As with other Humanities subjects, people become philosophy majors and minors for the love of the subject. There are some other reasons for getting into Philosophy, though, which might be helpful if you (or your folks) are worried about the practical consequences of taking philosophy. At any rate, at some point you'll be asked 'What are you going to do with that?' in a incredulous tone. It would be good to have something to say.
When people ask you "the question", what they really want to know is what knowledge you're getting that will be useful for work or graduate study. Truth be told, the knowledge you get is not useful for anything, except doing more philosophy. But you do get some mad skills. So tell them that by majoring or minoring in philosophy you'll get better at:
- understanding difficult ideas
- listening to the opinion of others
- listening carefully to the opinion of others
- spotting bad arguments
- giving reasons for your positions.
What employer doesn't want someone who can focus, concentrate, is sharp, modest, patient, reasonable, articulate and is not gullible?
Other subjects help develop these skills, but not so much as philosophy. As evidence, here is a table of scores from the LSAT, GMAT and GRE. As you can see, philosophers top the GRE Verbal (better even than English majors) and come in second to mathematicians on the LSAT and GMAT. This might surprise you if you think philosophy is just opinion swapping.
| Major | LSAT | GMAT | GRE verbal | GRE quant. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Philosophy | +8.7% | +11.0% | +17.6% | +4.6% |
| Arts & Music | -.05% | -1.2% | +14.5% | -5.7% |
| English | +5.6% | +4.1% | +14.5% | -5.7% |
| Foreign Langs. | +5.7% | +3.3% | +7.9% | -4.2% |
| History | +2.9% | +4.6% | +10.8% | -5.5% |
| Gen. Humanities | +4.7% | +1.8% | +7.3% | -5.0% |
| Political Science | -1.6% | +.06% | +3.5% | -5.0% |
| Psychology | +0.9% | +0.8% | +3.1% | -4.0% |
| Sociology | -7.0% | -5.0% | -5.0% | -15.0% |
| Education | -8.7% | -4.2% | -10.4% | -15.8% |
| Speech | -2.7% | not reported | -6.0% | -14.3% |
| Biology | +4.0% | +3.3% | +5.4% | +8.0% |
| Mathematics | +12.8% | +13.3% | +2.7% | +26.3% |
| Chemistry | +7.6% | +7.5% | +2.1% | +18.3% |
| Business Adm. | -4.5% | -0.8% | -9.1% | -2.3% |
| Management | -5.4% | -7.7% | not reported | not reported |
Also, you'll have learned The Philosopher's Song.
Seriously, though, we're tracking down our majors and minors from the past, to see what they got up to after they left VWC. If you're one of them, please drop us a line.