I'm at St. Ambrose University (fairly small as universities go) and I'm majoring in philosophy. It probably was a really bad sign that one of my philosophy professors said "What are you goign to do with a degree in that?"

Well there isn't a whole lot you can do with a degree in philosophy except teach.

There isn't a whole lot you can't do with a philosophy degree, actually. Except get hired for mediocre jobs, that is.

I'm planning on a major called "Security and Risk Analysis" (aka Digital/Computer Forensics)

What can you do with a philosophy degree? Oh, I don't know. What about learning to think logically? Right, that's pretty much useless I guess. It's true, in terms of career placement you're pretty much ****ed. You become a college professor and spend your free time thinking up answers to unanswered questions. One day your ideas may be held in high regard, but it may not happen to you until you're dead. Not many rewards in philosophy, no sir. It won't help you at all.

This whole idea of college being job training is bull****. People should desire the education for the information, not for what the information can do for them. That is why the education system is flawed, and part of why people are ****ing retarded these days.

There needs to be a degree in alcohology.

I'd be good at that, fo sho.

I'm a political science and international studies double-major. Employment can take a bloody hike, I'm going to study what I'm interested in. With the school I'm going to, I shouldn't have trouble finding a job anyway.

Physics, chemistry, math, CS, SE, or any other science- or math-related degree will teach you that. It's not exclusive to philosophy, and the other majors leave you with much more useful and appreciable skills.



You don't need to go to college for four years to be able to do this. And, if you do, you're an idiot.

[QUOTE=Joseph T]

Let's hear it for just going out there and winging it.[/QUOTE]

Woo?

Who are you to say what skills are more appreciable than others? If someone goes into philosophy, chances are they appreciate that skillset more; as would a chemist, physicist or what-have-you.

And you don't need to go to college for four years to learn anything a degree could teach you in any field.

I'm an American History/Secondary Ed Double Major. Knew it from Day One, which eased a great deal of stress.

Aside from teaching philosophy, can you list any fields that would call for a degree in philosophy?



I can think up answers to unanswerable questions without spending a single day studying or learning about philosophy. I'm fairly certain most people who have an IQ above 60 can. Can you do the same about, say, developing an application, researching mathematical theory, practicing medicine, or supervising archaeological digs (to name just a few examples)?

"Peter, get a job!"

"....wwwwhyyyy?"

I think you're pretty ignorant.

Dear lord. I don't check this thread for a few days and so many people are complaining about my major. I believe the purpose of the damned thread was to post your major not complain for as long as you can ****ing stand about other majors. I wasn't complaining about job options, I was mentioning that situation becuase I thought it might make someone laugh.

I know I don't have many jobs available to me. I'll likely end up either running my family's hardware store (I've been working there since we opened when I was eleven) or and I hope to, eventually save up and try to get into a good culinary school. I'd have to wait and save, becuase the job market in my area now is insanely tight, unless you do have a college degree you aren't getting anythign that will pay you enough to be able to save. I'd need to save up money becuase the nearest good culinary school is in Chicago with a substantially higher cost of living, but i'd like to go to a culinary school that is held in higher regard that that aswell.

And *********!!! Philosophy is a passon of mine. And in terms of "I can think up answers to unanswerable questions" I don't think you can honestly wrap your mind around a question more complex than "How are shoelaces?" tied if you're gonna make ignorant statments like that.

And to imply that I need schooling for something you say anyone over an IQ of sixty can do, I want you to take your head, pull it out of your *** and chop off your own head with an axe. With the way everything else is going in my life i don't need a bunch of a****** on here telling me that my major is worthless just they have nothign better to do.

I'm still trying to get into college.



six days until my app is due! Arg!

Of what? The fact that the last time that people were able to successfully live purely as philosophers, Sparta was a major military power?



I'm not saying philosophy is useless. I'm saying sitting in a class and studying it for four years (or more) is useless.



First comes the ground by tying the knot, then make a tree trunk, the rabbit runs around the tree and goes in and through the hole. (Citation)

In addition, my statements weren't ignorant. If they are, could you please prove how they are ignorant?



I didn't say you need to go to school to philosophize. In fact, I said quite the opposite.

