Duns Eith

It is inevitable and it is good to keep this experience close to heart: it keeps you humble, and you can recall times like these when you've overcome major hurdles in understanding (namely, you can be grateful and glad for how far you've come). Also, if you lose this feeling, get worried that you aren't reading widely enough (or you're likely reading authors who confirm your views more often than not). While you have this feeling, take note what your methods are to solve the problem. Seriously, think about the steps you're following to grasp it. Are you writing things down? Are you journaling? Are you just getting frustrated and trying again? Are you looking at secondary literature to get another perspective on the text? I ask because many of these should be clearly set out in your mind as strategies that actually help you, that you can tell others to do, and for which you may remember and renew when you are feeling like you haven't had innovation or challenge lately. Undergrads will want this advice too.

This is very cool. I wish I had time for many of these.

Post script: It might seem that the application season is already getting behind us, but notice that many programs for the MA accept apps in January and February. I went to Western Mich for their MA, and had a great experience there. Let me know if you have questions about their program. I think they have an app due end of Jan or early Feb

You may want to consider an MA program in philosophy first. https://fundedphilma.weebly.com/ There are funded spots at most of these. How are they funded? Well, they typically cover most or all tuition, plus a stipend to offset cost of living, in exchange for TA'ing (for first year MA students) and teaching (for second year MA students). This can be a great way to develop professionally, get into the academic scene, confirm what kind of grit you have for your passion (or the lack thereof), network and get letters of recommendation, and perhaps most importantly 'extend your reach' for top PhD programs. The majority of grad students at PhD programs earned an MA first. On this note, I would strongly urge you to think of grad school as an internship + apprenticeship, and that you should not be paying your way but rather earning your keep. If you have no funded offers, try applying again or take it as evidence that you should go into something else. If they don't fund you, they literally don't think you're worthy of their investment when compared to the other applicants. It's competitive.

Just to be clear this is not an endorsement for the UB program for accomplishing your goals, but that they would likely be competent to give direction for your goals.

UB has a PhD program and hence plenty of people who have insight to your question, right in your own backyard. Have you asked any professors in the Philosophy department at UB? Cohen, who teaches in both philosophy and Jewish studies department, might be worth considering meeting. He's very continental. Lawler works in continental. Williams is the dept chair. There are currently grad level courses on Nietzsche, on Hegel, and on pragmatists. Current grad students are working lots of the authors you named.

"This site summarizes the results of the 2020 PhilPapers Survey, which surveyed the philosophical views of 1785 English-speaking philosophers from around the world on 100 philosophical questions. The 2020 PhilPapers Survey was a follow-up to the 2009 PhilPapers Survey. The 2020 survey increased the number of the questions from 30 to 100 and expanded the target population. It also collected longitudinal information on how philosophers' views have changed since 2009." https://survey2020.philpeople.org/ https://philarchive.org/archive/BOUPOP-3 What's also interesting is that there are comparisons made for how opinions have changed

Just commenting to say that this is a great project, and I remember doing this manually for 20 programs myself back 5 years ago. Not fun. I am glad this is a community effort.

This is something I had no idea would be true. This, as with other programs, (I think U Chicago comes to mind?) do see the program as cash-cow in function. The fact that they have a scholarship converts my advice from a strict prohibition to a "probably a bad idea." Where probably is almost solely determined by the likelihood of that scholarship.

Funding is on a scale. Even among the programs that are "fully funded", some offer tiny stipends and full tuition remission, others give majority tuition remission and hefty stipends. These are probably the underlying concerns: Don't go to any program that makes you foot the entire bill, unless you can do so without taking out student loans. Don't go to a program that won't give you TA/GA experience, but gives it to PhD students. Don't go to a program where, in order to survive, you must work another job in addition or take out over $2000 in student loans each semester. This isn't about whether borrowing money is bad or stupid, but rather the cost-benefit analysis. Don't absorb the cost for the benefit, unless absorbing will not be a burden.

I want to take this back. Your GPA may be lower than average, but not wrecked and certainly not an outright defeater for applications. Most schools admit all-things-considered, even if there are some arbitrary "cut offs" (GPA, GRE, etc.) at some schools. I want to take this back as well. Sort of. If you have a PhD in hand and at a good school even while adjuncting, your pay might be very well above $30k. Not tenure-track, not permanent instructor, etc. Just adjunct. For example, making $4,000 per class, 4 classes per semester, not including one in the summer, you'd make about $32k ($4,000x4x2 = $32,000), and some institutions pay above that and benefits since you're teaching more than 3 per semester.

