Hello, and welcome to retrieving the social sciences, a production of the Center for Social Science scholarship. I'm your host, Ian Anson, Associate Professor of Political Science here at UMBC. On today's show, as always, we'll be hearing from UMBC faculty, students, visiting speakers and community partners about the social science research they've been performing in recent times. qualitative, quantitative, applied empirical normative, and retrieving the social sciences. We bring the best of UMBC social science community to you. One of the true joys in life, at least in my humble opinion, is taking a kid to a baseball game. Kids barely watch the game, of course, unless they're really destined to become one of those baseball super fans, you know, the type, I'm sure. But anyway, kids are generally in it for the food, the gimmicks, we've been innings singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. And well, you know, just the pageantry of it all. My wife and I took our daughter to her very first baseball game last year, and I gotta say it was a blast. She was, of course, way too young to appreciate the action, just around a year old. But we found that she was delighted most of all to engage in people watching. If you did the math, just now you probably realize that our daughter was born in 2021, when COVID restrictions were still in full swing. By the time we felt comfortable taking her to the baseball game, it's possible she had only seen a few dozen different people in her whole life. So you can imagine the tiny thoughts running through your head. Who are all these people? What are they like? How are they different? How are they similar? What makes them do the things they do? And think the things they think?
You know, I love that notion because it speaks to the fact that we're all natural born sociologists. Everyone who's ever engaged in a little people watching has asked themselves similar questions. But how do we get the answers? That's where the modern field of sociology comes in, and to help us understand the approaches, tools, questions and findings of this important field. Today, I'm delighted to bring you a show devoted to UMBC is applied sociology master's program. This program emphasizes the practical side of sociology and the acquisition of analytical skills to prepare students for employment in many professional settings, including public and private organizations involved in social research, social policy and program development. We'll hear from RB Brower and Jayla gray Thomas, who are current students in the program will also hear from alumni, including ferrea Khalid research and data analyst within the United States House of Representatives Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and Perry Gill Christ, a research assistant at Westat. Not only that, but we'll also hear from Dr. Brandy Wallace, associate professor in the UMBC, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and public health. And Dr. Christine Mayer, Associate Professor of Sociology and Gerontology in the same department. We'll learn from each of these guests about the UMBC applied sociology master's program, its focus areas and its strengths, and the research happening there right now. Let's listen in first to my conversation with Dr. Wallace and Mayer.
All right, today, I have the absolute pleasure to welcome two guest to the podcast both involved in the sociology master's program that we are talking about today. We have Dr. Brandy Wallace here and Dr. Christine Mair, to both of you. I'm really, really grateful for your time grateful that you're here to talk a little bit about this program. So thanks very much for your
Thanks for having us.
Absolutely. So I want to jump right in. But obviously, we're talking about this program a little bit in general, but I want to get to know you all as well. And I was wondering, maybe we'll just start with Dr. Wallace just to sort of flip a coin here. Maybe tell us first of all, just a little bit about what your area of research is in the discipline and what you've been working on lately.
Alright, so I kind of started with doing research on quality of life in senior housing settings, so assisted livings and nursing homes CCRC so these continuing care retirement communities and really looking at the the residents quality of care as well as the workers quality of care. And then then kind of over time my work shifted to really, you know, being interested in kind of general populace of older adults and looking at their chronic disease management strategies. So Do that health care, focus, but really looking at kind of the understanding of their diagnoses and how they manage strategies and in managing their their illnesses. And then also still kind of keeping that healthcare worker focus, looking at physicians and their quality of life. So my most recent project, I've been doing interviews with black women in the physician workforce, I'm really looking at their educational trajectory, and also career trajectory. So how they are, you know, how they have a, you know, went from kind of medical school to now practicing, and, you know, really looking at the strategies for success and well being within that population. Wow, that's
super interesting, super important research, obviously. And I can't imagine how much more interesting and also maybe in some cases worrying, it's been to study that kind of pipeline in the sort of COVID era that must be dimension to this research that certainly is perhaps eyebrow raising, perhaps even maybe hair raising in certain respects, right. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. So Dr. Mayer, if you wouldn't mind telling us a little bit about your current research?
