I want a career in economics so what should I major?
Someone tell me about the career path of major in economics, and what I’ll learn in it.
What is it like to major/minor in philosophy?
This person had three threads that are better consolidated to one. I tried to clean up the responses to make it as clear as possible. - FC
economics?
My advice would be to take some introductory level courses in both disciplines (and anything else you might be interested in) when you get to college and see what you like. Also consider your career goals when picking a major.
You learn how to read closely, write precisely, and think logically.
Mind-bending reading, fascinating class discussions, interesting, and sometimes weird classmates. I was not a phil major but took lots of courses and they were cool.
My middle son is majoring in Philosophy (with a minor in Asian Studies). He absolutely loves it, but it’s a LOT of writing/discussions/thinking. Lots of “ethics of…(fill in the blank)” classes. My son is a strong writer which is crucial. You really need to be able to argue any side of an issue ( or come up with a completely new argument that no one’s thought of before). He’s planning to attend law school (international business law) and I think this major is an appropriate preparation, but he’s been warned against stopping with just a Philosophy degree.
You have one thread that asked for a step by step process of how to apply to college and another thread that asks about majoring in economics so you really seem a bit scattered. I think job #1 is to understand the college application process well. Then once you get into and start at a college you can take classes in some different subjects and see what you like.
If this is something you really want to study, do consider the Catholic schools. In virtually all, Philosophy is a core requirement so the faculties are large and course selection broad. You will also meet more people and you can take theology that overlaps. This is a serious and well funded department at Catholic schools.
Last point, Philosophy is easy to politicize, so the Catholic schools will have a more pure approach to teaching it. I would hate to think how Philosophy is taught at some schools.
Catholics, too, are subject to political preferences and biases, @ScaredNJDad1 (and many profs at Catholic schools aren’t actually Catholic…)
@louiemm : my brother studied philo at an Ivy and went on to law school. He now works as a land and water resource lawyer in the PNW, and he has very fond memories of his undergrad studies and–maybe more importantly–is a phenomenal legal thinker who breezed through law school at the top of his class, which he credits to the rigors of a top-notch philo foundation.
Good for pre-law
@ScaredNJDad1 Confused what you meant by Philosophy being taught differently at non-catholic schools. How would Harvard teach philosophy in a worse way than at Carroll College in Montana? And would you not expect Philosophy to acquire different religious flavors at Christian or Catholic colleges (or for that matter Yeshiva University)?
Politics is in essence a conflict of philosophies, and it is a study of, and therefore impossible to separate politics, religion, economics and the sciences from Philosophical Studies. To study it in isolation would be akin to looking at a tree above the ground and not appreciating the roots below.
If you study the ancient greek philosophers, they clearly avoided dogmatic interpretations of Philosophical topics. Everything was up for debate. Would assuming that only the catholic colleges teach philosophy properly not go against the very nature of the subject?
@marvin100 True many lay people teach but the schools overall are more conservative and when it comes to Philosophy more classic in how it is taught.
Unless you have taken classes at both like I have you have no basis to argue with me. Sorry to be so blunt.
Have you taken HS economics? Why don’t you ask your Econ teacher? Many people go into business: public or private sector.
What “both”? There are thousands of colleges, not two, and there are also not two monolithic and opposing kinds of college, either. In fact, within any good college, there are professors of differing and opposing approaches to scholarship.
It’s also not a completely safe assumption to believe that “conservative” is more consistent with “classic” philosophy teaching. It can be argued that the history of philosophy is a history of radical breaches and progressive/unorthodox paths and pursuits.
i will, thank you for the advice!
@ScaredNJDad1 I really don’t think Catholic schools have a monopoly on philosophy. My S went to a Jesuit college and his friend there who was a philosophy major went on to Harvard for his PhD and seemed to enjoy both experiences/professors equally.
In addition within Catholic schools there is likely a huge variance in how philosophy is taught (I’d guess Liberty College and Georgetown would have more of a difference in approach than Georgetown and Yale would).
^^^^And at Catholic schools very few of the professors are priests these days. In fact neither of my S’s philosophy professors (and only one of his two theology professors) were priests.
@marvin100 I completely agree. All philosophy is progressive in that it seeks to debate accepted principles as well as new theories. Conservative principles are snapshots at specified points of time and anchored in beliefs and value systems in the past. Conservatism rejects change so how can they possibly debate anything new except to reject it?
There are also too many examples of the church prosecuting medieval scientists and philosophers for us to accept any institution sponsored by a religious organization as being the sole bastions of philosophy - the same field they have been seeking to quell with violence in the past, and now with dogma.
Finally, the death of Socrates, the great philosopher, itself illustrates the struggle between free thought and the powerful.
Well, it was the Muslim world that kept alive classical Greek wisdom when Europeans had completely forgotten it… 
@marvin100 true. But then again it was the Muslim rulers not the Wahhabi imams sponsoring scholars and universities during the middle ages. They had different aims than the religious establishment. If it was left to the religious elements there would have been culling of any thought that didn’t fit into Islam.
And now we try to preserve the works of rumi from the crazed radicals out in the middle east. And the artifacts of the kind they destroyed in Palmyra.