Thorongil

I have Keegan on my list and he seems like the best for a general, well-written overview.

Interesting use of the word "but."

This has been my impression as well. I think I have a fairly good grasp of where most Schopenhauer scholars are, but many of them simply don't work for PhD granting programs (like David Cartwright), or if they do, they're at schools which are geographically remote (like Robert Wicks in New Zealand) or at a place I would be very skeptical of getting into (like Columbia). I see Barbara Hannan is at New Mexico, though, so maybe I'll add that school. Do you think I should email some of these professors and ask if I ought to apply, after giving them a little background on my interests, or simply apply and talk about that in my personal statement?

I'd really like to do something on Schopenhauer, but it's been hard finding programs with scholars who have him as an interest. Sandra Shapshay at Indiana is pretty much all I've found as of now.

Sounds very interesting, but it says it has limited funding.

Teach for America is a shady organization. I would get the MA.

I will have an MA in comparative religion by the end of this year and want to apply to both religious studies and philosophy PhD programs. I like the interdisciplinarity of religious studies, but philosophy is my first love, and I can't honestly choose which would be the better fit for me academically. My interests are broadly speaking philosophy of religion and history of philosophy. Does anyone have any advice for me in terms of applying to the philosophy schools? Also, what schools might you recommend? I've done my own research but pose the question to see if I may have missed some. I'm more concerned about getting in with funding than with being in what somebody considers a top program.

Are you sure you're not pulling my leg? That seems to be the consensus so far in this thread, from what I can tell. What is your discipline, if you don't mind me asking? And are you in a PhD program now?

You're quite right. Going by the 1800 estimate, that works out to some serious poverty wages. However, my plan is to at least get into a fully funded PhD program. If I can't find decent employment as a professor after that, then so be it. I will find something else to do. But I'm wondering whether, for right now, it would be wise to finish the MA, added debt and all. If not, then I would probably have to start all over again in a new MA program or simply shut off the academia career path entirely. As I said, I would prefer to at least take a shot at a PhD before I close said path, but if the debt I will have accumulated makes it not worth it, then I will close it now.

This sounds eerily similar to my circumstances. But do you mean to say you've had to add an additional 20k to your 33k of undergrad debt? That's a lot, certainly more than what I'm worried about, and yet it seems you're intent on finishing the MA. What are your reasons for being okay with this, besides the possible advantage that student loan debt has over credit card debt? I would be very curious to know.

True enough! But what's done is done. What do you think I should do in my present situation?

That's probably true, but on the other hand, I'm a single guy who plans to remain so and don't really have any other expenses to speak of. I don't need much. How much does an adjunct get paid per year?

Sadly, there really isn't anything for humanities majors. I was aware of this going in and have wanted to become a professor basically all my life. I just don't know if the debt I am accumulating is so high that I'm better off abandoning the professorship track to start working somewhere (who knows where) to pay it off. Those new figures are startling. It seems, then, that even if I add 5-10k I will still be squarely in the average. In a way, that's both reassuring and not at the same time.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. My hope is that whenever I do start working in earnest, I can shovel as much disposable income at paying off my loans as I can. I want to have them paid off in under 10 years.

By downtime, what do you mean? Time spent in between degrees?

The average undergrad student loan debt, as Google tells me, is 29,000. So I'm right smack in the average. But by finishing the MA, it could be closer to 40k. I want to know if that's a bridge too far, since I don't want to spend decades paying it off. Perhaps it is just my own personal roll of the dice....

I wasn't sure where to post this, so mods can feel free to move it. I have about 30k in undergrad student loan debt, and I might have to take out an additional 5-10k (depending on if I get bumped up in my teaching appointment and some other factors) to complete my MA. Would it be worth it to carry on another year to finish the MA degree? Or should I drop out and start repaying the loans I already have? Or should I considering transferring? I'm in the humanities, by the way. Your thoughts would be much appreciated.

This is a very helpful and thoughtfully written post. Thanks.

That sounds reassuring. I'm quite bitter about logic based on my experiences as an undergrad. I took the intro logic course early on and believe I ended up with a low B, though I struggled when it began to touch on the more mathematical stuff. When it came time to take the upper level logic course, mostly due to scheduling and other time constraints, I took it online, and didn't understand one iota of it. Moreover, the professor who administered the traditional class was known for being a poor lecturer and a very harsh grader. I eventually dropped out of the online class and changed my major to an interdisciplinary degree. Neither math nor symbolic logic am I very good at or interested in, but I had thought I might apply to a few philosophy programs (my interests are rather interdisciplinary) that weren't so strict about logic.

From what I can tell, you are spot on with these lists, especially the first. Thanks again.

PMed you.

I obviously don't mean I want to do something on the history of all the ideas there ever were. One would think the phrase "history of ideas" was self-explanatory. Let me try to explain it with an example. If I were interested in, say, the idea of the social contract, then to write an "intellectual history" of it would be to trace its development as an idea in the minds of various philosophers, statesmen, and even polities. Who came up with the idea? How did it change over time? Who or what was most influenced by it? Who were its critics? What impact did it have on various institutions and peoples? Etc. Does this make sense to you?

Well, how about you tell me what subfields there are, according to you. I would simply answer, "the history of ideas," but you have already disputed this as a subfield.

I think it's both. In any event, you have any suggestions for me?

Are there any PhD programs in intellectual history, that is, in the history of ideas/history of philosophy as part of history departments? I don't know history departments very well, but I was curious about this. (I have a religion/philosophy background.)