Career Paths
"But what can you do with it? Is it practical to major in philosophy?"
Philosophy majors are asked these questions all the time—by family, friends and fellow students.
In one sense, philosophy majors already know the practical value of philosophy, since they are usually drawn to it for the enrichment promised by focused study of the great questions - What can I know? What can I hope for? How ought I to live? It is doubtful that there can be anything more practical than intellectual, moral and spiritual development.
What people mean when they ask the question, however, is what career opportunities are open to philosophy majors? In fact, there are many career possibilities for undergraduate philosophy graduates.
The study of philosophy develops many transferable skills, including the ability to see different sides of an issue, present cogent reasoning for a position, detect fallacies in arguments and boil down complex data to its essence.
After graduation, philosophy majors succeed and thrive in careers in business, education, communications, politics and law.
Where Do Our Students Go After Pacific?
Many of our students go on to successful careers as entrepreneurs. Companies they have founded include:
- The App Factory
- Ezibota
- Mosspaper, Inc.
Our graduates have gone on to work at numerous companies and institutions, including:
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A Path to Law School and Other Graduate Programs
Law schools have long regarded philosophy as excellent preparation, and many of our graduates have gone on to attend law school. According to the Law School Admissions Council's 1996 study, philosophy majors had the second highest national average on the LSAT (Law School Admission Test), just behind physics/math majors.
Philosophy majors have performed very well on the GRE (Graduate Record Exam) and GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test). According to data published by the Educational Testing Service, philosophy majors performed better than business majors on the GMAT. Philosophy majors scored 17.6% better than the overall mean on the GRE-Verbal exam, and were tops among humanities majors on the GRE-Quantitative section.