Yeah, well, similar to Dr. Wallace, I study older adults and older populations. My area of specialty in school was family relationships and global social change. So globalization and global comparative work. So for you know, earlier in my, over the last 10 years, I've looked at family relationships, and also neighborhood social environments, both in the United States and across different countries looking at how do we promote, essentially, how does the promotion of a strong social environment impact and promote health as a protective factor, but the key to this is that it's really variant. And it's not that every single person, of course, has the same sort of needs in this way. And there's a lot of cultural differences, a lot of regional differences, differences across rural urban areas, gender, or sex, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status. So thinking about how we can look at the social environment through like a contextualized lens to see well, for these groups, we see that these things are particularly effective in promoting mental health or helping to buffer some of the negative effects of stress from the environment. So I've done a little bit of work with that in Baltimore City, we have some work, we're looking at the physical and the social neighborhood environments, and cardiovascular health inequities by race ethnicity in the city. And then another part of my work that I've been doing for a little while is looking cross nationally. So comparing across different global regions, looking at cultural differences across the entire globe, one of the things that we're most interested in now is looking at some of the big demographic changes that are occurring. So fertility is declining across the globe, in every single region of the globe, and family relationships are changing. So people are adapting in different ways to create support systems. But we aren't necessarily measuring all of that and figuring out how they're adapting, and figuring out what the needs and the gaps are. So if you are, for example, an older adult who doesn't have children in Denmark versus an older or older adult who doesn't have children in South Korea, your options are going to be really different, and what kinds of needs to people have, as they get older, what are the kind of role of government policy in terms of trying to promote a supportive environment to try to make as positive of an effect on the aging process and our mental and physical health as we can.
Wow, so Dr. Mair thank you also for summarizing your research for us as well. And I'm just my mind is reeling here thinking about all of the different themes that are emerging across these two strands of research and the sort of macro and micro sort of aspects of how sociological sociological research in itself can lead to so many insights that are vital for communities, both at the large scale or small scale. Wow, there's a lot going on here that wish that we had time for, you know, three or four podcast episodes. I think Dr. Wallace actually where we're gonna have to have both of you back on at some point to talk about these research strands. Because I my interest is certainly piqued and hopefully some listeners who are also interested in sociology, maybe getting involved perhaps in studying Sociology at the next level, are also having their interest piqued by this discussion. So we'll have to put a pin in that for now, because I want to transition slightly to talking about the sociology applied master's program, which is the subject of today's episode. And I was wondering if you both wouldn't mind telling me just a little bit about the program kind of highlights maybe some of the current developments that you see happening in that program, from your perspective, obviously, as faculty who are working with students in the program.
So the applied master's program has been at UMBC for quite some time. It's changed a lot over the years. When Dr. Wallace and I both got here which was overturned. years ago now, it was had a different grad director of some different curriculum, we like to adapt the program to the curriculum of the faculty who are here. So there's been a, you know, a process of always wanting to every faculty member designs a course, for example, or takes over a course that's in there really close to their area of expertise as an elective. So a student that comes to that program will have the opportunity to take a course specific to the expertise of each of us. Some of us study aging, some of us don't, they study crime and social networks, you know, all different types of topics. So there's a wide variety. And we have some new hires that have some really exciting work, looking at romantic and sexual behavior at HBCUs, and all kinds of different things that are at work, both qualitative and quantitative. So we hire in mind with keeping sort of a really interesting range of methods and topics for our students, and then adapting the curriculum to that. One of the main focuses of the program, and one of the reasons it's called applied, we have a couple of different certificates in the program, but we focus in a terminal master's program, one of the goals is to be able to go out and get a job being a sociologist. And what does that take? Right? Typically, it takes a master's very often, you know, the bachelor's degree is a bachelor's degree is a nice sort of starting point for an overarching sort of experience in sociology. But to really get a career job as a sociologist, we always say the master's degree is sort of the sweet spot of that the most number of jobs are available for master's degree, or more so than there are the PhD or the bachelors level. So it's a really, we really, you know, feel passionately about the program as a as a job placement, master's program as well. So the students get training in a couple of different things, they could work in nonprofits afterwards, they could work for the government, doing data analysis, or doing qualitative analysis for any of these types of organizations. So it has a heavy methodological emphasis in terms of quantitative and qualitative training, and also has a heavy applied emphasis in that we're always talking about policy implications, program development, and that tends to be a focus of the courses, even if it's a more theoretical elective, their final project needs to be oriented towards identifying policy gaps, identifying potential program solutions to some of the problems that we're discussing. And so that's something that we really try to cultivate in our students for the program.
And I'll piggyback on what Dr. Mair said, in in thinking about, you know, we want our students to get out and get jobs as sociologists, right. But most job openings aren't going to read sociologists needed, right. So we equip them with the skills, right, it's about having this kind of tool set toolkit, you know, of, of, you know, skills, and knowledge is that they can use in the, you know, in the profession. So, it's, it's that training piece that that Dr. Mayer was talking about, that's so important that we try to cultivate,
yeah, Dr. Wallace. So what kind of methodological skills maybe are you teaching your students in your specialized courses?
