Nathan Tietz, Olson Scholar

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On January 19th I made my way to the first meeting that I had about my research during the semester. I had about 15 minutes of discussion with Dr. Field and I feel as though this meeting was extremely important to setting me back on track in terms of my […]

Mentorship Log #1

April 16, 2018 in Mentor / SISOlson / SISOlson17 by Nathan Tietz

In today’s world there is a lot of discourse devoted to the marginalization of certain peoples and ideas. This was not always the case–there used to be a time when marginalized voices did not even have a way of broadcasting their message to the population at large. Those with power […]

Bringing Other Voices to the Table

April 12, 2018 in Research / SISOlson / SISOlson17 by Nathan Tietz

In the philosophies of both Nietzsche and Foucault, there is a weariness of how science is produced, in contrast to the Weberian model of separation. The both contend that there is no research done just for the research’s own sake, but rather that the pursuit of knowledge is the pursuit […]

Divide and Conquer the Sciences! (Or Not?)

March 20, 2018 in Research / SISOlson / SISOlson17 by Nathan Tietz

The paper examines global variation between metro systems by exploring why comparable systems have different operating hours. Current research in transportation studies largely disregards this variation, focusing instead on the optimization of individual systems. This paper sets out with a descriptive statistical analysis of metro systems around the world to […]

It’s an Abstract that’s Hopefully not too abstract!

February 23, 2018 in Research / SISOlson / SISOlson17 by Nathan Tietz

Phillip Gorski’s thesis that social science can result in improvements in human well–being is quite a persuasive argument. His observation of overlap between facts and values is one of the most obvious claims that can be made, and it is simply summed up when he states, “…the fundamental difficulty with…the […]

Ethical Naturalism & Positivism (Does “The Matrix” Hero Serve as ...

February 13, 2018 in Research / SISOlson / SISOlson17 by Nathan Tietz

Citizens of a democracy have a few things that hold true across a broad spectrum of issues. Plato and Alexis de Tocqueville both suggest that these citizens stay away from attempting to discern what people should be doing throughout their lives. Plato argues that this arises from the idea that […]

Arguing About Knowledge

February 6, 2018 in Research / SISOlson / SISOlson17 by Nathan Tietz

Whether or not we think about it, there is a motive behind every one of the thousands of decisions that we make every day. It is only natural then, that there is a motive behind my reasoning for why I chose to conduct my research on metro systems and the […]

What was the Motive, Detective?

January 22, 2018 in Research / SISOlson / SISOlson17 by Nathan Tietz

Hey there! Here’s my video on my research design as we hit the halfway point on this research project! Hope you enjoy. –Nathan

Design a Video (of a Research Project)

December 11, 2017 in Research / SISOlson / SISOlson17 by Nathan Tietz

Throughout the semester, I have been in contact with my faculty mentor, Professor Esser. The last time we met face to face was for around an hour on October 24. During this meeting we actually covered much of the information that seemed pertinent when thinking about how I should continue […]

One Semester Down, Let’s See What’s Happening

December 8, 2017 in Mentor / SISOlson / SISOlson17 by Nathan Tietz

For just one instance of a case that needs examination; I need not look further than the metro system just a few minutes away. The Washington Metro has been rife with discourses over whether or not the system is actually improving at all, and there are really two main discourses […]

Let’s Have a Discourse!

November 22, 2017 in Research / SISOlson / SISOlson17 by Nathan Tietz