Careers of Philosophy Majors
You majored in philosophy as an undergraduate, but decided not to pursue any further degrees in philosophy. What are you doing now?
Tell us about it.
This post is by request of a philosophy professor who wrote:
I wonder if you might think about creating a place for folks with undergraduate degrees in philosophy to post what careers they have found themselves in. I am sure lots of folks read Daily Nous because of an interest in philosophy sparked as undergrads (my students do). It would really help with recruiting philosophy majors if we could show them (and their parents) what sorts of jobs folks get with a degree in it. I frequently use the lists of famous people who studied philosophy, but something more realistic would be good.
So if you have a bachelor’s in philosophy (but not an MA or PhD in it), please tell us about your career. Thanks!
By the way, here’s one of those lists of famous people who studied philosophy, and here’s another, and one more. Several years ago, David Boersema (Pacific) put together a book of brief essays by philosophy majors at his school about their varied careers. Oh, and there’s this guy. Perhaps the answers here will serve to counterbalance things like this.
I teach high school Speech and Debate
I work as a technical writer. I will say, one odd thing I encounter is my degree not matching the job despite having experience and other qualifications that do. Recruiters count this as a strike against me.
I do have additional degrees in other fields (MA in Asian cultures and languages and PhD in Communication and Culture) where I feel like I did bring my undergraduate philosophical training to bear, writing about philosophical topics in Japanese film. However, the academic job market being what it is, I currently work as an IT team lead for a local credit union. Perhaps my undergrad logic classes ended up being the most useful to my eventual career.
I went straight from college to law school and have been a practicing attorney for 30 years. As much as I enjoyed majoring in philosophy, I knew that academia was not for me.
I currently work in university research compliance. I used to work in non-profit arts fundraising.
I did get a philosophy MA in a terminal program but I don’t think that makes my job opportunities much different from someone with a BA.
I’m a data engineer now. I’d echo what Nicholas Hall and Brian said. Having an educational background in logic helps a lot with the actual work. Having an educational background that doesn’t match the job makes it harder to convince recruiters. That said, if you can make it past recruiter screenings, actual engineers and managers in the field tend to recognize the value of having people with different backgrounds on their teams.
I’m curious for my own plans (if applications don’t pan out especially) what the path from MA in philosophy to data engineer is like? Did you attend a boot-camp, post-bacc etc.?
I had kind of a unique situation but the short version is that I taught myself how to make AI for different projects I was interested in. Coworkers at the job I had at the time kept telling me I should make a career out of it, so I got a data analytics professional certificate from Google. The certificate and my portfolio got me my first job as an analyst. The company I was with gave me a lot of leeway to do things however I wanted and, within a year, they moved me to engineering because I my work was gravitating in that direction anyway.
Thanks!
After getting a degree in philosophy, I have worked in various jobs: copywriter, web designer, legal assistant, data analysis, and some local journalism and freelance writing. Then went back to graduate school eventually.
I practiced general and transplant nephrology for two decades, while publishing on related topics in bioethics and public policy. A few years ago, I left practice for a position in medical industry, but I still publish. Training in philosophy changed the course of my career (for the better). I highly recommend it for undergraduates hoping to pursue a career in the health professions, who have the interest in and temperment for studying philosophy.
I did my BA in Philosophy & Politics; I did do an MA too but that was in Political Theory (although a reasonable proportion of what I studied was actually philosophy).
I am a management consultant; this doesn’t mean very much in itself as it covers lots of quite different activities. What I actually do is work with investment banks on major programmes typically related to regulatory or market structure change, technology change, and currently M&A activity.
I graduated in 1981 with a degree in Philosophy and a minor in Computer Science. Immediately after college I did a work study program at Honeywell and got my MS in CS. I then worked in IT until age 30 when I went to law school. I only worked as an attorney for about three years. I then became an IT analyst at Gartner for 18 years. After that, I went to IBM to train product managers how to apply Design Thinking for several years. Now I’m retired and writing a book proposing a philosophy I call Fruitionism. Throughout it all, my background in philosophy has been a real asset!
Fruitionism…?
I’m actually in academia, just as a Systems Administrator
I went to medical school and became a neurosurgeon because of my interest in philosophy of mind. During training I became far more in ethics and pursued a fellowship in clinical ethics. I am now a practicing neurosurgeon in a Midwest college town. I guest lecture in the philosophy department and and serve on our hospital’s ethics committee.
I have a BA and MA in Phil, applied ethics. I was prelaw and am certified in gender studies and DEI. I’m working in AI ethics and present at industry (tech) talks internationally. I’ve also been recognized by NASA and the US State Department recently sponsored a trip to Thailand for me to speak. I couldn’t do this work without my philosophy degrees.