P.S. you didn't mention anything about what other MA you could do instead. Theology? Literature? Computer science? P.P.S. if you're from the UK, you'll definitely get more subscribers than from the US, because everyone thinks a UK accent is intelligent.

First off, I am sorry that you have needed to pay even a cent for an MA in humanities. I would strongly advise against anyone who considers such a route of entering any grad school for humanities, without funding. It makes so little financial sense. Second, your GPA is definitely wrecked. Most people I know working on an MA in philosophy had about a 3.7 or higher before moving to PhD. Maybe they were not normal. Maybe the programs are not typical (maybe there's grad inflation). Third, if I am honest, whatever you want to do in philosophy almost certainly can be done without credentials and without all the suffering. There are no jobs, practically speaking, for teaching gigs that pay more than $30k a year. If you are able to do what you want without going the PhD route or get an MA in philosophy, then do that. Be creative. If you just want to be smarter and blog, then move to a city with a good library (or library system) and let philosophy be a hobby more than a jobby. If you want social connections, there are plenty of groups online interested in discussion and many have podcasters or Zoom reading groups. If you want to educate and provide resources to inform students interested in the subject, create a YouTube channel or Twitch and give it a go. The university system is broken.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2026228?seq=1 Maybe it is not worth it to be as ethical as possible "I don't know whether there are any moral saints. But if there are, I am glad that neither I nor those about whom I care most are among them. By moral saint I mean a person whose every action is as morally good as possible, a person, that is, who is as morally worthy as can be. Though I shall in a moment acknowledge the variety of types of person that might be thought to satisfy this description, it seems to me that none of these types serve as unequivocally compelling personal ideals. In other words, I believe that moral perfection, in the sense of moral saintliness, does not constitute a model of personal well-being toward which it would be particularly rational or good or desirable for a human being to strive." "Moral Saints," by Susan Wolf

That would be about half of a normal admission year, I believe. COVID has had long-term effects on universities. Many of them are still reeling from budget cuts. Miami's grad student stipend is quite high, so I wouldn't be surprised if they cut back the number of lines were to be taken.

As a Berkeley scholar I was mildly disappointed that this was about the school (that was named after the city, which was named after George Berkeley from one of his poems) rather than on George Berkeley qua philosopher. Not surprised, but mildly disappointed.

Don't worry, there are plenty of other people in departments who want to make sure you feel like like crap and an imposter while their own work doesn't receive the accolades as they hoped either. Narcissism is not uncommon among academics.

I hope you get into a great program. Just because you have met a pile of necessary conditions, I hope it is clear we make no pretense to claim to have found jointly-sufficient conditions for your acceptance. If you have 20 applications in at schools with about a 5% acceptance rate, you've got better odds than a coin-flip! May the odds be ever in your favor

To echo what others are saying, you should not be worried about that GPA. It will meet all of the cutoffs that exist at any school that matters. But you might be cut out for other reasons. You should be most concerned about your writing sample and your letters of recommendation.

I'm at UB, but in Philosophy!

You're right the optics don't look good for undergrad. But it is possible to get accepted. It needs to be balanced against everything else. Your grades in grad school are not bad, not the best, but it is possible to get accepted. Again, all things considered. Your letter writers, though, should mitigate against this. They should be able to say that your grades put you in the 85 percentile or 90 percentile, or ideally, >95 percentile. Make sure you have excellent letter writers with plenty positive to say about you. The things you need to work on: writing sample should be immaculate. It should have an argument. It should have support for that argument. It should be clear, with linear flow and headers and verbal signposting. It should handle a topic that shows you did research outside of the course syllabus. It should be readable by someone who has never read the author you are dealing with, or has never even read the topic being handled. In order to accomplish this, seek advice about the best paper you can put forward. Ask your letter writers for advice. Be open minded about re-writing the paper from scratch. Ask friends who have never touched your topic to read it for clarity. Flag everything that they said was not clear. Ask your philosopher friends whether you've given a good argument. Ask the professor you wrote the paper for what you need to fix to make it a competitive writing sample. Fix everything they tell you is wrong. In case it is not obvious: your writing sample can't be co-authored. In other news, if you do everything right, you can still get shut out while applying for 20 programs. It is extremely competitive. It has a lottery-like aspect to it.

