Thread: Retro holiday greetings. . .

Hey there stranger!
Congrats on passing the exam.

Merry Xmas!

hA HA Cowboy Curtis used to be my avatar!!!

Yeah congratulations! What are you getting your Doctorate in?

Thanks! Well, officially it will be Speech Communication, but my emphasis is in pedagogy, rhetoric and media studies. They've been pretty good here at letting me apply my journalism degrees to research and instruction and most of my work gets published or presented at journalism/mass communication conferences.

I'm just happy to get that out of the way - ours are written research essays on three different topics, so the process is more difficult than the damned dissertation.

And I forgot you used to use Cowboy Curtis as an avatar, Manic. . .hehehe. I just wonder why Min0 didn't get asked to do that special - instead, Cher helped pick the secret word.

Originally Posted by kbm8795

Thanks! Well, officially it will be Speech Communication, but my emphasis is in pedagogy, rhetoric and media studies. They've been pretty good here at letting me apply my journalism degrees to research and instruction and most of my work gets published or presented at journalism/mass communication conferences.

I'm just happy to get that out of the way - ours are written research essays on three different topics, so the process is more difficult than the damned dissertation.

And I forgot you used to use Cowboy Curtis as an avatar, Manic. . .hehehe. I just wonder why Min0 didn't get asked to do that special - instead, Cher helped pick the secret word.

That's cool! I got my Masters in Communication focusing on Mass Communication. I almost went on for a PhD from UF, but haven't dug up the courage for that yet, maybe in the future.

I wonder what Min0's secret word would've been?

milk

Originally Posted by kbm8795

Thanks! Well, officially it will be Speech Communication, but my emphasis is in pedagogy, rhetoric and media studies. They've been pretty good here at letting me apply my journalism degrees to research and instruction and most of my work gets published or presented at journalism/mass communication conferences.

I'm just happy to get that out of the way - ours are written research essays on three different topics, so the process is more difficult than the damned dissertation.

And I forgot you used to use Cowboy Curtis as an avatar, Manic. . .hehehe. I just wonder why Min0 didn't get asked to do that special - instead, Cher helped pick the secret word.

Excellent! So does that mean you have to do more school now that you have been selected as a candidate. I feel stupid asking, but I do not know how the doctoral program works.

kbm, congratulations, that is a big deal! Do you know what you are writing your dissertation about yet or have any ideas?

Congratulations! That's no easy feat.

Cool pedagogy as is relates to rhetoric and media studies, or a Ped.D? I know Ped.D aren't easy to get.

Originally Posted by KelJu

Excellent! So does that mean you have to do more school now that you have been selected as a candidate. I feel stupid asking, but I do not know how the doctoral program works.

Nope. . .no more classes, except the ones I have to teach and I'm carrying a 4/5 load of those now. All I have to do is write a full book that pleases five picky faculty committee members, but that isn't as daunting as producing half a book in a month in those exams. Passing those exams means I'm free to apply for faculty positions anywhere and get a big boost in salary while writing the dissertation. So that hunt is on. . .hell, I could end up in Fairbanks, Alaska, or...Whattsamatta U...or the Univ. of Cardiff in Wales, or. . .heck...Hooterville Community College.

Originally Posted by KentDog

kbm, congratulations, that is a big deal! Do you know what you are writing your dissertation about yet or have any ideas?

I'm kinda torn at this point between doing the easiest thing (and the quickest) and something with a lot more meat. I've been doing some research for a couple of years (interviews, conferences, etc.) on the construction of narratives among people who claim to have experienced UFOs and how they are portrayed and treated in the media. So I have a file cabinet full of material on that - and am on this list to observe "investigators" when they get a report. . .hehehe. . .my students like that project - I keep waiting for them to go out and make a crop circle in one of the fields and call the school to get class canceled. . .I call it the "X-Files excuse." Only one has been smart enough to tell me he missed class because he was abducted by aliens. . .hahaha.

But I've had other things in the works . . .a pedagogy paper examining methods to better approach journalism/mass communication students with connecting academic training with their professional work, some criticism papers about the lack of intellectual diversity in the media, and an examination of online newspaper discussion forums and comment sections as genre.