Regarding the three articles..

Regarding the articles..

In Korea, when people become 2nd year in high school, they have to make a big decision between two different curriculum options: liberal arts and natural sciences. The decision is very influential in that they learn totally different subjects during high school and university years and no way to explore other options at all once they make a decision. In my family, interestingly, I was the only one who chose liberal arts curriculum. (To be honest, I had quite frequent conflicts with parents because of this.) My parents and my brother, who majored in engineering and pharmacy, still don’t understand what I am really studying. I know they believe that studying sciences is more practical, realistic, sophisticated, and valuable than studying liberal arts, including social sciences in a broad concept.

But as I learn social scientific approaches during college years and as they become absorbed in my ways of thinking gradually, I realize hard sciences and social sciences are just two different, disctinct fields of study and there is no reason to feel inferior or superior to each other. I remember that from the first day of our class, we concluded social science is science & human; thus I agree that in order to understand complicated human behaviors, just numbers and figures are not enough and there should be something BEYOND that to explain humans. As in the New York Times article, not “imitating the hard sciences” but admitting the inherent differences among the fields of study is essential.

In the same context, as professor Robert Jensen has argued, researchers should concentrate on human communities. I also chose journalism for this reason; studying “human” behaviors, attitudes, and thoughts in the media context seemed really intriguing to me. But as professor Jensen said, fully pursuing critical thinking and academic freedom in schools has some limitations due to corporate and practical demands.. Thus it is a regrettable reality as well in that Knight Blog pointed out lack of funding and marketing of journalism journals which lead to decreasing citations of journals and quality of research. One of professors from my undergraduate once confessed to his students that the discrepancy between what he wants to explore and what he actually can makes him really hard.

 

Though I'm just starting my graduate year just now, reading the three articles really made me think really seriously regarding my future research. To be frank, I am quite afraid to actually face this reality. I hope I can cope with it well throughout my masters and (future) doctoral years.