<p>try and see</p>
<p>I was being sarcastic, it was clearly obvious, no need to extend how much philosophy majors are. I take showers everyday, we all do ritually in america, I mean America most greatest fear is body odor.</p>
<p>How can philosophy with valuable thinking skills be less marketable than political science or English? Is it cause it's less specialized than those two? I thought it had a set of skills like a clear mind that most employers are looking for. How can it go from be one of the least marketable degrees to can be something big like a lawyer? Wth?</p>
<p>If you major in philosophy, you better stick with law school, because otherwise you will be working at McDonalds for the rest of your life. Philosophy majors by themselves are useless career-wise. Personally, I think it makes more sense to minor in philosophy and major in something more useful career-wise. Even if you don't initially enjoy it as much as philosophy, you'll probably thank it later for allowing you out of that hole that you would have dug yourself had you only pursued the philosophy major as a concentration and decided to give up on law.</p>
<p>For those of you that say philosophy majors are useful, please enlighten me: besides the teaching profession, which I have absolutely no interest in, what <em>practical</em> career does a philosophy major by itself give access to?</p>
<p>What practical career does an econ or poli sci major prove useful for unless ur gettin Harvard Poli Sci or Chicago econ?</p>
<p>Ive concluded that you are stupid if you really believe that philosophy majors work at mcdonalds if they dont teach or do law.</p>
<p>Explain why a sociology major from berkeley, my dad, never had a job that had anything to do with sociology. He traded futures for 15 years, and is currently a financial planner/advisor who has been making six figures a year since his first year in the business.</p>
<p>What advantage does a political science major have over philosophy major in getting a crappy beaurocracy job?
Uhhh, none!</p>
<p>Who the hell said that your major determines your career?
I think somethin like over 80% of all people change majors at least once.
And some 80-90% of people do not use their major for their job.</p>
<p>And finally, you do know that some people go to college to become educated right? Ide rather be an educated philosophy major than a uneducated business major.<br>
Ide choose great critical thinking and intellectual competence anyday to wealth and a fancy desk.</p>
<p>
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<p>It's ignorant people like you that are the reason philosophy majors have a bad name</p>
<p>what he said^^^</p>
<p>I see you guys are trying to dodge my question.</p>
<p>Maybe I will stop being "ignorant" if I finally got an answer.</p>
<p>Nothing against anybody's dad, but I'd sure feel better having a financial planner that had some financial background than to have a new graduated sociology major managing my money. I agree that career paths often take unexpected twists, but I think it is safe to say that students who have a bachelors degree like english or philosophy are under more pressure to sell themselves and create a career path as compared to students who have a designated degree like dentist, engineer, nurse, etc. (not that those people necessarily work in those jobs all their lives either.)</p>
<p>a philosophy major won't "give access" to anything. it's the coveted degree that opens all the doors. don't think of it as a philosophy degree, think of it as a liberal arts degree that can be an entrance into a wide variety of careers. you won't be first in line for most of those careers, unlike the specialty degrees, but you'll have many more options than the specialists. (a philosophy major can potentially be anything from a writer to an i-banker but a finance major can generally only work within the financial/business industry. however for financial jobs, the finance major will have an advantage over the philosophy major.)</p>
<p>"a philosophy major won't "give access" to anything. it's the coveted degree that opens all the doors. don't think of it as a philosophy degree, think of it as a liberal arts degree that can be an entrance into a wide variety of careers. you won't be first in line for most of those careers, unlike the specialty degrees, but you'll have many more options than the specialists. (a philosophy major can potentially be anything from a writer to an i-banker but a finance major can generally only work within the financial/business industry. however for financial jobs, the finance major will have an advantage over the philosophy major.)"</p>
<p>Thank God for somebody with a brain. Good job.(not being sarcastic either)</p>
<p>Philosophy degrees are potentially the quintessential "educated man" degree, often combining the best and most complex argumentative rhetoric (similar to an english major), but also often includes the best of scientific, religious, historical, and logical thought, as well as existence, creation, life, death, and purpose.</p>
<p>Not to say that other majors (liberal arts mostly) cant lead to a very smart, great critical thinker all around, but perhaps philosophy is the best major to hone such critical thinking abilities and complex, abstract thought.</p>
