Alec Jimenez

Major: Sociology

Thesis: Cultural Capital, Social Capital, and Horizontal Stratification among University Undergraduates

Thesis Director: Dr. John Reynolds, Department of Sociology

Graduation: Spring 2021

QUESTIONS FOR ALEC:

Where are you from?

"Well originally, I am from Commack, New York, but I’ve bounced around a lot. When I was 18, I left home and moved to South Florida. There I moved, usually once a year, from Ft. Lauderdale to Oakland Park to Pompano to Deerfield Beach. So, I like to say that I am from New York, but Florida has left at least some imprint on me."

How did you hear about the Honors in the Major [HITM] program at FSU? What made you want to apply to the program?

"I don’t actually remember where I first heard of the Honors in the Major program except to say that it was through one of FSU’s resources. Maybe it was an email from the Honors College that was encouraging students to apply to the program? Or it might have been when I was looking through the Honors College website to see what resources were available? Either way, without FSU’s resources, the odds are that I would have never heard of the program. As far as my decision to apply, that involved one of the major focuses of my HITM research, my social capital. Back in Summer 2019, I met with a professor of mine to ask how I should go about building my resume for graduate school. I asked about the Honors in the Major program and the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program and whether he thought they would be assets for my graduate resume. He basically told me to pursue any research-related opportunity the university provided. So, I enrolled in both programs."

How did you find and recruit your thesis director?

"I found my thesis director thanks to the actions of the Sociology Department. Back in the Fall semester of 2019, I received an invitation to enroll in a capstone course, Poverty and Education, taught by Dr. John Reynolds. The class was weird. We never had a room assigned to us, so we met in different classrooms (often in the library) every week. I think that actually was my favorite part of the class (I enjoyed the chaos of finding a new classroom every week). Every part of the class was fantastic. I had the opportunity to construct my first major research project (that one was on what secondary school students believed the purpose of their education was) and found a subject I would like to study at the graduate level: sociology of education. Anyway, it only took me a few weeks learning under Dr. Reynolds to see that he was who I wanted to direct my Honors thesis. If any of you, who are reading this, are looking for someone to direct your project, I can’t think of a better choice."

In a few sentences, tell us about your honors thesis. What is it about, and why did you pick this topic?

"My project attempted to study how the accumulation of social and cultural capital at the university-level varies between institutionally stratified student groups. That is, how do students that are stratified by the institution into horizontally different groups (honors students, elite academic scholarship recipients, and the general student body) differ in the social and cultural capital they accumulate during college. While students themselves apply to these elite academic programs, it is the university itself that decides which students are admitted. I.e., it is the university that stratifies the students. And because universities offer students in honors or elite academic scholarship programs access to certain resources or activities as a feature of admission into these programs, it stands to assume that these students will have different experiences than the general student body. I tested this hypothesis, limited to social and cultural capital, within a large research-intensive university and between the former and smaller less research-intensive universities. I came across this topic through my interactions with recipients of FSU’s Presidential Scholarship, the preeminent academic merit-scholarship program here. All of the students who received the Presidential Scholarship here have talked to me about their experiences studying abroad and their experience living with one another in Landis Hall. I became curious about how their college experience differs from mine (a member of the general student body) and how programs such as these bestow relative advantage upon its participants. From there it was just about building a researchable project."

What was the biggest challenge you encountered when working on the honors thesis, and how did you approach it?

"My biggest challenge during this project was constructing my survey. The nature of this project, specifically measuring cultural capital that is unique to tertiary educational institutions, had not been attempted before. That is, a lot of the measures for cultural capital had never been conceptualized before. My analysis of past research on this topic could only take me so far. To work through this, I had to put aside my ego. I am only an undergraduate student, so my knowledge and understanding of sociology is nowhere near that of my Thesis Committee members. When I hit a roadblock, I reached out to them for help. And they were always more than happy to help."

Your supervisory committee has noted that you did an exemplary job on your honors thesis and in your final oral defense. Congratulations on this! What do you attribute your success to?

"A lot of students I talk to mention they are afraid of public speaking. So, something like a thesis defense is terrifying for them. I don’t have that fear. It all comes down to how I perceive my interactions with others. When you come to the realization that you have no control over how other people think, you realize that you also have no control over what they think about you. If I have no control over something, why would I divert my energy to obsessing over it? No matter what I do, I can’t control how they think about my performance during a thesis defense. This isn’t to say I don’t value my committee’s comments on my project, just that I recognize that what others think about my performance is out of my control. What I can control is my preparation. Coming into the defense, I knew my project front to back. I had practiced my presentation and reread my thesis several times. Preparation and perspective is how I was able to do well in my defense."

What do you believe you have you gained by completing an honors thesis?

"I mean, there [are] probably a lot of benefits, or things I have gained, from completing the honors thesis here. But I think the one that sits on top of that list is the experience. An undergraduate education doesn’t really prepare you for graduate school. Their attributes are almost opposites: clearly defined syllabus vs. no syllabus, clear timetables vs. loose timetables, many teachers vs. one main supervisor (at the PhD level), standardized exams vs. thesis defense. I think this is why so many students who enter into PhD programs don’t finish, because they just aren’t prepared for it. It’s a foreign experience for them. So, for me, the Honors in the Major program at FSU gave me a glimpse into the graduate school world. The experience of an honors thesis here makes me feel more comfortable with what is to come as I enter a new world post-graduation."

What’s next for you? And do you have any future plans for your honors thesis?

"Next, for me, comes graduate school. I haven’t reached a decision on what I intend to study; I am weighing a few options. But I am certain that a PhD program is what’s next. If I do decide to study sociology and education, then I will certainly try to build upon what I’ve established in my project. I introduced a whole new realm of cultural capital for future research to study. No study to date had attempted to do what my project did, and what I found leaves more doors open then I could have imagined when I began this work. If I attend graduate school to study sociology, I will continue to build my methodological skill set and my knowledge of what other researchers have done and are attempting to do. Through further developing these skills I hope to be able to expand on what I’ve done here at FSU. There are way too many questions left unanswered by my project to just leave it where it stands."