Profession

I am a student interested in philosophy as a major. Are there any careers realistic for a philosophy major outside of teaching?

Comments

Lots! There are certain things for which philosophy obviously would not prepare you terribly well: Graduate study in physics, for example. But beyond these obvious sorts of cases, there is nothing you cannot do. Probably the single most popular career for philosophy majors is the law: A significant proportion of students at Harvard, where I taught for 14 years, went on to law school after graduating. However, in my years of teaching, I have known students who went to business school, who went into business directly, who became writers of fiction or artists, who went to medical school (of course, they also did the pre-med requirements), and so on and so forth. So, as I said, studying philosophy closes very few doors.

Studying philosophy prepares one quite well, then, for a whole range of careers. A study done some years ago (I can't remember by whom) showed, in fact, that businesses are particularly keen on philosophy majors. The reason, I believe, is that studying philosophy teaches you how to read, how to write and communicate clearly, and most importantly how to think and how to learn, and those skills will serve you well no matter what you do.

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