Philosophy Overview

Scholarship Opportunities

Do you know students or colleagues who are passionate about social justice and workers' rights? 

Check out these Diversity Scholarships which promote the scholarship and leadership of women and people of color in social justice activism or the field of Labor Studies.  

Awards include full tuition plus additional funds, to pursue an MA in Labor Studies or B.A. in Urban and Community Studies,  at CUNY's School of Labor and Urban Studies.  The best candidates will have a strong academic background, leadership abilities and a commitment to social justice. Details & application tips: Laurie.Kellogg@slu.cuny.edu 

Future Study Opportunities

There are at least two summer institutes running this year for all undergraduates interested in philosophy: https://www.apaonline.org/page/undergraduateworkshops

For students from underrepresented groups in philosophy, there are a number of summer institutes running this year as well, many of which include partial or full funding: https://www.apaonline.org/page/diversityinstitutes

Here is some good general info for Philosophy students interested in graduate school.

Career Opportunities

Denver Summer Teaching Fellowship 
Have you ever thought about teaching? Want to give it a try? If so, the Denver Summer Teaching Fellowship is for you. Generation Teach partners with local schools to provide undergraduate and high-school students with high-quality summer teaching experiences.

The Summer Teaching Fellowship includes two weeks of training and six weeks of teaching small groups of middle-school students. Teaching Fellows receive daily coaching and a $2,800 scholarship. Upcoming application deadlines are February 5 and March 5. Learn more here. Fellowships fill quickly; apply here!

Great Hearts Academies has several mid-year openings for teaching positions that they are currently working to fill, in both Arizona and Texas, including:

• Special Education teachers
• English as a Second Language teachers
• Apprentice teachers
• K-5th grade homeroom teachers

If you, or someone you know, might be interested in applying for these openings, you may do so by completing the mid-year general faculty application (or copy and paste the following link into your browser: https://phg.tbe.taleo.net/phg04/ats/careers/v2/viewRequisition?org=GREATHEARTS&cws=46&rid=1124). Interested in learning more? Please reach out to us at careers@greatheartsamerica.org.

In the meantime, here are some additional resources to continue learning more about Great Hearts:

• Our careers website: https://www.greatheartsamerica.org/careers/
• A booklet that shows what it’s like to be a Great Hearts teacher: https://dutl587ef8ep4.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Passion-For-Teaching-V2.pdf
• Links to two of our master’s partnerships: University of Dallas’ Masters of Humanities and Classical Education, and Templeton Honors College at Eastern University’s Masters of Arts in Teaching Classical Education.

The Philosophy Major’s (Surprisingly Solid) Career Prospects

Philosophy majors know how to think—they see the big picture, question assumptions, analyze arguments, and understand alternative perspectives.

In the 21st century, mastery of the basic skills of reading, writing, and math is no longer enough. Increasingly, almost any job that pays more than minimum wage today—both blue and white collar—requires employees who know how to solve a range of intellectual and technical problems… In addition, we face an exponential increase of readily available information, new technologies that are constantly changing, and more complex societal challenges such as global warming. Thus, work, learning, and citizenship in the 21st century demand that we all know how to think—to reason, analyze, weigh evidence, problem solve. These… are essential survival skills for all of us… Effective communication, curiosity, and critical thinking skills… are much more than just the traditional desirable outcomes of a liberal arts education. They are essential competencies and habits of mind for life in the 21st century.” Given the expected outcomes of majoring in Philosophy (described below), you might think the Philosophy faculty authored the above text in an effort to draw more students into its degree programs. Well, we of course wholeheartedly endorse the passage’s key claims; but we didn’t write it. Instead, the quotation comes from the introduction to The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—And What We Can Do About It by Tony Wagner, Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

As Wagner correctly suggests, employers of all sorts value highly the education and training Philosophy majors acquire; accordingly, career opportunities for Philosophy majors abound. Philosophy majors know how to think—they see the big picture, question assumptions, analyze arguments, and understand alternative perspectives. They can speak and write clearly, in both expository and argumentative modes. Philosophy majors can find themselves at home in the humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences, the exact sciences, and in all manner of professions—for they have been trained to take up basic questions that range across all these areas. Philosophy majors have found careers in business, medicine, law, journalism, media, government, teaching, science, social services, and advocacy organizations. And of course some have gone on to graduate work in Philosophy and to academic careers as Philosophers. Speaking of graduate work, in a recent publication from The American Philosophical Association Philosophy reports on "the average score for each of the three sections in the GRE," on verbal, mathematical, and analytic reasoning, that: "Philosophy is the best performing major overall, ranking first in the verbal and analytical writing sections of the test and 19th in the quantitative portion. And these data are consistent from year to year, both before and after the recent revision of the GRE." This data is confirmed by the 2014 Magoosh Guide to GRE Scores which shows Philosophy majors score higher than students every other major on the Verbal and Analytical Writing sections. Further, on the Quantitative section, Philosophy majors score higher than almost every other major in the life sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts, education, and business.  See also a recent paper by Prof. Robert ("Rex") Welshon (UCCS) on Some Benefits of Philosophical Training

So: Philosophy majors do very well in the job market, much better than you might initially think. Indeed, a recent (2015) study found that, by mid-career, Philosophy majors earn on average over $84,000 a year—more than students majoring in (e.g.) Journalism, English Literature, Political Science, and International Relations. Granted, this could be because students who choose to major in Philosophy are brighter and more capable to begin with than students who choose to major in these other areas. But it seems likely that it is (also) because students who choose to major in Philosophy find themselves well-trained for success in a wide range of careers, thus improving their lifetime employment and earnings potential; you might recognize some famous philosophy majors in an online poster created by Daily Nous. As with most majors, your immediate post-graduation employment prospects and earnings will be determined not only by your major, but by your grades, your work experience (including internships), and your planning. For further information about employable skills after you graduate, see  Employability - Where next? Unlocking the Potential of Your Philosophy Degree