Education is not about coming out of several years of work with a qualification that's going to get you a job.

College/University is also about much more than what you learn in a class. If it was just about my degree I would have dropped out very quickly since I personally found my degree choice of Computer Science to be utterly useless.

I admire those who do degrees that don't have direct modern applications, they're doing something they're passionate about for the joy of learning - employment be damned. I have a lot of friends studying classical civilisations, learning dead forms of greek and latin, I also have friends who did philosophy and i've found that the people who did these subjects are far more interesting than those who don't.

Academia is about learning and growing, it's not about getting a job at the end.

I guess I'm one of the lucky few who are genuinely interested in what they're learning and the professions they hope to enter.

Yes.

The majority of people come out of college and university still having no idea what they want to do, this doesn't mean that their time at college was wasted though. There are a lot of subjects which are highly vocational and directly lead you to get a job (medicine, finance, business etc), there are some which are a little bit vocational because they're relatively modern so will help you get jobs in that area (computer science, psychology , engineering etc) and there are areas which are purely academic (classical civilisations, sociology, philosophy etc).

Doing anything proves that you have the ability to get through non-compulsory education (which is why I think it's stupid that attendence is mandatory in some classes, it removes the personal motivation factor) and that is what employers look for. On the whole (ie excluding a few such as medicine) they don't care what degree you have because they'll train you from scratch once you start the job anyway.

The point is that as long as you get something out of further education it is not a waste of time.

I'm fairly certain that, given Joe who studied philosophy and John who studied IT in college, an IT department would choose John.

Given Jane who studied chemistry and John who studied IT, a chemical research institute would choose Jane.

Given Jane who studied chemistry and Bob who studied aeronautical engineering, NASA would choose Bob.

Now, yes, if you were applying to a low-level clerical job, your skills matter more than your major, but if you're going to start at something a bit higher than that, you're going to need a degree in a relevant field, because degrees demonstrate that you've received a specifiable level of education in the field you studied.

And, I'm curious - if you didn't like CS, why didn't you change majors?

Actually, I was doing some research for a class of mine, and I found that a study had been done about those who applied to medical school. Of those that had been music majors as undergraduates, 66% were accepted. The next highest group to be accepted were biochemistry undergrads at 44%. It's pretty easy to see that it's not always the case with having to have a certain degree to have a certain career.

I didn't change because i'm not at an american college. At my university we weren't allowed to take random courses to see what we were interested in, we had to choose things within our chosen degree course. I could have changed course, except firstly I didn't have the qualifications required for a big change and secondly the similar courses would probably have left me in the same situation.

Basically, in the UK if you don't know what really interests you when you go to university, you're screwed. You never get the chance to try out different things.

Anyway, you missed the point completely. Again.

A lot of people go to college or university for the experience, and whilst some may attend with a vocation in mind the majority don't. For that majority a degree in philosophy is just as valuable as a degree in IT or computer science except when applying for a graduate position in an IT or CS firm. Your degree devalues extremely quickly in terms of knowledge obtained, the only thing that lingers is the fact that you were able to finish a degree at all.

I'm told that the only job your degree really matters for is your first job. But that does lead the way into your other jobs.

Not initially, no, and the majority that do usually end up switching majors. By the end, however, most people who graduate have some idea of what they'd like to do. In your case, it sounds like there lies a flaw within the UK educational system - if it's all about the experience, then one would think that it would be ideal to allow a student to change majors.



The fact remains that those who have studied more vocational degrees emerge from university come out with a skillset that's more applicable to the real world. There may be exceptions, but, for the majority, that remains true.



A certain degree doesn't necessarily have anything to do with progressing to a higher level of education[/b], but how many doctors or nurses have gone without studying medicine? I'm willing to bet that, if you ask your physician where he/she got his/her doctorate or masters, they won't say "philosophy" or "music performance".

They still had to complete all the pre-med requirements and/or the med school prerequisites before being accepted. Pre med isn't as much a major as a series of classes you need to complete for medical school.

I'm not sure I'd even call philosophy a "purely academic" major. Depending on what area you're studying, it could make a perfectly acceptable pre-law major.