Philosophy Opportunities
Our philosophy students GO FAR...
Career Placement
Increasingly, business and industry are seeking thoughtful generalists who can analyze and reason. Philosophy graduates often go to various graduate programs or enter administrative or management training programs for careers in government or industry.
What Can I Do With a Major in Philosophy?
Look at the wide variety of occupations Philosophy Majors have accepted:
Arts Consultant
Author
College Counselor
Criminal Defense Attorney
Director of University Gift Planning
Director Information Systems
Education
Foreign Service Officer
High School English Teacher
Marketing Analyst
Ministry
Law
Producer/Director
Psychologist
Publisher
Real Estate Attorney
Skills
"Among the things people well-educated in philosophy can do are the following: They can do research on an almost unlimited variety of subjects...They can write clearly and effectively. They can communicate well, usually both orally and in writing. They can generate ideas on many different sorts of problems. They can formulate and solve problems. They can elicit hidden assumptions and articulate overlooked alternatives. They can persuade people to take unfamiliar views or novel options seriously. They can summarize complicated materials without undue simplification. They can formulate and defend policies on a wide range of important issues in business, education, social legislation and other areas. They can integrate diverse data and construct useful analogies. They can distinguish subtle differences without overlooking similarities. They can also adapt to change, a capacity of growing importance in the light of rapid advances in so many fields. And well educated philosophers can usually teach what they know to others. This ability is especially valuable at a time when training and retraining are so often required by rapid technological changes."
--"Careers For Philosophers,"
American Philosophical Association
Graduate School
The study of philosophy is valuable in its own right. It is also an excellent preparation for law and theology, as well as for many other graduate specialities. In fact, philosophy majors score consistently higher than all other humanities majors on GRE, LSAT, and GMAT graduate school entrance tests.
Philosophy graduates from Saint Francis University have moved on to graduate schools in Philosophy, Psychology, Mathematics, Industrial Relations, Theology, Law and other fields.
They now have very diverse careers in education, law, ministry, sales, counseling, civil service, free-lance writing, and institutional administration. One of our majors became head sanitary engineer for a school system; another is a bishop.
"Between 1974 and 1982 [for example], philosophy students scored at least five percentage points above average in admissions tests for professional and graduate schools in America. No other subject matches that...And, because philosophers are fanatically argumentative, law firms find that they make good lawyers."
--The Economist, April 26, 1986.
As a practical matter, philosophy proves to be an excellent major, second major, or minor, even for students that do not intend to pursue a graduate degree in philosophy. Philosophy majors do significantly better on graduate admissions test, including the LSAT, GMAT, and GRE, than any other humanities major. No other major in the humanities consistently scores above the mean, and no other major in the humanities scores as far above the mean on any of the graduate admissions test.