bar_scene_gambler

It's interesting that you mention those programs, because those are pretty much the programs that I've been looking at since I started considering PhD's in Education. Though, in addition to those four, I'm also looking at U Washington's Education, Equity, and Society program and Penn State's Ed Theory and Policy program. Do you know anything about U Washington? Of the six, that's the program that I'm least certain about, since they don't have a placement record listed on their website and U Washington isn't exactly a Harvard, Penn, or Stanford.

Thanks for the replies viget and themissingsock. When I say "educational theory," I'm referring to various, more philosophical, questions about higher education. So, for instance, I'm very interested in questions about whether educational institutions in the US should be pushing to be more democratic and liberal, questions about whether or not the goal of a university education should be the production of "good citizens" (see Nussbaum) or more politically aware individuals, whether or not the structure and curricula of our educational institutions should reflect our culture, or whether educational institutions should strive to be critical institutions, etc. These are highly theoretical questions, the sort that form niche specializations in both philosophy departments and (apparently) Colleges of Education. With that said, would it be advisable for me to even consider applying to PhD's in Education? Or will departments of education be as hostile towards these inquiries as philosophy departments?

Also, I'm going to add another question, if anyone else knows the answer. I've been looking at Stanford's SHIPS program, U Penn's PhD Education, Culture, and Society, and Penn State's PhD in Educational Theory and Policy. Yet, for some reason, I can't find any information on their placement records. So, does anyone know how well these programs place, and, if not, does are these solid, reputable programs?

In regards to (2), I'm not terribly interested in policy making. My interests in education are purely academic, which is to say that I'm interested in the theory side, not application. It's why I'm not looking into an Ed.D. That being the case, would you just advise against me applying at all? I'm okay with specializing in something largely unpopular. I'd be doing that if I decided to stay in philosophy and focus on the philosophy of education anyway. In terms of my lack of experience in education, what sort of thing would remedy that situation? Is it necessary if I'm interested in theory anyway? Can you give me more specifics on the sorts of things that qualify as "educational experience?" After all, I do have another year and some change until I graduate. I might be able to take steps to remedy the situation. Thanks for responding to some of my inquiries. I really appreciate it.

Hello all, I'm currently a masters candidate at a well-respected MA program in philosophy (in the US). I'm thinking about applying to some Education PhD's next application season, but I'm a bit green and don't know much about the field. So, I have some questions. First, however, I should probably explain why I'm thinking about applying to PhD's in Education. One of my main areas of interest is the philosophy and history of education. I'm especially interested in educational theory. However, there isn't much interest in the philosophy of education in the philosophical world. So, I figured, in addition to applying to philosophy PhD's, I'd look into PhD's in education that are well-regarded and that focus on theory. So, my questions are: 1. Is there a designated ranking system for PhD programs in Education? For philosophy we have the Philosophical Gourmet Report, which, while not perfect, is helpful for getting a broad-strokes look at where it's worth applying to. 2. Is it worth looking into PhD's in Educational Theory? 3. If there isn't a well-regarded ranking system, what are some good programs that focus on educational theory? 4. I've looked into U Penn's PhD in Education, Culture, and Society. It seems to be the kind of thing I'm looking for, but is it a good program? Since I'm looking to teach at a university, placement is very important, but I can't find their placement data. 5. What are PhD's in education generally looking for? Obviously GRE's, GPA, recommendations, and so on are the core of any application, but what about things like the writing sample? Do I have to have a writing sample on education? My master's thesis is, broadly speaking, on education, but it's obviously going to be more philosophy than anything else. Will that matter? And what are the other components to a strong application? 6. I'm only looking to apply to PhD's that are fully funded. Penn's looks like it is. Is that common or uncommon for PhD's in Education? 7.. More generally speaking, what's the academic environment like in education? In philosophy, it's somewhat divisive because of different schools of methodology and focus. Is it similar in education? Sorry for the mass of, what probably seems like, simple questions, but, I'm totally unfamiliar with the academic environment in education. Any help would be immensely appreciated.

Pretty much the stuff that everyone's been posting in the other threads on this forum. Do well on your GRE's, work on your writing sample, and try to tailor your personal statement to the department's interests, though, in this case it might not be as important given that GSU's program revolves around training people to be good grad students/PhD applicants/educators, and as such some students here have interests which don't explicitly coincide with the interests of faculty here. I'd just read the hints in the "here's what we learned" thread that's been pinned. When it gets closer to application season, I'll probably start watching this forum a bit closer, trying to give advice and such.

I have also slacked a lot on summer reading. My girlfriend and I moved to Avondale Estates (a suburb of Atlanta) and I've just been relaxing mostly. I read a few books, but not what I wanted to read. I'm probably going to propose in the next few weeks, so we'll see how that goes.

This will probably reveal who I am, but I suppose it doesn't really matter much. I'm graduating from Lehigh University in a little over a week. Since I see you're a fellow Pennsylvanian, I assume you know where Lehigh is. It comes as a surprise that this isn't the norm, given that Lehigh's philosophy department doesn't have a reputation.

I'm grateful because I feel that it prepared me for the workload of graduate school. That said, because the department didn't worry about breadth, I'll need to take done extra surveys in grad school to make up for it.

