I Was a Social Science Grad Student Who Sold My Soul to Capitalism.
“Alvin, you have a talent for writing and you have a gift for the subject. You could probably do well in academia and get a PhD if you wanted,” my professor and thesis supervisor during my undergraduate days told me.
So when the opportunity to do a masters degree in sociology was offered to me, I thought-why not? I loved the subject, I loved to theorize, and most importantly I was good at it.
But things were not to be.
As I spent the next 2 years reading about Niklas Luhmann’s grand theory of society, tutoring freshies on sociology staples such as C. Wright Mills’ (1959) The Sociological Imagination, I completed my masters’ degree with the realization that I was screwed.
There was no money to be made pursuing this path.
And money was becoming more and more critical as I began to hit my mid-20s. I need money to pay the bills. Plus, there was no no real contribution or impact I could really make to society writing obscure journals and books that would probably have a readership of N=5.
So I made a desperate attempt to jump into the world of business.