e226. So… uh… what is a Dissertation? (and why would you do one?)

When we started our little psuedo-academic pop-culture analysis podcast with drinking and swearing, we had a few requirements. One of those was that the show would be smart and would celebrate academia but wouldn’t be overly hung up on it. We specifically didn’t want to be an academic show. And we didn’t want to be a non-academic show. We are “pseudo-academic”. In academic terms, we’d probably call it public scholarship. That said, because we pull a lot of our guests from academia, there are some things we take for granted that we probably shouldn’t. We try to make sure that we don’t use over jargon terms without describing them, for instance. But sometimes, something comes up that seems “normal” to all of us, but isn’t quite as obvious as it sounds. Today we want to talk about one of them: the dissertation. What is a dissertation anyway, and why on Earth would you ever want to do one? On this week’s show, Katya, Hannah, Wayne and Mav welcome back returning guest Carolyn Salvi. Among other things, Carolyn works as a dissertation coach, so she was uniquely qualified to help us explain the weirdnesses, possibilities and esoteric chaos of one of academia oldest and most inscrutable traditions. Take a listen and let us know your thoughts. Citations and Links: * This episode’s Call for Comments* Destination Dissertation: A Traveler’s Guide to a Done Dissertation by Sonja K. Foss * Thank you to Maximilian’s thoughtForm Music for our theme* Follow Hannah on Twitter: @hannahleerogers* Follow Mav on Twitter: @chrismaverick* Follow Katya on Instagram: @justthatnerdkid* Follow Wayne on Instagram: @tetroc2017* Follow us on Twitter: @voxpopcast* Follow us on Instagram: @voxpopcast* Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/voxpopcast* Subscribe to our YouTube channel* Make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever podcasts are found and please leave us a review!