"Why do you think they call it the ACADEMY?" |
Philosophy courses meet general education and transfer requirements in critical thinking, humanities, and cultural diversity. See Courses for specific transfer information about each philosophy class. Aside from fulfilling transfer requirements, all students can benefit from philosophical training. Any college-level academic work requires the skills taught in philosophy classes: clear thinking, careful reasoning, and excellent argumentative writing skills. Philosophy skills apply across all disciplines. Philosophy graduates regularly score above students in all other disciplines on admission tests for professional and graduate schools. The following table is typical: |
Rank/Discipline | LSAT | GMAT | GRE Verbal | GRE Quant | AVG |
(1) Philosophy | 3 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 3.75 |
(2) Mathematics | 1 | 1 | 14 | 2 | 4.50 |
(3) Chemistry | 5 | 4 | 12 | 5 | 6.50 |
(4) Economics | 2 | 5 | 16 | 7 | 7.50 |
(5) Engineering | 4 | 3 | 20 | 3 | 7.50 |
(6) Physics | 11 | 12 | 6 | 1 | 7.50 |
(7) Foreign Language | 7 | 8 | 5 | 13 | 8.25 |
(8) English | 8 | 6 | 2 | 18 | 8.50 |
(9) Other Humanities | 6 | 10 | 7 | 14 | 9.25 |
(10) Biology | 10 | 11 | 10 | 8 | 9.75 |
(11) Computer Science | 11 | 7 | 17 | 4 | 9.75 |
(12) Anthropology | 9 | 12 | 9 | 10 | 10.00 |
(13) Other Sciences | 11 | 12 | 13 | 6 | 10.50 |
(14) History | 12 | 9 | 4 | 17 | 10.50 |
(15) Journalism | 14 | 6 | 8 | 20 | 12.00 |
(16) Psychology | 13 | 14 | 11 | 12 | 12.50 |
(17) Political Science | 17 | 13 | 9 | 15 | 13.50 |
(18) Art and Music | 15 | 16 | 18 | 19 | 16.25 |
(19) Other Social Science | 16 | 15 | 18 | 16 | 16.25 |
(20) Speech | 18 | 6 | 21 | 21 | 16.50 |
(21) Business | 19 | 19 | 23 | 11 | 18.00 |
(22) Sociology | 20 | 15 | 19 | 22 | 19.00 |
(23) Social Work | 22 | 15 | 22 | 24 | 20.75 |
(24) Education | 21 | 10 | 24 | 23 | 21.50 |
An undergraduate major in philosophy is excellent preparation for non-technical
graduate and professional schools. Employers value clear thinking and writing skills, too.
Philosophy graduates -- with or without graduate training -- are routinely hired in
computers, law, technical writing, business, the arts, policy analysis, government, and teaching.
Finally, philosophy training appears to be very helpful for careers in comedy: Jay Leno, Joan Rivers, George Carlin, Woody Allen, and Steve Martin were all philosophy majors (no joke!)
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