the Sam Jackson College Experience

My name is Sam Jackson, and I am currently a rising senior political science major at Yale University (Class of 2011). In the fall of 2009, I was a participant of the Yale-PKU Joint Program, based in Beijing. There I had the opportunity to live and study with Chinese students. I found the unique ways that Chinese students approached the internet - and, especially, the social web - to be of great interest.  I wanted to find a way to share some of what I was discovering from my time studying abroad. This was made possible through the support and encouragement of danah boyd and Microsoft Research, for whom I prepared this report, Chinese Youth and the Social Web (PDF).

While in China, I conducted a series of interviews with friends and other students readily accessible to me (and my language abilities). I subsequently transcribed portions of these interviews and arranged them with additional commentary into a larger report. The ultimate goal of this work is to offer a rough answer to the following question: "How can we understand youth practices in a Chinese context?"

A few key questions focused this general theme:

a) Where do students go online? What’s cool, and what’s not?
b) Why do Chinese youth use the sites that they do?
c) How (if it all) can different online communities be characterized?
d) What are common usage practices, and how do they meaningfully differ from those in the United States?
e) How do underlying factors in China – institutional and cultural – shape usage of social network sites and tools?

The report is divided into three main sections: first, a general background or topology of the social web as it applies to students at Beida; secondly, a report on early experiences online and the role parents play; lastly, perceptions of safety and attitudes towards privacy online.

Here again is the completed report (PDF). It is a small, qualitative snapshot meant to help situate the reader, and I hope that you enjoy reading it. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them here, either in the comments or as a personal note to me.

I am also infinitely grateful for the patience of all those interviewed as I asked endless questions about the differences between different instant messaging programs, websites, mobile phone company data plans, and the specifics of managing their identities online.

Please enjoy!  If you'd like to read more about my time in China, look for posts with the tag 'China' to read previous posts I have written. Thanks for reading.

I was interviewed two weeks ago for an article in the NYT, titled "The Tell-All Generation Learns to Keep Things Offline," which just came out today. This was great fun and I had a very good talk with the writer, Laura Holson. Sadly a lot of what we discussed seemed to end up on the editing room floor, and as a result I wanted to more fully elucidate my views on privacy online. (Think of this also as the opening salvo in what I hope will be a new (renewed) project to share more of my thoughts about technology, probably in a new blog. Still working on a name.)

That's right - after 6 hours of finals today and 3 hours yesterday, after the 65 pages of papers finished over the weekend, at last all is done for the year. I'll be back in Boston Sunday evening after packing up everything. It's been an interesting year, and I'll have free time to post reflections on all manner of things, no doubt.

For now, time to take a break, relax, and just recover! Good luck to all who still have finals, at Yale or otherwise.

The following photo is a stack of a selection of the sources I am using for my final paper in Prof. Keith Darden's Nationalism + National Identity class (EP&E 412 / INTS 328 / PLSC 158 / PLSC 655 ). There is more where this came from, not to mention JSTOR articles and the like. O_o

Note that last PLSC 655, indicating that it is cross-listed for the graduate department -- usually that just means it is open to grads, and maybe there is one or two in the class... but this class is maybe 70% PhD students, 10% Masters, and the last sliver, a few undergrads... (!). So I am working very hard on the paper to be up to the standard, so to speak. Scary! There were more undergrads at first but many fell away...

Darden is a brilliant professor / scholar with a good sense of humor, and the class is great fun, but the paper is both fairly long [20-25 pages] and, by necessity, hugely research-intensive. It's almost like a one-semester senior essay, except, I'm not a senior and not doing it for credit as such. (Remember, I'm trying to do a year-long). Matters are complicated by particular difficulties in the China case, and of course a perpetual scarcity of data...

My paper is about nationalism / the development of national identity in China seen through the lens of the Manchurian Incident, addressing Manchuria under Japanese occupation 1931-1936 and also focusing on student protest and uprisings elsewhere. The case for exploring variables which affect rates of resistance in Manchukuo (the Japanese-created puppet state) is made difficult by sparse data, so I am more exploring the phenomena of why so much more widespread protest seems to be found elsewhere. More on the paper later; maybe I'll post it in full if I'm happy with it. (Do people want to read my papers? I am never sure, and always worried they may come back to haunt me, so I have tended not to share my academic work here.)

I have three other finals next week, and another paper too. (This and another paper due Monday; Chinese finals Weds; Tech World + Blacks & the Law on Thursday). Bummer. But, I'll survive.

Readers: do you have finals? Hanging in there? Kudos to the use of my blog to procrastinate, if you are doing so.

No time to go into this in too great a depth, but just wanted to raise the point: for next year, Yale raised the student income contribution 15%, to $3000 for the year. This is a really big number when it comes to income that is meant to be earned while also being a full-time student. It makes a big difference if you have to work or not.

There is a meeting this Weds -
Student Forum on Financial Aid
Wednesday, April 21 7:30pm
Dwight Hall Common Room

To discuss some of impact of these changes. 82+% of the student body said that the recession had negatively impacted their ability to finance their Yale educations. I don't need to drop out of Yale because of the new fees, but it's infuriating that after I work all summer, Yale just lays claim to everything that I earn. In fact, because I earn so much during the summer, Yale tends to reduce my student income contribution, which sounds good, except on a tax-basis, it's worse, since it means that I can't use any scholarships I might receive directly towards that part of the tuition (and the sum is instead equivalently subtracted, or demanded, as a tithe from my summer income).

$3000 per year, paid at Yale's pretty decent wages, still exceeds the number of recommended hours for a student (about 6, I believe) by quite a lot: with 13 weeks a semester (or thereabouts) you'd have to work about 10 hours per week just to make that amount. This is really hard even if you have a good job (NOT always easy to come by at Yale, actually, especially given cutbacks... the Provost's office does subsidize some jobs, but even so, there are limited available opportunities).

I know some people who take on research jobs and then, partway through the semester, the professor running them just changes his mind, decides he's going to go write a book or travel or do something else, suddenly poof -- no more income! Good luck finding something new halfway through the semester.

Anyway, this is really very frustrating. Next year things will be a little better for me, in some context at least, since my sister will be going to school, too - this means that I'll get better financial aid. Net-net, it's not really better though for my family, since the family income contribution isn't decreased, just split between two children.

Anyway... I know Yale is searching for pennies, but shaking down student workers for more cash is NOT the right way to do it, and seriously undermines the university's stated mission of providing an education to all students.

Besides that, there's also just a big different in student life quality. I've missed trips, events, and other deadlines -- including some academic ones -- because I've been trying to finish up work projects or get in more hours. I at least have an OK cushion from my summer income (even if, overall, I still have looming college debts).

But, for now I'll stop, and stick to this blog's tagline: all the exciting parts, none of the crushing debt burden.