What would your PhD be in?

Serious answer: Sociology

Goofy answer: Comic-Bookology

@cprevite and what topic in sociology would you study?

I’d obviously get a PhD in internet trollology.

@Sarcasm you’d have much competition

@Simone_De_Beauvoir: Probably either religion or community and urban sociology. Boston University has a good program. Someday maybe – when I’m retired.

“A chance, time and money?”

You do realize that any Ph.D. program worth its salt is not going to make you pay for it, right? Quality Ph.D. programs are fully funded and provide a living stipend as well.

I am getting my Ph.D., so this question is not hypothetical for me, but in any event, it’s in Cognitive Neuroscience.

@girlofscience that stipend won’t necessarily be enough if you have other responsibilities besides yourself (kids, elderly parents, etc)

Philosophy
Psychology
Theology

That done, I’d join the pool of so many others I know with the same- I’d pine away to become a published writer and thrash around as an ESL teacher or run off and join the Peace Corps as a teacher.

It was supposed to be in Neurobiology and Behavior, and I was going to look at the effects of sex hormones on memory.

@hug_of_war: How is that relevant at all to this conversation? There are thousands of jobs that also wouldn’t necessarily provide enough to care for kids and elderly parents. The fact remains that a Ph.D. doesn’t cost money, as the original poster implied.

And who awarded lurve for that answer? I honestly feel like sometimes people get lurve for simply disagreeing with me, haha.

@nikipedia that sounds really interesting
@girlofscience I do know some PhD programs pay for you to go there but not all PhD programs worth their salt do…I plan to go to Columbia University here in NYC (an institution you should agree is worth its salt) and only people that have to teach as GAs will get a stipend and it’s a laughable amount $21000 which doesn’t cover all of the tuition…it’s all for 7 years, this PhD and I have to be able to find my own funding…I don’t know why you’re so up in arms about this, but it sounds obnoxious…

@Simone_De_Beauvoir: And I don’t know why you think I am “up in arms.” I am simply stating the facts as I know them and asserting my opinion. I don’t think anything I said was all that obnoxious, either.

I don’t even really understand where you are going with this, but do you think that you need to use your stipend to pay your tuition? You don’t.

After the first two years or so, you shouldn’t even be taking classes at all, just doing research. No right-minded person is going to ask you to pay $40,000/year to work.

Serious answer: Psychology of Mass Media (if I could create such a thing)
Frivolous answer: Monty Python Studies

I wouldn’t waste my time nor money on a PhD. All you are doing is proving to the powers that be that you intend to stick to the status quo.

It is great for raising your earning power to the next level. But who really cares about that?

@girlofscience Actually, for the PhD I’m interested in the research is only the last 3 years out of 7…the years before that are for the MA and the MPhil

@Zendo I don’t know if you really answered my question.
and I do care about making more since I’m the sole earner for the family and I have 2 young children, 2 ailing parents, loans, a motrgage, etc.

I believe that the more you make, the more they take (in taxes) and thus the more you are responsible for the criminal actions of the US government world-wide.

This is why I made sure not to have children (a huge trap), nor to marry (it is, after all, the women who require the excess money and could care less [obviously] about who is hurt by their need for more.

I’d study political sociology and/or the sociology of deviance and collective behavior.

@aprilsimnel I’ve taken mass media classes that deal with just that.

I’m probably actually getting a Ph.D in Biology. Just general biology, since I want to study animal behavior in the context of the evolution of the genome… Aka I’m interested in too many things to narrow it down. :D

Hypothetically, It’s be tons of fun to get one in something like interior design. Actual interior design school is too cutthroat for me to actually attempt, plus I can’t draw. :) But lord do I want to have enough time and money to do really awesome, creative things to my house.

Oh, and @girlofscience – Ph.Ds in the hard sciences (like yours) work the way you’re describing, where the stipend will cover all your tuition and living expenses (sometimes enough for 2 people, definitely enough for one) but in other areas of study, you do have to pay for it, to some degree or another. Teaching Assistantships are not paid as well in other areas, and tuition may not be waived either.

Serious: Women’s Stuides or Cultural Studies

Fun: Buffyology

@Zendo
that’s quite the generalization
i’m glad you never married

I’m interested in so many different things, it would be really hard to decide. I think what I’d really like to do is get a Master’s in Arts Education/Administration, and then a PhD in Education – the Master’s to get the practical side of running an educational program (specifically in the arts), and then the PhD to really dig into the theory behind the education.

For fun, I’d probably do something in math or history (specifically local Pittsburgh history) – but comic book-ology sounds pretty good too!

I can’t believe nobody has said they would get a Ph.D in Horribleness yet. You people are not cool.

@MacBean I love you for saying that. I would, too, get that. My partner and I watch that weekly for mental sanity.

Serious answer: The Cinema.
Thesis: How bad must a movie be before it becomes good in a bad way?

Silly answer: Making guacamole!
Thesis: To cilantro or not to cilantro? That is the question.

@filmfann I would read your thesis in a heartbeat, that sounds amazing. :D Please tell me the Twilight movie would be involved. My little sis made me watch it and I couldn’t stop laughing. She was slightly affronted. :)

@fireinthepriory same here. i watched it with my friend who’s in love with it, and she was so mad at me.

PhD in Victorian Studies. I am fascinated by the 19th century – such a mixture of prudery and scientific progress. My main concentration would be in literature but I would like to study it from a sociological and historic perspective as well. (I dig those antimacassars.)

And @fireinthe priory is right – In the hard sciences you do get funding; in the humanities, not so much

@janbb that sounds great!