I travel and play poker professionally part time and I study and write philosophy part time. I absolutely love it.
I’m a psychotherapist. I went on to earn my Master’s in counseling, and view my professional work as a practical application of philosophy.
Me too— after 15 years in academia
Philosophy to psychotherapy seems like a reasonable path to take. Unfortunately, in Scandinavia, to apply for a master’s in counceling or clinical psychology you have to have a BA in the same subject. With some exceptions, a BA in philosophy will not qualify you for much else than a master’s in philosophy. I think philosophy as a subject or as a major would be more popular here if it wasn’t a one way street.
I am a minor in philosophy. I write books for a living. The writing and research needed to complete my philosophy minor was instrumental in creating a precise understanding of perfect word formations. It isn’t easy, but it pays large dividends in my ability to critical think. And someday I will be a household name. I encourage college students to at least minor in philosophy, and upon graduation when looking back, you’ll be amazed at the growth. Because growth only becomes apparent in retrospect.
If I may respond in a bit different manner: I have a BA in Religion and an MA in Phil and I umpire and train umpires. My philosophy training has been invaluable for learning/teaching rules interpretation in sports!
I majored in philosophy but got a job in software engineering, but that’s because I was doing computer science for most of undergrad.
Full-time mortal
I recently graduated BA honours in Phil paired with a minor in professional writing, and will be attending an MA program in the fall.
In the meantime, I launched my own freelance writing business that offers copywriting, editing, and writing tutoring services. I’m also tutoring some philosophy undergraduates. I don’t get requests for copywriting and editing (I’m more or less terrible at marketing my business), but there’s a demand for philosophy tutoring and aid with academic writing.
I also did a short stint as a research assistant.
I have master’s degree in mental health and currently struggling with master of philosophy in ethics of mental health due to financial constraints and the course demands. I work in forensic Mr BT health and would like to pursue PhD studies majoring in philosophy.
Back in the 1960s I studied for the Catholic priesthood
Back then you had no choice. You had to get a BA in philosophy (I actually found it kind of dry and boring). After leaving the seminary, I found that I could get state certified in Latin, English and Social Studies for public school in an eastern state. I taught Latin and Social Studies for about 12 years, then got my MA in Guidance and Counseling. Retired after a total of 30 years in.public schools. Never did anything with philosophy
I have a BA in philosophy (2014), and I currently work as a Senior Business Systems Analyst in a Fintech company. I was promoted to a Business Analyst position nearly 5 years ago because I had a good understanding of how IT Systems worked, but never knew it was a job I’d be interested in before then. I think a background in philosophy really helps when writing out requirements in a clear/logical way for software engineers to understand, and also helps with being able to reason through technical problems.
My degree has never come up when applying for a job, but most people who hear about it find it interesting (I work with a lot of Information Systems and Computer Science majors). I’ve dreamt of doing an MA in Philosophy for the past decade, but it would probably do nothing for me career-wise unless I was going to make a significant career change.
Maybe this is mostly applicable to Scandinavia, but a degree in the humanities does not (according to the statistics) fare too good here. This is also my own experience. I have a MA in philosophy and work at a warehouse in a factory. The sentiment is that people go to university to get a vocation, and work recruiters and interviewers seem confused by a philosophy degree or any university degree that is not directly in line towards the job that you are applying for. A university degree by itself is not very marketable when applying for jobs here. From what I understand, in the USA you study right after highschool and any university degree in USA is in itself a merit towards any job(?) so people are encouraged to go to college even if they do not have a career path in mind, but in Scandinavia you go to university later in life (in Sweden apparently the average age to start university is at 25 years old, with 20% starting after 30 years old) often with the motivation of training towards a specific vocation. So, because the sentiment is that you go to university with a future profession in mind, a philosophy degree (or a humanities degree) by itself will probably not get you far when applying for work outside academia unfortunately.
I’ve lived and worked in Germany for several years now, and the highly vocation-minded approach to education here is also a bit jarring to me as an American. Students are expected to have concrete career plans *before* attending university (or vocational school, or a work-study program) and then they study for that career specifically. And almost every career path has some specific course of study as a prerequisite. But the idea that 18-year olds do, or even should, have a clear career plan already is ridiculous to me. In this respect, the liberal-education approach of US unis is clearly superior.
According to a quick google search, the average age that German students first enroll at university is 23.6 years old. So, although there is incentive to have a clear career path before starting university, neither Scandinavia nor Germany seem to expect that of 18-years old. My impression is that you don’t attend university until you have a path figured out, usually somewhere in your mid-twenties. I guess one argument against the US liberal-education approach is that by the time you reach your mid-twenties and have some insight about a career path, you will have a sizable amount of student loans already that will deter you from taking up a vocational-focused university degree.
