<p>want something easy to major in.....go with psych or sociology</p>
<p>Or business, maybe? Business is kind of a joke but it's a bit more employable than humanities crap.</p>
<p>Humanities majors don't expect to be given a good job on the basis of their BA -- this is the difference between them and kids in engineering, computer science, etc. A BA -- in anything -- by itself ain't ****. It is what you do *after the BA that is important, whether it be grad school, law school, business school, teacher's college, librarian's college, etc. A humanities BA is simply the best, and often necessary, preparation for furthering their education in these more specialized fields.</p>
<p>So, if you really enjoy philosophy, you might as well major in it.</p>
<p>Humanities isn't crap.</p>
<p>b/c no one makes $100,000 with just an undergrad humanities degree.... except for a lot of people. Well maybe not a lot, but I know a lot. Not just out of school, they worked their way there, but they took a job and moved up, and are happily making quite a bit of cash.</p>
<p>If you can read Plotinus, OP, then major in Philosophy</p>
<p>To put it in layman's terms, what Plotinus did is very useful later on down the line for folks like Kant and what have you! </p>
<p>You know, OP, I am not trying to sound mean, but can you not just major in pre law? That would be your easiest bet, I guess. But, I must say that Philosophy would be a good undergrad major for a future lawyer if you can pull off an applied logic concentration or something.</p>
<p>I like doing Theology and Literature. And, my ultimate worse case scenario is teaching! I love the younger people and I do not think that is a wastoids line of work at all. </p>
<p>I think that you have to pick a major where you have a fair amount of options after you graduate which do not look like it would be torture for you to do. Like, with my majors: I can do marketing, advertising, pr work, teaching, preschool teaching at a church, volunteer chaplain work, and so on. None of those options are bad to me, personally. But they might seem like heck to a math major or something?!</p>
<p>The fact is that is you like something you'll be able to apply it to something. I have no interest in the so-called practical fields of Engineering, Computer Science, Medicine, Accounting, Business, etc. I like History, English, and Political Science. I have no idea what I will do with my potential History/Poli Sci double major, but I'm going to study what I enjoy studying and not change myself for economics.</p>
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You know, OP, I am not trying to sound mean, but can you not just major in pre law?
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<p>Actually, pre-law as a major is severely looked down upon and not really taken seriously by most of the good law schools. A pre-law major is better suited to someone who wants to be a paralegal, but someone who wants to go to law school should NOT major in it, as confusing as that sounds.</p>
<p>I'm pre-law too, and I'm majoring in Economics with minors in Art and English--basically do whatever you enjoy the most because it is what you will do the best in and GPA really is what counts the most.</p>
<p>Philosophy teaches you how to think. The analytical thinking and writing skills you develop with philosophy courses is excellent training for many professional jobs, certainly including law.</p>
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If you can read Plotinus, OP, then major in Philosophy
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<p>That is the stupidest statement I have ever read.</p>
<p>I have not even touched ancient philosophy (except secondary literature), and am already taking my pick from the graduate curriculum.</p>
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line for folks like Kant and what have you!
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<p>Are you seriously trying to make me laugh?</p>
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because i just want to major in something i'm going to get straight A's in (because i want to go to law school.. and law schools don't care what you major in as long as you get straight A's)
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<p>No, philosophy is hard. If you manage straight As at a place like UCI, a school that focuses extensively on analytic philosophy and especially on decision-theory, then forget about law school; for you might as well apply to Harvard or Princeton philosophy, earn a Ph.D, become a tenured professor at a top 10 PGR school, and become a legend.</p>
<p>Judging from your attitude toward academia, I can tell that it will not happen. </p>
<p>Edit: Given UCI's decision-theoretic bent, you are better off at Princeton:)</p>
<p>"Or business, maybe? Business is kind of a joke but it's a bit more employable than humanities crap."
What the hell are you talking about? Business is a joke? Have you taken any accounting, econ, or math (calculus, stat) classes yet?</p>
<p>Yea, worried student. I'm majoring in math and economics.</p>
<p>nspeds</p>
<p>Please control yourself. Your attitude is very disturbing and you are normally not even correct when you make these posts, so please control yourself. Also, most everyone has to know by now that you are a troll of some sort. And, when you keep on making incorrect statements about academic matters you claim to know a great deal about, you come off as a very bitter person. </p>
<p>Please try to calm yourself down. There is help out there for you. There is no way that you could be studying much of anything if you put down things pertaining to academics which are very general and broadbased in scope- like Plotinus's role in Philosophy. </p>
<p>In another thread on this area of the web site, someone had to correct you over and over again- because you kept on presuming things about academics which folks knew to be horribly incorrect. So, once again, please get help for yourself nspeds.</p>
<p>I really want to major in philosophy.</p>
<p>Tucker Max wrote this (edited slightly for language), and I generally agree with his point. He's smarter than me, and summarizes it probably better than I could:</p>
<p>
[quote]
As a general rule, I recommend avoiding philosophy as a discipline, especially modern philosophy. It's pretty much all [crap]. This discussion is obviously MUCH larger than I can cover in one post, but I'll give the uber-executive summary: The problem with most pure philosophy is that it is divorced from reality, and that is on purpose. If your goal is to be good at life, then you need to have the best understanding of reality as you can. Pure philosophy is not about that--as a rule it eschews empirical evidence and trial and error for pure logic. The flaw in this is that logic is only determinative within a discrete system, and all the rules must be known in that system. But life is not a discrete system, and the premises of modern philosophy are so flawed as to make the conclusions invalid.</p>
<p>Thats a smart way of saying that that most philosophy is [BS] on top of [BS].</p>
<p>If you insist on studying it, take a pure logic course (which is just math without numbers), and thats it.
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<p>Tucker Max = idiot. </p>
<p>That's my opinion.</p>
<p>I guess blue147 doesn't realize the irony of a textbook ad hominem on a philosophy thread.</p>
<p>I guess Freakonomist doesn't realize the irony of a textbook argument from authority on a philosophy thread.</p>
<p>You're wrong. I'm not hinging the truth of the claim on who wrote it, I simply presented an argument.</p>
<p>I actually agree with Tucker Max... to a point.</p>
<p>Studying modern and contemporary philosophy is nowhere near as valuable as studying ancient and medieval philosophy. The reason is that ancient and medieval philosophy has garnered real, practical results in the world. Philosophers from these periods did things that truly changed the world and advanced civilization for better or worse, and any educated person should know where the things that we enjoy -- or despise -- today came from. </p>
<p>(For instance, Karl Marx's ideas came from ancient Sparta and the Spartan thinkers who helped mold the world's first communist state some 3,000 years ago... therefore, if it were not for the ideas of ancient Spartan philosophy, communism would not have ravaged modern Europe. Good thing to know, no? Similarly, it was largely the philosophers of ancient Athens -- the world's first democratic state -- who inspired the founders of the United States of America. All of the Founding Fathers were classically educated, highly-versed in Greek and Latin philosophy.)</p>
<p>With much of modern and almost all of contemporary philosophy, however, the jury is still out. Thus, devoting too much time on these courses is often a waste of time. Stick with the Greats.</p>