So in my courses, we are usually looking at DEI. So we do a lot with intersectionality, black feminist thought. So, you know, some of the other theoretical perspectives that don't necessarily get cut as deeply covered in, for example, theory, the theory course, right. So just equipping students with a way of thinking about communities that are often underrepresented in research, or have been historically excluded, or have been looked at in a way that is pathologized. So that we sent her the experiences of marginalized groups so that they go from from margin to center. So with black feminist thought, looking at, you know, black women, for example, and centering the experiences of black women, as opposed to this kind of comparative lens, where, you know, other groups are used as, or majority groups are used as the rule of thumb, right. So thinking differently, we like to say, right, so that's one of the ways that I, you know, like to get my students to thinking about some of these issues, that if you're going to go into the community, and talk to talk to people, about their experiences, that you you know, that you are willing to listen and that you are not doing this kind of, you know, top down approach, right, that you're really looking at them giving you the knowledge of their experience and then you learning from them, you know, based on their insight or knowledge of, you know, of a community that you know, likely don't have, you know, all The information on so you're trying to gather information, and that you're really listening to the folks that you say you want to learn about.
Wow, this sounds like a really valuable take on sort of the qualitative toolkit that is so important across the social sciences. And I'm so glad that your students are getting that insight. So they'll be able to apply that hopefully to whatever careers they pursue. Dr. Mayer, are you involved in qualitative research? Are there other dimensions that you're mostly using in your work or teaching?
I am woefully under trained in qualitative research. problematically overtrained in class?
Yeah, I always, you know, when we have quantitative or qualitative scholars on the podcast, I always, you know, think about how, how interesting and how much fun I would have if I were to have more skills in these methodologies. So maybe I'll audit one of your classes at some point, Dr. Wallace, but it's actually very good. Tell us a bit about this, this quantitative focus?
Yeah, well, in sociology, you know, I know different social science disciplines have their variety. Sociology is really a mixture of qualitative and quantitative and, and everything in between, that's the heart of the identity of sociology. So it is such a pleasure to be able to be amongst curriculum and faculty that are all trained to these really, really different dynamic ways because we can, it's great to be able to train the students in that even if we as individuals don't, we don't always get the breadth of it. When we went to school, it wasn't as emphasized that wasn't required in the same way to have this variety of mythological training. So that's something that we try to offer to our students, in terms of the program, qualitative and quantitative. So my my expertise is in publicly available secondary datasets. So that's what we work on primarily in the program is to, and that's not always the case, we also apply this to what do you do if you're working for a nonprofit? And you have a data set and an Excel spreadsheet of their of their clients that you need to analyze? Like, you know, how do you get that into software? How do you get that cleaned up in a way that you can present and in create some effective presentations and data visualizations for them. So we work on this on smaller datasets as well. But one of the goals is to try to show them this breadth of data that might be available already publicly, in different formats. Or if they're already working in the job, they can, you know, if they have the permission of their organization, they can analyze that data, for example, for their projects. So we teach them some of the basics of you know, the, you know, descriptive univariant and sort of multi variable analysis so that they feel able to go out there and do this kind of work. One of the things that's great about many of the data repositories that are available is that they can find data, we show them how to find data on these topics that might be interesting to them. And increasingly, there's there's secondary, publicly available data on really underrepresented groups, underrepresented countries. So within the last three years, finally, there's a really great national representative data set on people who identify as transgender and with lots of detailed questions for them, for example, which is, you know, there's always a lag data lag in terms of what society is doing, and what we have available publicly for data. So being able to show students how they can go out and find these datasets, how they can download them onto their computer, pull them into the software, start to run statistics on them, and be able to make generalizations about the US population, or another country or a global population, we really aim to empower them. A lot of students may be intimidated by statistics, maybe intimidated by large datasets, but this is something that everybody is able to do and learn. So we show them in a way that that tries to bring it to where they were their understanding is where they left off maybe with algebra, right and, and how we move that into syntax and show them how to, to do that. And hopefully make them feel empowered to be social researchers where they can go out and have a question, they can go out and get data on it and find an answer when they need to. So that's one of our goals with the with the quantitative training as well.
Well, I mean, it's super heartening to think that, you know, these different approaches are sometimes cast, I think, in opposition to one another, at least when you're getting into a grad program. And you're thinking about specializing, and it seems from what you're describing this program does not view those tools as being in any way in opposition. And that rather, you've really got to have some, you know, deep understanding of have multiple skill sets like this to be able to function effectively to answer pressing questions about society, right? What we do is actually really hard, isn't it?
