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<p>I see a dance here. It seems like you already know what you’re going to do or not going to do. There isn’t any advice or comments that can really help you because you’ve already decided what you are or aren’t going to do. You mention a philosophy degree would be a less valuable degree, but so what? Your whole post was about liking to learn for the sake of learning, and simply wanting to do that, if that “was” the case than the value of a degree shouldn’t even be mentioned. Majoring in something that you think results in a “less valuable” degree is just like learning whatever you like learning on your own. You’re probably not going to end up using either education for a specific career, but you do it for the sake of learning, and at the end of actually majoring in something you’ll at least have something to show for it. For some companies/employers, all they care about is you simply having a degree, they don’t care what that degree is in.
Lastly, if you’re going to stay in college, you have to be open to simply learning and putting up with what you don’t like or think you may not like. I’ve personally taken classes that I thought I would have no interest in, and they have ended up being the best educational and rewarding experiences for me. If people stay closed in on their mentality of what they’re open to liking or taking or learning about, they never challenge their perspectives or what is and isn’t. I’m currently at a 4year school(i transferred from an art school and community colleges) and I thought I for sure would end up majoring in art history, but then it switched to philosophy, and now it has switched to literature. I never liked literature, nor enjoyed the act of reading(i still don’t) but I find learning about different human experiences(even one’s that i don’t think I’ll enjoy) so rewarding. Some people may argue that the study of literature can be done or studied alone, but at least at my school, the classes or lectures bring much more perspective than just surface level story/reading. I also personally hate midterms finals exams and papers, simply because I frankly could care less about the system of grading. I put up with it because to be able to live my life at this time where I basically live to learn I have to show something for it(for my parents, be it the grades or a degree at the end of my education).
Lastly lower division classes(presumably philo 101) are survey classes. You won’t get into the depth of the philosophies or topics because the point is to introduce things to prospective people into the major.</p>