Philosophy majors unite!

Source: oafbot

I almost majored in philosophy in college. Unfortunately, I was thrown out my freshman year for cheating on my metaphysics final. I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me. Wait, was that me, or Woody? (Haha, lame. Please forgive.) Jokes aside, I did fall in love with philosophy at Berkeley. (Go, Bears!) You get to talk about cool things like transcendental phenomenology and the eternal recurrence and ontological proofs for the existence of God -- what's not to love? I can remember taking a class on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche my senior year. I've never felt so alive as I did when we studied nihilism -- there's a surprising freedom that comes from knowing life has no meaning or purpose.* It can be extremely disconcerting as well. It's no coincidence that around this time I also wore a lot of black, carried around a skull, and became an anti-social pessimist -- my version of the trendy and all-consuming Existential Crisis.

Well, it seems I'm not alone in my need to wax philosophical. According to a piece in The New York Times this week, philosophy majors are on the rise. Apparently, this generation of college students wants to examine life and ethics in a way political science and microbiology classes don't allow. So if you're one of those freshies on the verge of declaring a philosophy major, just beware: a lot of people (read: "grownups") will lament it for being an impractical choice. You'll invariably hear something like, "So what do you plan to do with all that a priori knowledge once you get out into the 'real world'?" Touche. But as far as I'm concerned, study what you love as an undergrad. Save practicality for grad school.

Did you major in philosophy in college? Who's your favorite philosopher? And what was your existential crisis like?

* Gotta love German romanticism!

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11:59 - April 10, 2008

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