We do not endorse the divisions. I mean, our department is interdisciplinary. So it's sociology, anthropology, and public health. The public health is a little more quantitative, but also some qualitative anthropology, very more qualitative kind of emphasis. And so we have all faculty that do all types and do both. And that's a big part of what we feel is extremely important in academia.
And students are able to work with sort of multiple faculty members across those distinctions. Is that right?
Absolutely. In fact, our qualitative classes has been taught by an anthropologist. Well, previously it was taught by Dr. Kevin Eckert and then after he retired, Dr. Sarah chard took it on. And they're both medical anthropologists. So it's been really wonderful to have them, you know, taking offering those courses. That's fantastic.
I want to ask another question just about the program in general. And that's just sort of about its current trajectory. Are there any sort of current developments, things that are happening, or maybe happening in the future that you're particularly excited about?
Well, we've been adding some new classes with our new hire. So we are excited about that. We have a brand new faculty member, Dr. Mercedes Dunn, who is going to be teaching a grad class, for the first time, I believe this fall, we have a retirement and so she's stepping into a couple of those slots, and then also will be preparing a graduate level elective. She's been teaching an undergrad elective on body and society, which draws heavily on black feminist theory and thinking about health. And she has her MPH, so her master's in public health and her PhD in sociology. So she has, you know, the whole, a perfect example of kind of what we want to have in our program. So she'll be offering some new courses in the coming years. And we're really excited about that. We're also hiring in sociology this fall. So we'll be having an additional faculty member, methods, methodology, methodological focus unknown, we'll have to see what you know what the pool looks like. But we'll be having some some brand new faculty, and we also are always continuing to develop new courses ourselves.
That's fantastic. And longtime listeners of the podcast will actually recall an episode that we did a little while back with Dr. Don, it was a delightful conversation, I learned a lot about black feminist theory. And I think that those listeners also appreciated certainly getting to hear that perspective. And perhaps maybe, if they're thinking about the applied sociology, master's program, they'd be able to get a lot more of those insights, as you're describing with this, this new course offering. So yeah, thanks for that insight. Obviously, we have a lot more to get to, I want to talk to some of the students and the alums of this current program. So we need to move on a little bit. But before we do, I wanted to ask both of you, if you wouldn't mind, just providing us with a few words of advice for students, maybe students who are specifically hoping to go into this program, the Master's in sociology program, or maybe just advice in general, if you have it for students who are thinking about taking those next steps into a career in the social sciences. And I see on our call here, that it's actually mayor has pointed Dr. Wallace, perhaps indicating that Dr. Wallace has been volunteered. So I won't, I won't put any pressure on anybody to respond. But Dr. Wallace, it has
wisdom. I would say, Be open, be open to, you know, area of interest. You know, there's so many of us here that, you know, study so many different things, but also study similar things in different ways. Right. So I think, you know, having an opportunity to, you know, really get to know your professors is important, our, our doors are always open to meet with you and talk to you about your interests. And that's what you know, that's what we're here for. That's what we enjoy doing is, you know, meeting and guiding, in a way. And, you know, but also with, with the idea that, you know, we don't want to, you know, determine what you want to do for you, right, we want to encourage you. And so, you know, being open to, you know, interacting with with your professors. And, you know, I think just taking advantage of, of, you know, your your professors I think is really important, because we're here to we're here for you, we're here for the students.
It's actually wireless. That definitely resonates with me, and I think it's something that's very unique, perhaps UMBC. You know, obviously, we're a state school, a fairly large campus at this point. But I really have found, especially in the social sciences, that there are so many faculty just around the program's variously in the public policy building here, that seemed like they really do enjoy that dimension of their jobs to just interact with students in that way to have that, that sort of open door. I think it's a really unique thing about our campus that we can be sort of this larger kind of, you know, regional university with this focus on bringing in, you know, a large number of students into our classes, but still have that that point of contact. And so it definitely resonates with me is perhaps unique, maybe not just to this program, but also to the campus as a whole production marriage. Do you have any other advice, ways to build on what Dr. Wallace said,
besides admiring all of her catchphrases? No. I would say that maybe one of the things that we often tell them when they get here is they get really intimidated, like, I don't know how to write a research paper, I don't know how to do a master's project. And we remind them, you've never done one before. Sure. Like, you're here to learn, we're here to help you. So it's always like, you don't want to look at the top of the mountain when you start up the trail. So, you know, just worry about one path at a time. And you'll make it there. And we have people here that are here to guide them through how to write the questions and how to think everything through. And the goal is that you'll learn how to do that by the end, but you don't come here knowing how to do that, or knowing exactly what you want to study. And that's, that's, that's good. That's actually the point. That's why you're getting the degree to learn that
fantastic perspective. And certainly for those who are looking forward to maybe starting those first steps of the journey, that'll be heartening to them as they consider applying to this program. It's actually while September, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I really enjoyed learning about the program. And about, as I said before your own research strands. I'm really excited, hopefully to have both of you back on at some point to talk about those things. But for now, we'll have to let you go because we're going to hear from some of these great students that allowed so but again, thank you very much for your time. Thank you making lemons.
