This previous post bears repeating in the current economic climate...
If you are wondering what kind of degree programme is likely to boost your general smarts, consider these figures.
Go here. This is one of several graphs from the above article. Based on GRE test performance (Graduate Record Examination) of graduate programme applicants. Quantitative (math) skills on the vertical axis, verbal skills on the horizontal (other graphs include the third component - "analytical writing", at which philosophers also excel, dramatically outperforming all others).
Philosophy graduates are pretty damn smart, the various figures suggest, compared to graduates with other degrees, including most - perhaps even all - sciences (though were they smarter to begin with, or did their degree programme make them smarter, compared to other degrees?). Check the article. Here's the original table of GRE scores of US students completing a variety of degrees.
Notice religion also does very well.
This data suggests (but falls a long way short of establishing) that if we want to produce graduates with general, across-the-board smarts, physics and philosophy are disciplines to encourage [and possibly also that accountancy and business administration should be discouraged (this confirms all my prejudices, I am pleased to say!)].
Note some very weird stats on this graph, such as business administration's woeful performance, doing less well than even "art and performance" on quantitative skills and verbal skills (which is staggering). And accountancy grads less good on quantitative skills than philosophy grads (!) and the worst performers of all on verbal skills. Both business and accountancy are also weak on the analytic writing component.
Of course, as the new business-friendly, market-led Tory vision of degree provision kicks in, we'll probably see philosophy departments up and down the country closing and business administration degrees expanding. Brilliant.
P.S. Just added a second graph comparing analytical writing and verbal. Check out e.g business administration. And where's philosophy?
If you are wondering what kind of degree programme is likely to boost your general smarts, consider these figures.
Go here. This is one of several graphs from the above article. Based on GRE test performance (Graduate Record Examination) of graduate programme applicants. Quantitative (math) skills on the vertical axis, verbal skills on the horizontal (other graphs include the third component - "analytical writing", at which philosophers also excel, dramatically outperforming all others).
Philosophy graduates are pretty damn smart, the various figures suggest, compared to graduates with other degrees, including most - perhaps even all - sciences (though were they smarter to begin with, or did their degree programme make them smarter, compared to other degrees?). Check the article. Here's the original table of GRE scores of US students completing a variety of degrees.
Notice religion also does very well.
This data suggests (but falls a long way short of establishing) that if we want to produce graduates with general, across-the-board smarts, physics and philosophy are disciplines to encourage [and possibly also that accountancy and business administration should be discouraged (this confirms all my prejudices, I am pleased to say!)].
Note some very weird stats on this graph, such as business administration's woeful performance, doing less well than even "art and performance" on quantitative skills and verbal skills (which is staggering). And accountancy grads less good on quantitative skills than philosophy grads (!) and the worst performers of all on verbal skills. Both business and accountancy are also weak on the analytic writing component.
Of course, as the new business-friendly, market-led Tory vision of degree provision kicks in, we'll probably see philosophy departments up and down the country closing and business administration degrees expanding. Brilliant.
P.S. Just added a second graph comparing analytical writing and verbal. Check out e.g business administration. And where's philosophy?
Comments
What types of jobs do philosophy majors end up with, anyways, other than teaching and writing?
My current recruitment consultant has recently erased all trace of it on the CVs he sends on my behalf.
Swenka you should try to do some programming as well you will walk straight into a job.
There is a false belief that Medical School, Law School, and Business School admissions criteria require undergraduate majors in so-called "Pre-Med", "Pre-Law" or Business.
Frankly, it is probably more difficult to actually major in Philosophy and take the prerequisites for these professional schools than to narrowly focus on one of the sciences or other fields often thought to be required for graduate admission.
A self-imposed and immutable law of said discipline, is that cause precedes effect. The inconvenient paradox of the Big Bang, is the existence of effect sans cause. Will no one rid us of ever-troublesome reality?
It takes at maximum, three elementary questions to reduce all human understandings to dust. But to be charitable, humans are by their very nature inherently flawed. Therefore, all understandings devised by humans cannot but be similarly marred.
I am considered an oddity: a literate engineer.
The world needs people like you!
Computer is an electronics device that can accept data and instructions as input, process the data to given instructions and shows results as output. Computer also has ability to store data and instructions. The physical and tangible parts of the computer are called “Hardware”. “Software’s” are intangible parts of the computer system.