Online BA in Philosophy?

[Fart_of_War]

Hi everyone.

I would like to know if any of you has experience with online Bachelor of Arts programs in philosophy. What was the program you were in? How was your experience? Did it help prepare you for a decent MA or PhD program? Also, how would you rank the online BA philosophy programs available as of 2019?

 

The ones I can find are:

The University of New Orleans

Arizona State University

University of North Carolina, Greensboro 

University of Illinois, Springfield

 

Any other suggestions would be appreciated as well.

[hector549]

5 hours ago, Fart_of_War said:

Hi everyone.

I would like to know if any of you has experience with online Bachelor of Arts programs in philosophy. What was the program you were in? How was your experience? Did it help prepare you for a decent MA or PhD program? Also, how would you rank the online BA philosophy programs available as of 2019?

 

The ones I can find are:

The University of New Orleans

Arizona State University

University of North Carolina, Greensboro 

University of Illinois, Springfield

 

Any other suggestions would be appreciated as well.

Speaking in terms of institutional and program reputation, ASU would be the best. How well that would translate in terms of an online degree program, I'm unsure. However, ASU has some name-recognition in academic philosophy because it has a graduate program in philosophy with some areas of particular strength (though unranked), and more generally is a decent, reasonably well-known large public university. The other schools will not have any such name-recognition.

I can't speak to the online aspects of any of these programs, but I would ask you this--why do you want to pursue an online program? You'd be better served by completing your degree in-person rather than online if at all possible. A big part of a good philosophical education is talking to your classmates and interacting with faculty, and it's hard to replicate that adequately in an online space.

Edited August 16, 2019 by hector549

[jeanxxlqz]

If you’re interested in ethics, I believe the University of Memphis offers an online B.A. in philosophy with a concentration in applied ethics. I did not attend this program, however, so I can’t speak to it much otherwise. 

[Scoots]

there's a distance/online BA at the University of London in philosophy that has had some success in getting people into good, even top, phd programs (there was a discussion about it on the Leiter blog a while back--some googling should be able to locate it).

[Duns Eith]

20 hours ago, hector549 said:

Speaking in terms of institutional and program reputation, ASU would be the best. How well that would translate in terms of an online degree program, I'm unsure. However, ASU has some name-recognition in academic philosophy because it has a graduate program in philosophy with some areas of particular strength (though unranked), and more generally is a decent, reasonably well-known large public university. The other schools will not have any such name-recognition.

I can't speak to the online aspects of any of these programs, but I would ask you this--why do you want to pursue an online program? You'd be better served by completing your degree in-person rather than online if at all possible. A big part of a good philosophical education is talking to your classmates and interacting with faculty, and it's hard to replicate that adequately in an online space.

Agreeing with Hector here.

I can see wanting to take electives at an online program, but why would you take your major --especially in the Humanities-- at an online program?