Now, I'm delighted to bring you my conversation with UMBC, MA students, RB Brower and Jayla gray Thomas, as well as applied sociology alumni for Euclid, and Perry Gill Christ. Great. So obviously, we've got a ton of folks on the call here. So it's, I'll be directing traffic a little bit in this episode. But I want to start with the current students and just ask you a little bit about yourselves, maybe get a chance to introduce some of the things that you're working on in the program, again, to give our listeners a little bit of a flavor of what's going on in this particular program. So I'm going to start just sort of randomly pulling a name out of the hat here. Harvey Brower, if you would mind telling us a little bit about yourself, about your research interests in the field. And what sparked some of those interests?
Yeah, I'm RB I use they them pronouns. I am in my first year, second semester of the applied master's program. I'm interested in social support for transgender and non binary adult and older adult populations, specifically, which people are supportive in their lives. And how since trans and non binary people often face like hostility and rejection from their families of origin. And they're also perceived by others as less desirable dating partners. So right now I'm doing a qualitative project on identity and social support for non binary people exclusively, so my participants or anyone who would consider themselves to fall under the non binary umbrella. Yeah, well, I guess to boil it down to a topic within applied sociology that interests me, I'd say gender, mental health and the life
course. Wow, that's really fascinating, I think extremely topical, extremely relevant research. I want to ask a little bit about where you are in the process here. So have you contacted participants already? Are you in the midst of sort of gathering that data? Where are you in the process now with that research?
Yeah. So right now, I've interviewed five people for my project. I'm currently working on coding and analysis. Yeah, that's, that's where I'm at. And what's next for me to do my master's paper? I have two things up in the air for that. But it's possible that I'm going to re interview the people that I interviewed for this project and do another analysis.
Excellent. Well, yeah, that process of coding that you know, that deep, a sort of lengthy process is certainly a very important step of the research, if not a very difficult one. So I definitely appreciate you being here and taking the time to talk to us today, given obviously, the fact that you're quite busy with all of that. Excellent. So moving right along. I want to introduce Jayla Gray Thomas, if you wouldn't mind, just telling us a little bit about your research interests and sort of where you are in the program and kind of the current steps of your research as well.
So I thank you again for having me. I'm in my second year, actually, my last semester of the program, I would say that health and illness have always kind of held my focus drum education starting out I was kind of intending on entering the medical field. But once I realized that wasn't really what I was passionate about, it kind of actually transitioned into medical sociology, more so being my research interests primarily. And so my interest in this area kind of spans many corners of this very broad, broad sub discipline. So things like the social construction of illness and diagnosis. Trying to understand factors that shape the doctor patient relationship, or trying to learn from and contribute to the wealth of knowledge on the social determinants of health are all things that I'm really interested in. So currently, for my capstone paper, I'm conducting a mixed methods con is an analysis of American medical schools in order to evaluate the degree to which and the methods they've employed to incorporate social medicine into their curriculum, with social medicine being conceptualization of illness that recognizes social forces and conditions as antecedents to illness in addition to the more commonly understood biological or genetic etiologies of illness and disease. And so using information that's made available online to prospective students, by these institutions, help to better understand what American medical medical schools are doing to promote health equity through a greater understanding of the social determinants of health.
Wow, that's really fascinating. I think it's it's incredibly interesting to investigate this nexus, specifically using the kind of content analysis that you are at this particular data collection. So So tell me again, a little bit about how you're getting this data. So you're going to these websites, I guess, and sort of searching for the relevant texts that I guess prospective students would see.
Yeah, so I've kind of developed my coding sheet in regard to the primary terms involving or surrounding social medicine and seeing what about that it's available or is declared by these institutions and kind of looking at how the language that they use surrounding it and how it is incorporated within their curriculum. So not only just looking at whether they teach students the social determinants of health, but is it an elective course? Or is it integrated within the curriculum itself. And so starting out, it was a quant or it is a quantitative content analysis of a sample of medical schools, just looking more broadly at what is just immediately available to anyone maybe considering attending. And then in a smaller sub sample, I'll be doing a more qualitative in depth, thematic analysis to kind of get a better idea of those more nuanced kind of understandings of what their their incorporation of social medicine.