To add to what @you'll_never_get_to_heaven said, if you have very distinct interests and it pigeonholes you in the department, this could work in your favor. All the faculty will know who you are, because you're that guy. All the grad students will give you an opportunity to be the butt of jokes and take it with grace or respond with wit. When opportunities arise for your interests, they will tend to get forwarded to you. The opportunities would be there, but you've got to have the right personality and character to make the best of them.

You're welcome In all seriousness, I sometimes wonder if I should've taken warnings a little more seriously. I went into this with eyes wide open as a newly married guy. But now I have a child. And the idea of gainful employment and security increase in their value to me personally each day. This is doable to some extent with an MA. There are plenty of applied philosophy programs. For example, if you're into ethics, there are programs that are intentionally interdisciplinary and geared toward application. Medical humanities, business ethics, engineering ethics, etc. Some are philosophically light, though. You'd have to look deeply into the program's faculty. Likewise, there are programs in ontology. Some are more philosophically oriented than others. There are some who work in ontologies and the department of defense (see, for example, Barry Smith's work on defining terrorism, an ontology of territory (and borders), as well as information systems. There is a similar program at his school with bioinformatics (information ontologies for healthcare). Depending on the think tank, I know people who have gone into terminal MAs and gone to help with environmentalist causes, religious causes, etc. Almost all these options seem to be in-person. But I can't say there aren't any online options. As my personal plan B or plan C -- I hope to teach on the side even if I have a full-time job elsewhere. There are plenty of opportunities for part-time adjuncting. Community colleges almost always have an open pool for those who have at least 18 credits of at a grad level, with preference to MA and PhD conferred. Not only community colleges, but also smaller schools too. That's great to hear. Except that last sentence, lol.

Hi, @JesusFdz What are your long-term goals? I saw elsewhere that you were thinking of going into philosophy in order to teach. I hate to be the Donny downer, but you realize that this is not the kind of thing you just go into. Teaching jobs that pay more than rent, clothing, and food are hard to come by. If you go into a PhD program, you need to accept the possibility that you never get more than an adjunct position. Adjunct pay right now is somewhere between $1,600 and $3,000 per class (from where I have seen in large metro areas/big state universities, not cities like NYC, LA or Chicago). That means if you teach two classes at one "well-paying" school at $2500 each and two classes at another "average" school for $2000 each, you're looking at a very full load (probably 120 students), and only making $9,000 a semester, or $18,000 per year (not including summers). Famous article, now 15 years old, and the prospects even worse: "Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go" https://www.chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846 Anyone who aspires to a PhD needs to have the absolute determination that you will consider it worthwhile to complete, even if you don't get the tenure track job. Setting aside 6-10 years of your life making low income must be worth it to you for other reasons than becoming a professor. As for MA programs, don't pay for a program. I think you said you can do tuition assistance via GI bill. I dunno how that works, especially for international stuff. As for Edinburgh, I have had friends go to Edinburgh in different departments. All of them were happy there in person. I have no idea what you'd expect in doing remote work.

Expect to have the flexibility to move your work load around. You call the shots. It is in your hands. No one is going to force you to work 11 months of the year. How often do you have flexibility to go places over summer? Every year. During semester? Probably ABD (all-but-dissertation). Financially and professionally, it is wise not to take more than a month off. But you are given freedom. I know grad students who have 4 months per year off (3 mo. in summer, 1 mo. in January). I think it is foolish to do so, but this just tells you that you have a lot of wiggle room if you want to take it. Some students will say "Don't run the rat race. Take your break as long as you want! It is good for your mental health!" Sure. You can. And there may be seasons when it is necessary. But lemme say that advice to make it the norm to take months off usually comes from people who end up dropping out before they finish. Why? because they didn't take their work seriously. Lacking excellent work habits. Failing to make and stick to a long-term goal of getting a tenure-track job. They don't work on research or writing over summer or take advantage of the various short breaks to get caught up on work; they just fall further behind. When they realize they have wasted their time and they need to finish major milestones in their PhD, they just drop out. The truth is, for better or worse, you must work significantly harder than average to remain competitive on the market. But is any department forcing you? No. A month a year is more than reasonable.