Adam D. (Class of 2025)
Adam is a second-year student in the College majoring in Sociology. He is interested in parasocial relationships, which consists of applying socio-cultural theory to sociological practice, as well as consumerism and advertising. Additionally, he is interested in looking at independent identity formation and how it has affected institutions, with an emphasis in religious institutions in the United States.
As part of the 2022 SISRM cohort, Adam enrolled in Virtual Ethnographic Research Methods to gain an overview of ethnographic methods, to become familiar with important debates on theory, and also to engage in virtual fieldwork. Over the summer, he worked with faculty mentor Robert Vargas to examine the links between policing and cartels as economic and political power structures. As an RA, Adam researched the history of cartel theory, which included defining cartels. Additionally, he identified other examples of political and research cartels, conducted extensive literature reviews, and cleaned and sorted data on police forces foundations and research groups.
From SISRM’s weekly workshop series, Adam particularly enjoyed learning about graduate school applications through the Graduate School 101 workshop, in which students were introduced to the application process. He is now interested in applying to the Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago to get an MA in Sociology. Adam also enjoyed hearing and engaging with faculty’s research throughout the workshop series.
(Student Spotlight from Summer 2022)