Wow, Jayla, that really sounds like an incredible project sounds like you've got a lot of richness of data to bring to bear here. And certainly, I also want to thank you for your time availability as well, because it sounds like you're very busy with that project as well. This is really awesome. It sounds like we've got some really cool projects, very different projects, but obviously some core similarities here in terms of approach from this master's program. But of course, we don't just have current students on this panel, we also have a couple of recent alumni that I want to bring in as well. So if you wouldn't mind, Perry Gillchrist is here. Perry, if you wouldn't mind telling us a little bit about your journey, sort of from the applied sociology program, to where you are currently today?
Well, I finished the applied sociology program back in 2001, which I was supposed to be in person, but I didn't mess up my program online because of COVID. Sure, when I was at UMBC, I did work as a research assistant on on STEM build, which is a project in the psych department. And then, pretty soon after graduation, I actually started working at Westat, which is a company that I'm working in now. So I've been there for almost about two years. The project I work on is PIAC are the program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, which is a household study, it is an international study, we are interested in adult skills in the population. And that study I've been working on society have started there. My background is always been in educational research. Actually, my interests when I was in grad school was in gender and sexuality. But I feel like the universe is kind of pulling me in this educational direction. And that's what I've been doing since I've been at grad school. That's fantastic.
And I think that you can certainly argue that there are some very important points of sort of continuity there between these topics that you initially sort of developed interest in and education as this field. You don't need to look around much to the political sphere today. So to think about the fact that these things are becoming increasingly salient. So there's definitely some very important overlap there. And if you wouldn't mind telling me just as a sort of follow up question, do you feel like there's any specific aspects of the UMBC program that you think prepared you especially for doing the kind of work that you're doing today?
Well, definitely any kind of analysis work like I feel like obviously, like SAS is a skill that just keeps on giving with. Also, like, I feel like you never go wrong with any kind of qualitative training you've had. Sure. Um, particularly now, I'm in more of a survey operations kind of rolled. So I've been actively actually training a lot of field staff. So the qualitative experience that I got during the program, I'm definitely a really You're helping me out. Specifically right now in the role that I'm in.
Awesome. Well sounds like a lot of those skills that you're speaking about, a lot of our current students are also taking advantage of some of that technical training, to be able to hopefully use that on the job market very soon. Obviously, we have one more member of our panel here that I want to bring in as well. And that is Fariha Khalid. Fariha, if you wouldn't mind telling us a little bit about your journey from the program all the way to your current position.
Sure thing, my name is Adi, and my pronouns are she her hers. And currently, I'm working at the United States House of Representatives. The particular office that I'm working in is the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, I work as the junior research and data analyst there. I'm also currently a UMBC students. So I'm upstairs in public policy, just trying to get my doctoral degree as well. So those are the two roles that I'm particularly in right now that have that are built upon what I have learned from the MA program. So those are the two things that keep me busy, apart from other other family obligations.
It sounds like you're busy indeed. And I got I want to also thank you, as well as Perry, for your time for participating in the panel today, because I mean, that's certainly a very heavy load to think about, sort of coincidentally doing a PhD at the same time, as you know, working for Congress, which is probably pretty, a pretty intensive sort of operation as well. So yeah, that's really awesome. So I want to ask the same question that I asked Perry, do you feel like there's any specific sort of trading or aspects of the program that you think has especially prepared you to do some of the stuff that you're doing, obviously, the academic side a little notwithstanding, given the fact that, you know, it's all sort of leading towards a PhD research project?
Yeah, absolutely. And before, before I comment further, I do want to mention that since I'm an employee at Congress, I'd have to mention that what I'm hearing are going to be my opinions and not necessarily the opinions of my office, or the
political scientists. Yeah, I can definitely appreciate a disclaimer of that nature.
Um, yeah, so I would say, I mean, it may sound cliche, but I would say everything so far has helped me and and I fell in the I fell in love with the MA program, because of the fact that it not only prepares us with, with the matters and the tools that we would need in our career further on, especially in research, but also the kind of substance that's that's discussed in in this program. I mean, from discussing how systemic inequalities are embedded in, in many things around us how we have constructed the social realities that affect the life, and consequences, life consequences of people, the whole domain of social determinants of health is so important, and it, it spills over to other aspects of, of policy and lives of people. All of that has, I think, informed us and trained us to be to contribute in a more holistic way. So not just having our numbers pulled together or just our data coded, but also to be able to communicate that and how it impacts people and lives of people. So I think that that was the the beauty of this program that we we get the the the understanding of what the numbers that we're generating, or the course that we're generating, what do they really mean?