<p>XANTHOM, to answer you question, I cannot list a specific profession because philosophy, in theory, can prepare you for any career involving advanced critical thinking or reasoning. The list is endless.</p>
<p>I've taken an intro to Philosophy and no matter how much I like it's abstract ideas, I didn't like, like how half the people were not taking it seriously. It's one thing to know about ideas like morality, but another to act morally. And the kids in my class were really goof offs, I wasn't really comfortable with them.</p>
<p>A couple points here. </p>
<p>One, I direct many on this thread to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Really, don't they teach you anything in those business classes of yours ;)</p>
<p>Second, an anecdote. I'm participating in the inaugural year of a Humanities honors program at my school, one being funded by the largess of one of the school's trustees, one Morri Kaplan. He majored in business undergrad (back when my school still offered a business major. Odd, that despite having one of the best business school's in the country there's no major in it anymore? hmm), and went on to tremendous financial success, to the point where he's now, I believe, a billionaire (certainly when you account for his current wife's fortune, sine she's from the Kohl family). </p>
<p>At one of our program dinners, he came to speak to the scholars about why he chose to endow the Humanities so greatly. I'll take the liberty of boiling this down to his major points:
The humanities enriches one's life, and is an education therein is intrinsicly valuable.
"Any damn fool can make money. Take classes to learn how to live."</p>
<p>More personally, my father teaches finance. I frequently talk to my father about the content of his course. It's idiotically simple. I cannot possibly imagine that you would actually need a degree in business to achieve something in the business world.</p>
<p>"I've taken an intro to Philosophy and no matter how much I like it's abstract ideas, I didn't like, like how half the people were not taking it seriously. It's one thing to know about ideas like morality, but another to act morally. And the kids in my class were really goof offs, I wasn't really comfortable with them."</p>
<p>you probably won't get that with upper level classes. most of the people were also bored in my lectures (could hear them sighing), and few showed up to section.</p>
<p>"More personally, my father teaches finance. I frequently talk to my father about the content of his course. It's idiotically simple."</p>
<p>it's true. i can't remember a damn thing from my statistics/math/business classes. all i know is use the formulas and plug in numbers. if you do business, it's just ongoing. not something i can really remember the rest of my life. some, just use your calculator and its functions. my memory seems to be clearer if i think of humanities classes.</p>
<p>you know, i always thought philosophy was a pretty employable major out of the humanities. unlike english majors, philosophy actually branches from math and science (which is very useful in the workforce). aside from having to be logical, think clearly, and make good arguments, (math and science aspect) philosophy courses also requires writing (humanities aspect). it seems to cover almost everything that can make a good employee. i don't know why it gets attacked so much.</p>
<p>Haha, I would think Philosophy majors have an advantage over liberal arts majors like Political Science, even though that also teaches you critical thinking, statistical, and historical ideas, in fact a few classes overlap. I guess Philosophy has the edge though since it deals in mathematical & science topics like logic. Also, I would've want to major in Philosophy out of all of them because of their high success in law school, which I'm not planning on moving on to, but if they are that good, I would consider what a degree in Philosophy can do. </p>
<p>But woe is me, I think I enjoyed my PSC class more cause the people were more friendlier, even though I didn't understand much what was going on in both classes. I did meet a couple of a-holes in my intro PSC, but man was going to that one Phil class a nightmare each week. Nothing to brighten up my day, bahaha. It's the nature of Philosophy when you have half the class in open discussion where anyone can take indirect jabs at any target.
Don't know so much about English, they probably cultivate similiar skills, like all humanities majors do, heck this is what college is about, like analytical & creative skills. But that's about it.</p>
<p>Shut up Billy Lee. We get it. You hate philosophy. Quit *****ing about it. You say anthropology is pointless too, i read ur post on that persons thread.</p>
<p>Billy Lee, you shouldn't like something jsut because people are "nice". you will get jerks and nice people in one place anywhere you go.</p>
<p>Dude why are you so <strong><em>ing offended then. I felt like telling those fellow classmates of mines to *</em></strong> too ****. You're philosophers, didn't it teach you guys the way to think or act around problems. So much for education then.</p>