ve also done some publications on virtual economies and manifestation of ‘real-world’ dynamics online, and how meaningful places, things etc. are made corporeal within virtual realms.

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I…was…gonna…be…an…engineer who builds stuff to benefit mankind…? If only I could make it sound so overkill…

[quote=“Valiance, post:82, topic:3754, full:true”]
If only I could make it sound so overkill[/quote]

Haha! Trust me, you learn to spin words when you do this all the time. I have my problems with it, as in general academia is pretty much, to crudely put it, a clear ‘circlejerk’. A part of it is the inaccessible vernacular of academia. Much like lawyers (I know many), there’s a culture of teaching “how to speak and write like an academia/lawyer”. Once you get the hang of it, you’re in the club. I’d prefer simplified writing, but alas, that doesn’t get published as readily.

Whilst the first part is definitely interesting, my areas of interest don’t lie within China / South-east Asia so I can’t comment on those at all!

This however interests me greatly.

If you wouldn’t mind could you point me in the direction of some of your publications? You can private message me if you’d prefer?

Here, let me discuss this point of mine in 1 maybe 2 but probably 3 paragraphs, and at the end succintly summarise what it is I’m actually saying in 10 or less words.

“Twas a day when I was still a lad - I dreamt of creating machines of devious creativity, I thus vowed to join the league or engineers, and to learn secrets that would drive the normal man mad. I built contraptions of a great complexity - my works did all my tasks.” Though I’d but my low knowledge of Old English to use. Meh.

As of now the work I’ve done on this is limited greatly by the fact that there isn’t a wide publication interest in this. I have a big piece coming up in February (to which I can link you later when it does), and the second one is still a work-in-progress, as I’m most certainly not happy with it. I can definitely give you something to read on the topic, or give you some sections of papers that I’ve written to take a look at! Do keep in mind that these are all heavily geographical in their literature, and so it can be a bit frustrating at times! There’s certainly something interesting to be said about the functions of virtual worlds in relation to real ones, but sadly academia has turned its back on a lot of it. There’s only one guy in Kentucky who’s managed to make a career out of it. For me, these are hobby pieces I started when I was in my undergraduate. Only now did I find the time and the interest to actually make something of the topic!

I’m more than happy to partake in this conversation! I have a lot of frustrations with it (within the constraints of it still being my job, which I love).

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Come to the dark side my friend. Come to Sociology.

We’ll treat you kindly, we’ll provide you shelter.

I’m currently writing my undergrad dissertation, and whilst the topic you stated isn’t exactly the same there are definitely crossover elements of interest to me so it would be of interest to see how you are approaching things (even if it is heavily geographical).

[quote=“Geoffers747, post:87, topic:3754”]
Come to the dark side my friend. Come to Sociology.[/quote]

Haha, trust me, it’s not as dark there as you think! Some of my good friends in academia are in sociology, and you’ll be happy to know, I cite many sociologists in my work! I minored in sociology during my undergrad, and continued to work with a lot of people in the area since then. Trust me, we’re not as different as you think. I can rant about disciplinary identity crisis all day long. There’s nothing inherently geographical in my work; it’s all the same in social sciences. We just have little buzz words and certain authors that we relentlessly cite to seem like we’re a part of something distinct. and great.

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Europeans… Born Scholars aren’t they?

The traditions we have in Europe have definitely helped form it I think.

I also think we should move all of these into a separate thread :slight_smile:

best thread title… evar

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Ya, it lured me in :shit:

Nah, I wouldn’t say that it’s a matter of birth. However, schooling tends to have a lot more room for “creative” work, both in essay writing and in competing most of your assignments. I for one was always terrible with exams (still am, I’m sure) and so I was given written assignments and presentations to help cover my losses. NA schooling tends to be more concerned with standardized testing and horribly rigid competitiveness. Such things are indeed present in (what loosely could be defined as) ‘European’ schooling. This varies by country, but certainly is ingrained in some of the thought processes and overall mindsets for how one should learn, what to learn and how it should be evaluated, if at all.

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