What do they really mean? I think that's an incredibly well put sort of argument for training of this nature. And I think you've also a little bit foreshadow the question that I'm about to ask, which is a question that's for the whole panel, I want to open it up a little bit. Now that we've gotten a chance to hear a little bit about what all of you are working on, NASA think about some of the aspects of the program that you think are especially effective that you found to be good experiences, perhaps in your time at UMBC. Obviously, for you, we've got this idea of the sort of intensely applied or intensively, sort of useful nature of the approach here, but are there other things that you think are especially useful? And again, this is a question for anyone who ever wants to answer it, please feel free
to say one thing, Oh, I'm sorry. I would say one thing that I felt was really effective when I was there was we I took a community research course. And when we were in it, we had to divide up our worldly we just had tasks we had to complete every week and we just had, we were put into teams and we had to basically delegate each other's work and I feel like being in research, that class was really helpful because research you're never flying solo. So a lot of research is learning how to work in teams dividing up work, delegating work based on strengths and weaknesses. So I feel like that was really beneficial for me now actually being in research and seeing like, okay, like, this is like, you know, I guess you're just like kind of in a real life situation when you're in a horse like that.
Yeah, I definitely agree that I think research in the social sciences, in general is moving towards more of this sort of collaborative model. But it's a little bit artificial to think about you going off and doing all your research solo is kind of these capsule projects or a PhD dissertation, when in reality, regardless of where you're working either in an academic context, or some kind of applied or basic research context, I mean, really, no matter what you're doing, it's going to be in some kind of collaborative environment. So it's really cool to hear that that's a feature of the program. Anybody else other other ideas building on this?
Sure, um, I was just gonna say, is similar to what Perry was talking about. But we get a lot of kind of low stakes opportunities to build the skills that we're going to need once we leave the program. So just going on or off of that collaborative kind of learning opportunities that you'll have, you also get the opportunity to lead discussions within a lot of the courses here or present the research that you spend an entire semester working on. And like things like that I found very beneficial. Just this, the beginning of the semester, I presented at my first conference. And as nervous as I was, I felt really prepared doing that just based on the multiple times that I've had to do so within my courses. And so, and you also get a lot of support from the people around you, whether it be the students or the faculty themselves. And so you definitely get a lot of preparation for the work that you're gonna do once you leave the program.
That's great. Jayla, congratulations, first of all, on the conference presentation, I know how much trepidation that can come with. And so it's awesome to think that you were able to hit the ground running and feel really prepared for that on the basis of your experience. And I think RB was also sort of intimating obviously through a visual medium, that that was a good job, or something of the sort. What do you think
I, I was there to see Jayla in action. And she just did an amazing job. And I do agree that there are lots of like practical opportunities in our program to get a sense of your skills, and low stakes. This was such an incredible way to put it, not just leading discussions and giving presentations, but also lots of peer review opportunities, which I think is also speaking to Perry's point about working collaboratively collaboratively as a team. Every class that I've taken, there's been like at least one or two weeks in the semester, where we bring our work to class. And we spend in an hour or more sharing with peers and giving our feedback based on you know, either what we've learned so far, or based on rubric or criteria that our professors have given?
Well, obviously, I think one thing that I'm taking away from this discussion is the incredible quality also of the students, perhaps, that are coming through this program. And in some sense, the proof is in the pudding in terms of the kinds of things that they're now doing after the program as well in terms of these alumni. And so I also want to think a little bit about the possibility that new students might be hearing this podcast, but be thinking about potentially taking on a program of this nature. I want to ask if you all had any advice for students who might be mulling this over or thinking about whether they should take this dive and enroll in a program of this nature? Any words of advice for prospective students? Sounds like? Yeah, are we wants to say something? Yeah,
I didn't know if someone else kind of started talking. But I think that what's been really important to me, that I would like, or that I would hope, other students or prospective students would consider is to be curious and willing to consider topics of study that they wouldn't have normally chosen. The only reason why I was interested in the topic that that I inevitably chose was from reading something in Dr. Smith's class on mental health and illness. I mean, I, I could truly be interested in any topic. So I had tons of ideas about what might be fun. But you know, when I was doing this reading on social support, I was like, You mean, if people love you and are there for you, you have a better life that's like empirically backed up. And it's not just a feeling. Yeah. That that definitely took me into wanting to explore more. So I think if you if prospective students like believe that you can find cool information anywhere, then they can succeed. And the faculty in this department have like a tremendous desire to nurture student interest, whether it aligns with their personal interests or not. So I think it's also important to talk to faculty.
