| Well in your case, I would first ask my parents what I would do as another major.
Will econ or business make me get a job on wall street? hell no it wont.
Will an english major allow me to teach english? Not without teaching credentials or the ability to teach.
Will being an anthropology major make me an anthropologist or an archaeologist? Nope.
Will being a political science major get me a good govt. job? Nope. Probably some crappy, barely 30k adviser or beaurocratic desk job.
Will being a spanish, french, chinese, arabic...etc major mean I can speak X language fluently? Will it guarantee me a job? Nope.
Does chemistry make me a chemist?
The list goes on really. I think the reason why people always ask about philosophy majors and jobs is because there is no specific job generally associated with being a philosophy major. When people hear it they think of Philosophers, unpaid people who think about things.
The problem with that kind of error filled thinking is that such thoughts cause people to neglect what being a philosophy major hopefully produces.
Philosophy is perhaps the quintessential humanities major. Not only does it touch on nearly every subject imagineable, but the major itself is generally the best way to train somebody to think critically.
Not only is philosophical literature some of the most advanced, verbally speaking, writing and argumentation in the english language (and others too). Perhaps the largest goal of philosophy as an academic subject is to teach you to think critically, effectively, and without error. Many of such classes focus on argumentation and persuasion.
I read an interesting bit the other day about the GRE. Philosophy majors on average score the highest on both the Verbal Comprehension and Analyitical writing sections. English comes in second. The reason why is simple really. Although English majors contain difficult readings and writings similar to those that a philosophy major would study, the focus of English is most often on meaning, whereas in Philosophy it is often on argumentation, persuasion and error. So in the two cases, the reason for reading is different (a big example would be comparing philosophical argumentation to abstract poetry).
If you major in philosophy, the one true advantage of it over other majors is that it best develops critical thinking. And that is perhaps the best asset for not only jobs, but life itself.
I myself am personally against plain business majors simply because I would much rather be a liberal arts major where I am taught to think clearly and effectively, than be a business major where I am taught to do strictly business.
I myself am quite intellectual tho, and I think that gaining knowledge and feeling like I can speak intelligently about subjects is much more important than wealth or learning how to do business. |