You might be wondering: why sourdough and sociology? What do baking and academia possibly have in common? Beyond being a much-needed stress outlet, sourdough is also a pretty fitting metaphor for graduate student life.
Sourdough, like scholarship, is slow. It requires care, calibration, revision, and a willingness to sit with uncertainty. For a long stretch, nothing appears to be happening — and then suddenly, everything is. Fermentation is a metaphor for intellectual growth. There is Slowness, iteration, and trust in invisible processes. For both sourdough and sociology, we research how the environment, structure, and how context shapes outcomes. And community— because both starters and scholars thrive when shared!
You spend hours feeding something.
You stare at it, waiting for it to do something.
You Google, “is this normal?”
You panic.
You wait.
You pretend you meant for it to turn out that way.
And when it finally works?
You immediately start another one.
There’s something about fermentation and research.
Both are slow.
Both are invisible for a while.
Both require trust in a process you can’t fully see.
Both look like nothing is happening… until suddenly everything is.
Sourdough and a PhD share the same learning curve:
You fail.
You adjust.
You Google again.
You text your friends.
You swear you’re done.
You try again.
Some loaves don’t rise.
Some drafts don’t land.
Some experiments flop.
But every “failure” teaches you something about timing, structure, and patience.
Turns out fermentation and scholarship are both long lessons in humility —
and maybe that’s exactly why grad students love sourdough.
Follow along on instagram @sourdoughsociologists for more!
About the Author:
Caroline Wolski is from Bayside, California and is a current Ph.D. student in Sociology. She got her B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Davis and her M.A. in sociology from the University of Houston.Read More
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