Yeah, that's fantastic insight. I mean, you I think one thing as a faculty member that makes me excited is when a student really breaks away from some of the material that I've offered and said, you have a, why don't we think about this from a different direction and want to investigate something that's maybe orthogonal to my own interests, because that, to me is a sign that the student is really starting to cultivate their own exciting interests. And I love that too, because I get to learn something. And I think that's probably more or less the same same attitude of many of the faculty that you're talking about. knowing some of them personally, that's really awesome. Anyone else? Words of advice for prospective students.
So I completely second where RB, RB has experienced and as Matt has mentioned, because again, that's probably is also one of my favorite parts was one of my favorite parts of the program, is the support that we get from the faculty, especially the fact that I guess maybe they're, they're, they're, they're studying human beings and human systems so much that they do understand that, at the end of the day, we're also human beings and they, they are completely there for us to support us. Throughout the process. And independent research being bi on research can be intimidating, from like the onset of the the IRB process to collecting data, and then reporting data, all of that. But but the faculty has, has they, they support you throughout the process. And so the one thing that the one advice that I would give to students current and current and future students would be to not be intimidated by by the process or by and even entering the program. And the other thing that I would say is, yeah, normalize curiosity, just normalize the fact that you may not have a specialization, or you may not have like, the research topic already prepared for yourself. But be open to learning and be open to exploring what, what you're being taught from different avenues.
I think those are great insights for you. And I have sort of two two reactions, first of all, is that as a member of UMBC, IRB, I can say that I can sometimes understand why people would see that process with a lot of trepidation. But don't worry, we were trained professionals at the IRB will make sure that your study gets expert care and attention and a quick review as well. But you know, I also think that it really does speak to the fact that it's unfortunately, not always the case that faculty programs are really thinking about students as people, as you, as you describe. And I'm fortunate to have gone through a number of programs in my academic experience where I have benefited from that. But I will say that UMBC, I think is a high outlier on that sort of variable. And I've heard horror stories about about this, across the disciplines and other places, you know, much, much to my chagrin, but really, I think that I agree with you entirely, that there is something about this, this institution that I think sort of breeds this, this sense of, of personal ability, more so than others. But yeah, that's an awesome word of advice as well. Thank you. I think I said Jayla also want to do it to say something.
Yeah, just to put it briefly, because it's kind of just a reiteration of what are being free aside. But beyond just curiosity regarding the topics that you may explore, I was just going to add that being open to exploring research methods that you aren't necessarily comfortable with, or familiar with. It's just such an important part of the toolkit that's going to set us apart postgraduation that I think that's what I feel like I've personally benefited the most from I feel like I've shifted from the mindset of being a sociology major to feeling like a sociologist, and that I've had the opportunity to explore and build, build my skill in a variety of research methods. And so I feel more equipped and prepped for anything that I do once I leave the program.
That's really well said, I love that idea of sort of becoming professionalized of that nature and finding your voice as a sociologist through this, this process. That's fantastic. Period, maybe we'll leave you with the last word here. Any any last words of advice here for students might be thinking about a program of this nature.
Basically, just kind of reiterating what everyone else said, Don't be exploring to explore topics that you necessarily didn't. Or I guess, if you didn't necessarily think that you were interested in B. I will say I'm like, I feel like I have a base toolkit that I got from the program. And I can pretty much do any kind of research with like this base knowledge that I have. Right now. Like I said, I'm working on PIAC. But then in the fall, I'm probably going to be working on a Childhood Longitudinal Study. So basically, which is not the kind of stuff thing that I've worked on before, but because I have like this base knowledge from the program, you know, I can pretty much do anything.
That's fantastic. Thank you all so much for agreeing to take part in this brief roundtable. I wish that we had the time to talk to you all a little bit more about your projects because they sound fascinating, Perry and free. That sounds like you're both doing really, really cool work. And I want to hear more about that as well. I've got I've got to go. Unfortunately, this is all the time we have today. But hopefully, we'll be able to catch up with all of you at some point again on another episode receiving the social sciences. And again, I want to thank all of you so much for your time and for sharing some of these thoughts with us today.
And thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed today's discussion of the applied sociology MA program. Check the show notes for more information and be sure to reach out to the program at sociology ma@umbc.edu If you'd like to learn more, and next time you're at a baseball game, don't forget to do some people watching and as always, keep questioning. retrieving the social sciences is a production of the UMBC Center for Social Science scholarship. Our director is Dr. Christine Melanson, our Associate Director is Dr. Felipe Filomeno. And our production intern is Alex Andrews. Our theme music was composed and recorded by Diwan Moreland, find out more about the history and social science@umbc.edu and make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, where you can find full video recordings of recent CS three events. Until next time, keep questioning
