When stating you have a Philosophy degree you can be greeted with a look of bewilderment from your family, friends and now recently for me, recruiters. From personal experience I believe the question they would rather ask (if they weren’t so polite) would be: “what can you do with a Philosophy degree?” You can do a lot and very little, so it would be acceptable to ask what the point is behind spending £9K to study it. Majority of the time it isn’t to become a professional philosopher.
Philosophy has had good press and bad press in the past and while it is classed as an arts degree, there seems to be a lack of knowledge on what Philosophy students actually study. We all have a good understanding of English and History subjects, but Philosophy seems a grey area where recruiters from my experience don’t seem to be sure of the skills of a Philosophy student. Regardless of the degree, I am sure that graduates have had to explain their reasons for the course, but I believe that those skills haven’t been doubted the ways I think mine have.
Our skills can include:
· Analytical, problem solving, research, independent thought
· Debating, communication (oral and written), organisation,
· Team work, working on initiative, attention to detail,
· Dealing with some of the most complex and daring thoughts in history
I think the last is crucial and completely missed when discussing Philosophy student’s skills. Our degree is one of the few disciplines that allow its students to handle some of the most controversial essays in history. Many of these papers have influenced and directed governments, religious belief, ethics and medicine. Philosophers were once greatly respected leaders and the Philosopher Plato stated that the state (country) should be ruled by Philosophers, as they are the most educated and knowledgeable (The Republic).
While an interesting and thought provoking idea, I don’t regard Philosophy as a more respectable subject, my only qualms being that the attitude towards modern Philosophy students can be misguided. From friends and people I have come across who have shown a curiosity in my studies, the attitude seems far from the ideas above of a Philosophy graduate. Instead the typical idea seems to be of drinking in pubs discussing conceptual ideas and generally just being very boring. I found some interesting articles in the University of Leeds Careers Centre on the general idea of Philosophy students by employers as being lazy about work because they think logic, time travel, anti-realism is interesting and normal work isn’t. Furthermore, if anyone has come in contact with a Philosophy student or graduate, they will know the degree involves very few contact hours. So from the outside perspective it looks as though our degree is easy. One of my Business friends came back from her day at University to proclaim she had a look in one of the Philosophy tutorial rooms to find us “just sitting around chatting”. She was mortified because she had never seen something look so easy and informal.
However I beg to differ as would many Philosophy graduates. We may have less than ten hours of contact a week yet we are still given a forty hour workload, therefore we are expected to organise our own time and develop our own learning techniques. The advantage over a science or mathematical based degree is that we aren’t given the information; we have to find it ourselves which gives Philosophy students a sense of independent learning and maturity.
This could and maybe should look desirable to an employer, but in researching what recruiters want at entry level for graduates they could possibly be excused for thinking Philosophy graduates would think they are above work. During my research for this piece I came across an interesting article called Advice for Philosophy Graduates[i] by Rob Farrow. What he drew on were the factors which would cause stress to a Philosophy graduate looking and entering the workplace. The section I found most interesting was he understood that at entry level a graduate isn’t expected to reason, question and discuss the mechanics of their new surroundings. Instead you are given your policies and procedures and that you are expected to follow.
“…[Philosophy graduates] often move from an environment which prizes critical and original thinking, ethical integrity and rationality to environments in which these are often considered problems. The culture of compliance that is so prevalent in the modern workplace can be a shock to the philosophy graduate who has been developing their independent thought.”
Nevertheless, I know that this problem of graduates feeling restless and unchallenged occurs right across the spectrum of degree disciplines. I recognise of course there may be other degree disciplines who receive prejudice when applying for jobs by recruiters, but I have specifically chosen Philosophy because this is my chosen subject and I know from experience that there seems to be a lack of understanding of what it involves. The point I am trying to make is whether recruiters do enough homework on their applicants as we do when we apply. Graduates put a lot of trust in the recruiters to make the right decision in whether to accept their application and I would imagine most graduates would expect the recruiter to have some understanding of their discipline. I believe a good number of graduates would believe they should not have their degrees discriminated against if the discipline has a bad or unusual reputation. Philosophy seems to be one of those subjects where the air hasn’t been completely cleared and I fear recruiters might not look deep enough to see what valuable employees we could be.
[i] http://philosophycompass.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/advice-for-philosophy-graduates/
In response to: How to Beat Stress if you’re a Philosophy Graduate http://philosophycompass.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/how-to-beat-stress-if-you%E2%80%99re-a-philosophy-graduate/
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