Four Reasons I Hate Sociology
I am a sociologist and although I love my field there are many moments where I feel desperate and imprisoned. I don't know how my field comrades survive but here are some reasons that made me sometimes hate Sociology.
1. Too Much Reading
Social Sciences are not always exciting, sometimes we have to read plenty of books and articles that we don't really feel excited about. Too much reading affects our creativity at some points, we end up consuming and unable to produce new ideas, we develop a psychology that someone knows better, or someone wrote about it for sure, and we keep on consuming more and more books, to a point that we never feel ready to write or in other words, we feel that our ideas are not worth writing.
2. Technophobia
Unfortunately, technology in social sciences is limited to the basic usage of Microsoft Office and in extreme cases, statistics software, like the SPSS. Fear from technology is very common in social sciences. I myself newly became aware of my technophobia, and I realized that it is mainly because I was not mastering it and so I had this hidden feeling of hating it. In fact, I usually tend to hate what I am not capable of doing. Hanging out with people from different fields will help you to realize and to improve what is missing in your field.
3. Complicated Texts
Reading sociology texts can get very confusing, while the field is rich in complex and complicated terms, this gets even harder and trickier when the writers decide to make it even more complicated. We might see this as a method used to get attention or get approval and credibility. “her/his text is hard to understand, he must be saying something important”, as everyone is struggling to understand Karl Marx, perhaps this is how our field-mates are inspired. (ironically).
4. Need of Approval
There is a very persistent pressure on the use of reference, “your opinion doesn't matter”. Even in semester exams, or assignments, the consistent request of adding in-text citations can get very frustrating, and this can even limit your reading as you remember that you have to add each and every reading page. The truth is that not all students add the correct pages and not all the lecturers do check them. the main point is to teach students how to use citation and how to publish a scientifically approved text, which means one small assignment with such criteria can be enough. other assignments could be more about the students’ inspiration, opinions, perhaps encourage them to give examples from daily life or shoot a video, etc… (at some point some lecturers seem to be fighting instead of teaching. With all due respect, but who are you wrestling with? :D).
