Where to begin...

I was born on April 19th, 1984 at 7:00pm in Corvallis, Oregon; however, I was not alone, as I had my twin sister, Sabrina, to keep me company.

Okay, let's skip a few years and head straight to the present (I told you we were skipping a few years!).
 

What I Study and Why

I'm now a senior Sociology and Economics major at UO; but what led me to these two fields of study?

Well, I began my college career as a business/accounting major at Linn-Benton Community College.  Business classes came easy to me and I enjoyed them, but I felt as if the study of business was nothing more than job training, even if it would probably lead to upward social mobility, which most Americans are so hell-bent on achieving (the tone of this last sentence is due to my disdain for materialism and the excesses in the modern "developed" world). 

Education was what I was looking for, so I switched to English as a major.  And while I certainly enjoyed the study therein, I felt as if I were only hearing one side of the human story, namely that of the upper-class, white man; and even so, I felt as if the problems currently facing the world today were given very idealistic, utopian solutions, instead of more pragmatic, feasible ones.  So I changed my major again, this time to the "dismal science" of Economics (I would later find out that modern economics is almost completely devoid of any dialogue about finding solutions for the growing economic inequality and other economic problems that are ever growing in the world today).  After finding this out, I decided to pickup another major: Sociology.  Finally, a field of study that tries to explain the problems facing the modern world!  While I certainly wish I had discovered sociology sooner, I am still very glad I found it at all! 

But as we sociology majors are well aware, our field of study is notorious for producing educated unemployed and underemployed people.   It's really too bad that liberal arts studies are becoming less and less valued in the business world today because the skills and knowledge received in them are invaluable in virtually any pursuit in life.
 

What interests me academically? 

Reading the great ideas of those who came before (especially, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, C. Wright Mills) as well as those who are still among the living (Barbara Ehrenreich, Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman, G. William Domhoff, and Paul Sweezy, to name a few).  Yes, I know I have Adam Smith among a list of socialists, and while I don't agree with some of his ideas, he does have a huge collection of fascinating thoughts in his two books: Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations.

I also enjoy research and statistics.  Okay, so statistics have a bad reputation; have you heard the quote by Benjamin Disraeli: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."? If so, you may agree with the statement, or at least understand why some people feel that way about statistics.  It's said that statistics can be manipulated to prove anything, or nothing at all, depending on how they're used. True, but if used probably, statistics play an important role in public policies and decisions that can impact millions, if not billions of people!  Pretty powerful stuff, no?

Of course, statistics are little without the research to gather, analyze, and make sense of it.  I have yet to take a class that required its students to produce original research, but here's hoping!  And if that class doesn't come around soon, I will have to take it upon myself to do some research on my own time.  To be fair, I did take a research writing class that required some tertiary and secondary research, but original research was missing; although, I chose to research medieval universities in Europe, so original research would have been difficult (Currently, I'm unable to read medieval Latin).
 

Some Random Tidbits...

When I was 12 years-old, I created and published a website dedicated to Pokemon.  You know, those crazy little creatures that have several videogames, cartoons, and toys to their name.  It was one of the first of its kind when I published it, and you could find it in the first 10 results of a Yahoo! search for "Pokemon" (Sorry, but Google wasn't around at the time!).  It's unfortunate that I didn't employ advertisements, as the site got over a million hits in the few months it was up! 

©2005 Chandler Savage | This site was created by Me!