No, you're not misunderstanding. We had the normal survey courses (forgot about having to take those), Ancient, Modern, Symbolic Logic, Contemporary, and Intro. But that only adds up to five courses in Philosophy. Those courses were designed to give us a broad understanding of philosophy, and so we did the anthology thing, but all other courses were "figures and themes" courses in which we read a substantial number of complete texts. In my epistemology class, for instance (it was an unorthodox course), we read Cavell's The Claim of Reason, Austin's Sense and Sensibilia, and filled these in with numerous essays and monograms by Moore, Lewis, Clarke, Malcolm, Fodor & Katz, etc. For an independent study I did on Hume, I read his entire philosophical corpus in a semester. For my course on Kant's Ethics, we read the entirety of The Groundwork, the Second Critique, The Metaphysics of Morals, Religion Within the Bounds of Mere Reason, and then supplemented it with secondary literature which we were meant to read outside of class. Basically, my faculty threw us in the deep end, and we had to learn how to swim. We were expected to put in the necessary extra work outside of class, which basically means that I have lived and breathed philosophy for the last four years. A typical class was my professor assigning 100-200 pages of reading, then we would go home and read it with secondary literature if it was necessary. We would come to class and would start discussions on the material from the moment everyone was present. Classes were usually an hour and a half, three times a week. Then usually the philosophy majors would stay after and speak more with the faculty about the reading. Wash, rinse, repeat. There were no homework assignments other than reading and no tests. We would have to write short papers periodically and at the end of the semester we would have to right a 25 pg+ paper on any topic of our choosing from the books we'd read during the semester. The non-intro/survey courses were all pretty intense, but I left feeling better prepared for grad school than most, even though it may mean that my education in certain areas isn't as broad as others.

I think many of us still are. Very unprofessional of them, waiting so long to notify their rejections.

That's odd, I did the exact opposite in my undergrad. Once I got beyond my intro course, it was all complete texts. I've only read an anthology once beyond my Intro, with the exception of a logic textbook.

Brandeis' funding package isn't that great in relation to many of the others on that list. Just thought I'd point that out.

I wish I were that funny.

Did an Independent Study on Being and Time last semester and it was the single best course I've ever taken. The book is absolutely phenomenal, and I got so much out of the course. Also, I won two different writing prizes with my final paper, which is always a plus. You should see if someone in whatever department you end up in will do an independent study on Heidegger with you.

Just to clarify, Aurelius was just an example. It's what I gave to my father because, well, he was the traditional stoic-type who thought that people should just learn to cope with the bad shit in life and push forward. What I mean when I say "the very core of my being" is the things we hold near and dear to us. I hold individuality near and dear, my father holds the ability to cope with the bad in a similar manner, and so on. Maybe philstudent's brother holds mathematics as a field in the same perspective, but it's likely that there's a reason behind his attachment to mathematics and his low opinion of philosophy, one which may be addressed well with Russell or the work of a logician, but that is not necessarily the case. Connecting with the way the individual sees the world and his/her life is how you get them to change their mind about philosophy. Maybe philstudent's brother connects to the world via math, in which case phil math or logic might be a great introduction, but maybe math is only a means to an end or a useful tool to him, in which case philosophy will only seem like another useful tool and not something necessary to life. You know? As for the universally attractive stuff, I wasn't really referring to your suggestion. I think it was probably one of the better suggestions here.

Definitely will. Also, we found this awesome blog where some dude posts awesome stuff to do in ATL on a daily basis. Apparently there's $2 tacos, tequila, and tecate somewhere (can't remember the name) every Tuesday. I'll have to send you the link.

I really don't understand why we're throwing names of philosophers and works around as if they're going to be universally attractive. I know if someone gave me Russell's "On Denoting" (or the other suggestions here) as an example of what philosophers did, I would never have decided to major. I probably would have dropped it and never looked at philosophy again. The reason why I stepped into philosophy to begin with was because the first thing I read, Self-Reliance, was absolutely beautiful and spoke to me and my personal sense of taste. Of course, I've grown since then and reading something outside my area of interest isn't going to make me abandon the field, but you have to get them through the door before you can broaden their horizons. I don't know why we're assuming philstudent's brother is only going to be interested in mathematics. One shouldn't aim at his current interests or what he thinks is useful, one should aim at what he thinks is absolutely indispensable, the thing that speaks to very core of his being. In my case, it was the desire for individuality, but it could be anything. Of course, that makes our task impossible because out of all of us, I'm pretty sure only philstudent knows his brother that well.

If you're looking to convince him, then you'll need to tailor it to his specific interests. It'll have to be something that speaks to him as a person. Philosophy which doesn't speak to him will naturally feel like a waste of his time. So I'd suggest figuring out the sort of thing that would appeal to his personality. Does he think of himself as a realist, as someone who sees the world for what it is? Then maybe something like Aurelius or Epictetus would speak to him. You get the general idea. Just make sure that whatever you start him out with is accessible. And unless there's something about the Meditations which will interest him personally, I wouldn't go that route. EDIT: Oh, and when are you moving ATL? I'm moving at the end of May, so I figured if you'd be around we could meet up and do something.

You could start a new thread. I'd be willing to talk about my undergrad, for whatever good it's worth

Well...it looks like I've been doing philosophy wrong. Guess I know what I'm reading this summer.

You really think reading the 1st critique is necessary? I haven't, nor have I read Schelling or many German Romantics (though I adore Goethe and Schiller). Also, dude(ette) should totally read Emerson.

What's your AOI if you don't mind me asking?

Anyone other than Philstudent and I going to GSU? Just curious? There have been a few acceptances reported and I don't know if there are some lurkers out there who are also attending or not.

I must be the stingiest upvoter. I always have upvotes to give. Here, have a few.