Quote:
Originally Posted by Anxst
I'm really kind of leaning towards sociology. I don't necessarily want to move into a job in that area that's solely theoretical, or anything of that nature. I just find society and how it reacts to change fascinating...but I'd still be pretty happy moving into something like marketing, or research. My worry is that, as Zeraph states, I'll end up doing the same damn thing I am now, making the same wage, only with school loans to pay off.
|
First of all, please don't get me wrong. I LOVE sociology and dont want to discourage anyone from becoming a sociologist. So please dont take what I will say that way. I just want to give you a better idea of the nuts and bolts of the discipline.
What is it you like about sociology? I ask that because sociology is quite a broad field. Personally I research the sociological side of how financial markets work (trends, fads, reputation, etc), but sociology also includes criminology, demography, politics, culture, etc. Most of it is pretty specialized. I say this because it is often fun to read these classic sociological texts about wide scale societal change, but the daily work is a lot less exciting than that.
Let me be a bit more precise about what I mean. In sociology you have some research methods training, and some theoretical training.
The basic methods include some training on how to design and conduct surveys, how to conduct focus groups, in depth interviews, and, to an extent, ethnographies, and statistics.
The theoretical part will include some of the general sociology classics, such as Weber, Durkheim, and etc. But mostly it will include the current research in whatever field you want to specialize in.
Now, with just a B.A. in sociology, you will not get a job conducting your own research. At the B.A. level, employment is either directly tied to your specialization area, where you will try to apply your insights into daily problem solving of one sort or another, or you will help out, but not conduct or head, research that will use part of your technical skills.
And the thing is, at the B.A. level, the vast majority of employment opportunities will make more use of research methods skills than theoretical knowledge. That is, at the B.A. level, sociologists are rarely in the position to think up what questions are going to be asked, or even what method is going to be used. They often do more of the nuts and bolts part of the research, helping organize focus groups, transcribe the discussions, crunch numbers, manage datasets, etc. That is, the focus is a lot less on "why is this or that happening" but on helping get the data.
Maybe this link will help you:
Careers in Sociology | American Sociological Association