Chicago
Ok I'm quite smitten with Chicago. Everyone I've talked to has been real interesting, all very passionate about their work, and they all have gotten what I want to do right away and have all encouraged me in my interests. One said to hold onto my interests in whatever program I go too. New York overly told me that having too specific research interests was a turn off. There is no one doing community based participatory research here but they do do community engaged scholarship and I have gotten the impression that they would be supportive of doing community based participatory research. The professor I just met with said that they would see this research as one methodology that is community engaged and that they would see the value in using cross methodological approaches and a student doing a community based participatory research based dissertation. They have a lot of faculty focusing on policing and seeing the connection between policing and racism as trauma. I have done a fair amount of work on policing and do see it as part my overall focus on the health effects of discrimination and racism as trauma. The other thing about Chicago is that they are really interdisciplinary and see the value in interdisciplinary work. I met with a political economist today and sociologists yesterday. All of them in the social work department. My interests don't fit neatly into a disciplinary box and while I realized that I needed an interdisciplinary approach before I now think it's even more essential. Maybe it's more of a university-wide thing but the ability of professors to immediately get what I want to do and value it shows that they are making connections across different concepts and it's in a way that I haven't seen in other schools. I really appreciate that and the passion professors have- the intellectual curiosity in general. Again this could very much a university thing. Chicago has been really influential in shaping scholarship particularly on sociology (e.g., there is a whole thing called the Chicago school of thought) and I think economics too. But yeah the passion, ability to make connections and intellectual leaps, and the encouragement to pursue my research all really endear my to the school and the department. Now I just have to hope I can get it!
