The Uneven Student

jonri
Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:53:27 +0000

Wading in again…

I agree with Leitner that on the undergrad level its more important to pay attention to the quality of undergraduate education.

Among other things…many high school students have little understanding of what philosophy is or at least what it’s like to major in philosophy. A lot of them are interested in political philosophy. For those who are, majoring in poli sci is often more appropriate than a philosophy major.

Here’s an excerpt from Princeton’s philosophy department’s description of the requirements for a philosophy major:



… six out of the eight courses must be so distributed that there are two in each of three out of the four areas (metaphysics; ethics & philosophy of value; logic & philosophy of science; history of philosophy) into which philosophy courses are divided; there is no such restriction on the remaining two out of the eight.



Lots of high school kids who think they are interested in philosophy are really only interested in one or two of those areas. I say this only because unless a high school student has an unusual degree of exposure to different fields of philosophy, it’s unlikely that (s)he can really say this is a probable major. So, picking a college based on the strength of the philosophy department makes very little sense in most instances.