Comments on: Three Short Notes

By: Mandos

Mandos — Mon, 15 May 2006 12:29:05 +0000

Ha! I thought so! I should listen to my mother more often—she thinks that spreading vegetarianism is a sign of the apocalypse.

As for comprehensives, mine are satisfied by *taking* courses. This means that I am spending years in the prison of coursework. However, other departments with comps have rather gruelling comps, so I’m not 100% sure whether this is THAT much worse, although I do kind of resent it sometimes.

By: Blythe

Blythe — Mon, 08 May 2006 06:13:14 +0000

If they don’t want tofu, our companion cats must catch and kill their own food. It’s not like we’d feed them premium pet food containing animal proteins to account for their unique nutritional needs, or anything. We’re strict vegetarians like that. It’s important to us to put our own dietary ideals before the health and well-being of our furry, four-legged children. I mean, really, that’s what vegetarianism is all about anyway: cruelty to animals.

By: mark

mark — Sun, 07 May 2006 08:27:33 +0000

Don’t you have to buy dead animals for your cats to eat?

By: Craig

Craig — Sun, 07 May 2006 01:28:30 +0000

No, Mark, it is the other way around. Minnie is allergic to an unknown animal protein. The solution to her problem is to avoid animal proteins in her diet, thus a soy based food. Mickey, on the other hand, can eat what he wants as he isn’t allergic to anything. Me and my partner, being vegetarians, don’t buy dead animals (except that which is in the dog food already) and, as such, buying ground beef (boiled and mixed with minute rice) to give to him when sick seems really strange.

By: mark

mark — Sun, 07 May 2006 01:24:35 +0000

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but is your dogs’ vegetarianism the root of their problems?

By: Luke

Luke — Sat, 06 May 2006 23:50:54 +0000

I would be very interested to read it when you are finished.

By: Craig

Craig — Sat, 06 May 2006 21:56:40 +0000

There is, usually, three ways to satisfy a comprehensive in doctoral programs in Canada: (1) take-home exam, with set questions, fixed length of response, and a limited period of time; (2) review/research paper of about forty pages; and (3) the design of an original course, complete with syllabus, ‘academic rationale’, and the text of ‘the final lecture’, which totals about forty pages as well. The latter two are orally defended in front of your supervisory committee. The first is evaluated by your supervisory committee. Occasionally, some places — most usually history and political science — have written exams in a small room, often followed by an inquisition (especially in history). The tendency has been to downplay the relative importance of coursework (usually one year) and comprehensives (usually one year) in favour of the dissertation. However, the tendency in practice has seen a ballooning of the comprehensives, with people routinely writing over a hundred pages. Those students and their supervisory committees should be shot.

I’ll post a copy of my paper once I have submitted the final version. I think I’ll spend some time expanding parts of it into a paper on “Schmitt and the social”.

By: Luke

Luke — Sat, 06 May 2006 21:39:50 +0000

You get to take your comprehensives home? At Indiana - and most US programs in Poly Sci - we have to take them in 8 hours in a small room. Until recently you weren't even allowed to bring notes with you. By the way, you may be interested to know that we have two profs here that did/do work on Schmitt. this guy and this guy.