Work for the philosophy majors

At universities all around the world, there are thousands of fields of study to choose from that offer tangible skills. Coding and business management, for example, are often pointed to as among the best majors for students to choose from. But what about majoring in philosophy? Let’s take a deep dive.

First of all, today philosophical education is available for anyone who passed the exams but only a few newbies who already have put some points into analytical thinking (game joke over here, didn’t expect it, right?) will get real results out of programme as such. Analytical skills won’t be taught as a part of the philosophical programme, but it is crucial for the correct understanding of philosophy as a system, otherwise, you won’t be more helpful than an encyclopedia. People who lack basic analytical thinking often rise to the top of philosophical studies, becoming historians and biographers of the field, and authors of its school’s textbooks.

So, already we’ve pointed out three potential career paths, yet these would only acceptable for the “low-skill” philosophers (although, in terms of finances, such jobs are sometimes quite lucrative).
A person gets admitted to a university and becomes a student, but what happens next?

Philosophical education gives you the ability to classify subjects like things-in-itself, also known as a clear phenomenon without any dependencies. When you can perceive things this way — you are able to make conscious decisions in its regard — philosophy gives you an opportunity to understand reality in terms of the whole phenomenon, and to make for your own mind a whole structure of being. Studies give you an understanding of your own mind, life and being, so you start to see life as a structured system. In other words, you are becoming a visionary that has strategic thinking. This way you are able to understand correlations of reasons and consequences, and you are starting to have a “roadmap” of any phenomenon you end up dealing with. In this way, we have a bunch of clearly applied technical skills demonstrated in the form of analytics of all types.

Of course, to become a decent financial analyst you have to focus on social philosophies and have basic knowledge about economics. Also, such abilities can help you master professions tied to legal matters, such as being a lawyer. This is the “mid-tier” of the job opportunities available to philosophy majors.
What is the missing piece needed for the advanced philosophical level? Same as in anything else: what pushes us to draw the greatest painting, to write the greatest book, to make the best performance or to record the best song? Pride and egoism would be a must-have personality feature. Pride and egoism give the value for your ideas even if it is not supported in the society or if it goes against the current trends. Pride is the engine of new inventions. But for achieving top tier of job opportunities for philosophy majors, one’s pride has to be balanced with adequacy and rationalism. Compare your thoughts with others, and then analyze it. Rationalism shows whether the idea is decent, while pride allows you to stick with this idea even if others reject it. But if you make a mistake, pride will help you to accept it , because lying to yourself is the highest point of self-disrespect.

Here I want to get to the question of plagiarism and replication that should be understood. On the example of the history of the philosophy, we can analyse this problem. See, the history of philosophy, such as the history of atheism, doesn’t work like a review of separate thinkers, it is a classified system, eternal conversation. When you read Sartre’s book, you are getting involved in this conversation, you can read what he thought about some questions, arguing with earlier thinkers. If you want to say something, you must read what previous guys told about it — because there may be a problem of replication. If you do not agree — you can oppose him/her with your own research. But you have to know that there is a bunch of scholars who ascribed as “first-come, first-served”. They’ve already done it in the framework of their own studies, and there is a big chance that your thoughts are secondary.

The post-modern era brought us an understanding of recurrence of all thoughts. As you can understand already, one of the highest points of a philosophy major’s career is a position of a researcher. But specialists, like these professors, have to cross the border between new sight and old ideas, as soon as they achieve those they can apply the philosophical methods to a certain scientific or cultural field, such as arts, economics, physics, etc.
Some additional professions you can try as a philosophy major: become a negotiator but it complies variation of middle stage jobs or become a consultant (political consultant, economic consultant, social consultant). Also, you have an option of becoming a politician as well, but philosopher inside you will die at this moment. Action prevents thought. A philosopher is always a person “number two”.

To sum up, there are lots of opportunities for students who major in philosophy, but not much promise in the way of career earnings.
Philosophical studies can be the best choice for students who care about the world’s future, who feel responsible for humanity, and who don’t intend to make much money.
Sad, but true.