My husband has a BA in Philosophy and we are in the US. He got his degree just as you said, to have a degree, but didn’t plan to use it for a career. He also works in a warehouse and doesn’t use his degree. All it shows is that he has higher education training, but using it practically for a job is hard to come by for him. He wasn’t interested in teaching.
I’m 75 and now semi retired. After completing an honours degree in (analytic) philosophy in an out of the way university in Western Canada, I was accepted for a doctoral program at an ivy league US university. For the heck of it I simultaneously wrote a civil service exam, and ended up getting a job offer there as well. Having no money, I accepted the civil service position and ended up having a great career, rising to the highest level. I have been in the position of having to hire many people in my career. I was always happy to hire someone who did well as an undergraduate philosophy student. If you want someone who can think rigorously and critically, nothing beats a philosophy degree. Subject knowledge can always be attained.
I work in Corporate Communications at a Big4. Have a BA in Philosophy.
I am a high school teacher in Scotland. I teach RMPS (Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies) for 11 – 18s. This covers things like world religions, moral topics such as animal rights, abortion and euthanasia; and philosophical topics like origins of the universe, philosophy of religion and utilitarianism. I also teach Philosophy to 16 – 18s covering Hume, Kant, Descartes, Bentham and Mill. We have a good uptake and the pupils love discussing these big topics. I have also worked for local council in administrative jobs. After 10 years in teaching I am not sure how much longer I will last with the workload but so happy to be able to talk about Philosophy on a daily basis.
I did my BA in Philosophy and hold an MBA. Started my career as a digital marketing manager. After a year and half, joined an SME (small and medium enterprise with a worforce of 128 employees) and was made a director of business development). Was working there for 3 years. During the weekend, I also teach master students; working professionals at a local business school. This prepared me to join an Engineering school as head of corporate partnerships. Worked in that school for 3 years. I am now in another Business school as Head of Business and Management department.
Coming from American liberal arts background, I have acquired knowedge in English 101 and 102, Algebra I and II, political science, economics, anthropoloygy, history, sociology, physics, and chemistry, and a whole bunch of courses in philosophy. 2 elective courses in German also prepare me well. And finally my business and management study in MBA offers me so many opportunities. I am teaching all business related courses which are strongly supported by my 7 years of working in the industry.
I might be quite a generalist with some areas of focus in a few subjects. But i think and believe, i can handle different types of conversations which spring from general science to politics to economics and business within my knowledge level.
Philosophy prepares me to be more analytical, critical and structural.
My next career move is to be a COO or General Manager in a company or to be a principal of a local franchise school.
In terms of concrete hands-on skills, i am training myself to be a data analyst.
I have an undergraduate degree in philosophy, and teach first year composition at a community college. I have a number of academic publications, though, so perhaps I really should haved remained in academia!
Ended up going back to grad school (got funding) but before this I got a job doing research/report writing in a boutique consulting firm, which specialized in strategic planning. They really needed people that were good writers who could figure out how to do basic market research. It helped that I had some computer skills, especially excel. But it was a good job and it paid reasonably well. All my coworkers had masters degrees and at some point taken a philosophy class and they knew it was a difficult subject, so they were impressed by my philosophy degree.
I have a BA in Philosophy and ended up taking a job in Commercial underwriting immediately out of college as Credit Analyst. In full disclosure I had a personal connection to hiring manager which is probably the only reason I got the job. That said, I’ve been able to “rise through the ranks” over the last 18 years, and have been told it’s because of my ability to think strategically and communicate complex ideas in a straight forward manner (working 60-80 hours a week at times and being willing to give up holidays and weekends doesn’t hurt either).
I fully believe my Philosophy courses, especially Logic, prepared me with skill sets that are needed to succeed as an senior leader in the finance industry. I’m not sure if it would translate elsewhere, but I have a suspicious it would.
I double majored in Philosophy and Psychological Sciences and I am starting a PhD program on Cognitive Neuroscience. There are a number of final careers I might end up at
I’m a broken down backyard lawn mower calendar model
I developed a map of the Australian financial system but could not persuade anyone else of its value. My colleagues being self-selected accountants did not seem to understand my philosophical approach to regulation. I’m certain I’m not a deluded crank. Valuable ideas can be lost to societies not trained to properly consider them. Pragmatism and commonsense or just plain ignorance and lack of curiosity are societies’ loss.
I gained a BA in Philosophy and about to start postgraduate honours in Philosophy!
I work as a public administrator in Kenya
BA in philosophy and now in nursing school doing wildland firefighting (USA) during summer break.