<p>I'm kind of troubled at the moment and need some "advice".</p>
<p>So I'm currently in an electrical engineering technology program. I had plans to either work as a technologist in 2 years, or continue my studies and go to university in electrical engineering.</p>
<p>Now for the dilemma. I always knew I liked philosophy so I took two courses of philo this term. I know I love it and it seems to be my true passion. I enjoy leaning about epistemology and metaphysics (besides this is what I like to do in my free time: think). </p>
<p>So this question will have to be taken hypothetically. IF I feel the same way about philosophy by the end of the term and it's my "true passion" should I pursue it? I guess I'm asking the age old question " should I do what I like, or what's gonna buy me stuff I like?".</p>
<p>This may sound stupid, but I know I'm "smart" enough to study engineering and I feel like if I don't, I'll put my intelligence to waste. </p>
<p>You may noticed I've quoted the word advice at the beginning. It's because I just want someone to tell me that I'll be able to support myself while teaching. (I'm down about pursuing a PhD)</p>
<p>I welcome any advice! Thanks.</p>
<p>And yes I also enjoy EET. Not as much as philosophy though.</p>
<p>Obviously, if you have the aptitude for the subject, you can do it…But the problem is does it align with your goals. Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 15 years? How will each of these decisions affect those paths? With philosophy, you are stuck in school a lot longer d/t the fact that you really need a PhD to be “useful”. I’m sure PhD’s are funded in the < $40K range (but im not positive on the numbers). With engineering you can start to easily support yourself (~$60k) after a 4 year education. It’s up to you, but when I took philosophy, I always sided with the pragmatists line of thought.</p>
<p>Philosophy is not very useful for the general population, unfortunately. Yes we know that philosophy is a significant field that according to some underlies everything we do and it’s particularly important in answering or asking questions that science cannot answer, like ethical questions, but philosophy doesn’t offer us the things that engineering and hard and primarily physical science does.</p>
<p>You can enjoy philosophy even without studying it formally. You can even study it formally if you like. But it’s not a very appreciated nor applicable field of study in general, because most people don’t understand how it’s useful (i.e. “it doesn’t produce the things that we really need”). And well, philosophy will not teach you how to bend the nature to supply what we need to make our lives better/easier, because it was long ago when mathematics and physics were still considered “natural philosophy”, it’s not the case anymore.</p>
<p>I’d recommend studying engineering, natural sciences or math, because of pragmatic reasons. Computer science is also an excellent field to get into with a philosophical bent, because CS can be quite philosophical and provide guesses to even philosophical questions (e.g. computational ethics, simulated reality, the possibility of superintelligence). And leave philosophy as a hobby, or a serious hobby, if you wish. But just don’t expect that others will understand the point of philosophy very well.</p>
<p>if you already have eet, I’d say whats the hurt in going into studying philosophy.</p>
<p>Or another advice is go for the phil minor and go for the ee major, I think u could get alot of credits from eet and you could replace those spaces with philosophy courses. you could also take philosophy courses in spring/summer as they rarely have ee courses during those times.</p>
<p>If you’re a sophomore, I’d say go with philosophy. It’s the best earning humanities degree. You can do what you love and put a nice gig together if you’re very careful with summer jobs, internships, some well-chosen practical electives, etc. As long as you don’t try and go to grad school for it, philosophy is great.</p>
<p>However, if you’ve only got two years left, just finish EE. Making the credits work out to graduate on time would be a PITA and not worth it, especially if you already have a decent amount of electives to take philosophy classes with anyway.</p>
<p>For pursuing a humanities PhD: don’t do it. No one gets a job. Not one that keeps you off food stamps. I mean, a few people do, but they’re smarter than anyone on CC and even then it’s still like winning the lottery. Don’t plan your career around winning the lottery.</p>
<p>Temping pays better than graduate fellowships, and the first random job offer you get temping will pay about the same as an entry-level professorship.</p>
<p>Undergrad philosphy classes can provide an interesting break from the straightjacketed rigor of engineering and math classes. It may be your favorite class of the day. Please, please, PLEASE, read a published recent academic journal of philosophy and then decide. Imagine yourself research and writing similar papers, then defending it to other philosophy insiders (few others will ever read it).</p>
<p>I took enough classes to get a philosophy minor as an EE major. It can be an appealing diversion to debate religion, ethics, metaphysics, culture, etc., but it has no real connection to much of the dialect of modern philosophy. </p>
<p>My advice: if you have any doubt, stick with EE, get a library card and start a book club with some introspective people. There is plenty of creative thinking in some fields of engineering.</p>
<p>Does your college library have a periodicals section? That’s where I did (or tried to do) most of my reading. Make sure you have web access to look up the unfamiliar terms as precise definitions of words are a central concept of the writing.</p>
<p>(sorry for such a late reply) @Magnetron, yes. I’ve checked my school library and met with some PhD candidates. Tbh, modern philosophy isn’t that bad. I mean it isn’t Descartes meditations or anything, but not bad.
The thing I’ve noticed is that all the candidates have a bachelors unrelated to philosophy. One guy had a BS and MS in math, and a MS in philo.(he’s specializing in metaphysics) Another chick had a BA… in history or Eng. litt. something like that…(specializing in ethics) I’m really interested in epistemology!</p>
<p>I know one family friend’s kid who went to Philosophy (double majoring in Age of Empires actually). He’s now back in college for a nursing degree…</p>
<p>I disagree that philosophy has not contributed to science (it has, the path is just a little convoluted), but I think your observations of those PhD candidates points to a practical solution:</p>
<p>Do the undergrad in engineering, with as much philosophy as you can squeeze in.</p>
<p>Why? Because you can jump from an engineering undergrad to a philosophy grad program a LOT easier than you can jump from a philosophy degree into engineering. Most of the “good” jobs in philosophy are either outside the actual field (in things like law and management) and/or are hypercompetitive (as 2000 philosophy PhD’s fight for 5 tenure-track professorships). If you fall short, you have no safety net.</p>
<p>Conversely, if you do the engineering degree you can STILL jump over to philosophy and enjoy a solid career in engineering if it doesn’t work out. Heck, you can get your PhD part-time while working (out of pocket, sadly) if you want!</p>