Comment by arwhatever
3 hours ago
Christina P: “I graduated with a degree in philosophy only to discover The Philosophy Corporation wasn’t hiring.”
3 hours ago
Christina P: “I graduated with a degree in philosophy only to discover The Philosophy Corporation wasn’t hiring.”
A good point in general but not here specifically: among the various liberal arts degrees, philosophy majors have some of the highest average earnings.
Because they have the highest IQs. Philosophy programs are a sink for smart students who don’t want to do math or engineering. Employers don’t actually value the philosophy degree itself.
Employers? Philosophy majors are generally unemployable, unless they're going into law. Though they do tend to make decent entrepreneurs or are self-employed in some other way.
At least that's my assumption from experience.
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A large fraction of philosophy majors go on to law school. It's great training for analyzing complex texts and writing logically sound arguments. These are timeless skills that apply to many areas even if the philosophical content itself doesn't have as much practical value in the labor market.
I worked at a state university for 8 years writing code, and I was in contact with many of its student facing offices. There is an office that is dedicated to showing that law school students have very positive post-graduation outcomes. Basically, they send them a survey asking them if they had full or part time employment, and if they said "yes" to it, the university counted it as a positive outcome. "96% of our law school graduates find work within 12 months".
I am quite confident that not only is philosophy a waste when it comes to finding gainful employment, going to law school to put that philosophy to good use is just doubling down on the same bad gamble. Large fraction? What about the remainder?
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