<p>I'd like a bit of information about this concentration. It seems like an awful lot of work, but at the same time you are allowed freedom to pick and choose an individualized plan of study. It also seems very popular!</p>
<p>If anyone could give me some info on this who has concentrated in it, knows someone who is, or just knows a lot about it that would be a great help!
What did you choose as your area of special interest?</p>
<p>my tour guide was majoring in social studies, but she didn't really talk about it.</p>
<p>Thank you xjayz. I had looked in the student handbook and found it informative, but I was also looking for input from students in the concentration.</p>
<p>What would you like to know?</p>
<p>Well namely, how's the work load? And how does the picking of individualized study go? and some examples of what ppl chose as their particular areas of study.</p>
<p>The soph tutorial is a lot of work. Two of my roommates are soc. studies and I am anthro. We shared a lot of the same books, except she'd read the whole book, while I'd only read parts of it. Other than that, I think its mostly the same as other concentrations. My best friend and my roommates who are all soc. studies haven't really narrowed down their individualized study to one area- instead they take anthro, hist, womens studies, sociology, film study, latin american studies, etc classes that can count towards the concentration. I think that's why they are soc studies :)</p>
<p>This is also a great website: <a href="http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Esocstud/%5B/url%5D">http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~socstud/</a></p>
<p>I am likely to concentrate in Social Studies.</p>
<p>How difficult is it to get this concentration? I know that it is application-only.</p>
<p>I hear it isn’t difficult to get into social studies. (I’m looking into folk and myth, which is also application only. My Harvard tour guide assured me that it was mostly a formality.)</p>
<p>Depending on your politics, be observant when looking into social studies as a possible concentration. In the '80s (when my parents went there), Dad was one of two or three Socialists. Then there were a whole bunch of unidentified Communists, a couple Leninists, a couple more Trotskyites, and one avowed Stalinist (in favor of societal purges, the whole bit). Mom, also a social studies concentrator, voted for Reagan (on hearing this, Dad reportedly replied “I’m not sure I can be your friend any more.” that didn’t work out but still) and so my mother learned to keep very quiet. It was also very modern social sciences focused then, not so much historical social sciences. Lots of theses about post-colonialism, organizational theory based on Alinsky (ACORN etc.), post-feminism…post-most anything, really. I know this is dated, and quite possibly makes me sound like a brat (sorry!), but I hope it at least raises potential issues that, even if totally gone, you can watch out for.</p>
<p>Firstly, there was many ieologists in social studies such as: Karl Marx, Auguste Comte, Hebert Spencer, Emilie Durkheim, Max Weber… But i think the major one is Karl Marx. You should as well read his book
Secondly, Social Studies is a field researching on human in the relationship with the others.
I 've ever learned this subject, i thinks that by learning social studies, You can find the way to solve many social problems. If you want to knnow more about this, pm me plz. My yahoo ID: trai_themchua</p>