Returning to philosophy after 6 years

[porfiry]

Hi everyone, I'm hoping to return to academic philosophy 6 years after completing my BA in philosophy, and really stressing out about my chances of getting into an MA program with a solid placement record. Not having sat in a philosophy seminar for more than 5 years, I'm not even attempting PhD programs. I'm curious to know of others who are making (or have successfully made) a transition back to philosophy after having spent several years in the "real world". Is it even possible? Or is it the case that given the state of competitiveness of philosophy, the top MA programs (GSU, UW-Milwaukee, Northern Illinois) are filled with stellar undergrad philosophy honors students who somehow didn't make it into top PhD programs?

A bit of background about me: I did my BA from a well-ranked state school, but switched to philosophy rather late in my undergrad so I didn't take a wide range of courses. My overall GPA is average (3.3), but philosophy GPA is much better (3.78). There are also a couple of dropped philosophy courses on my transcript, which I hope don't kill my chances.

Since college, I have taught English abroad and I'm currently doing a part-time, online MA in Applied Linguistics from an Australian university. While my MA courses aren't philosophical in nature (language teaching, discourse analysis, psycholinguistics), they did contribute to reigniting my interest in philosophy.

My recommenders include a philosophy professor (a respected figure, who has assured me that his will be a strong letter), a history professor (who, though not a philosopher, is highly respected in German intellectual history, and I hope his will be a solid letter), and one of my MA lecturers (well outside philosophy, but more recent so I hope indicative of general academic growth).

My main interests are in Philosophy of Mind - language and thought, identity, consciousness. But equally, I'm interested in exploring other areas and getting a firmer grounding in philosophy as a whole before I go on to a Ph.D.

So many philosophy advice blogs begin with lengthy disclaimers about the impossible competitiveness and bleak prospects of an academic career in philosophy, that some days I wonder whether I should just accept the fact that I've spent too long outside philosophy to successfully return to it. But I really want to!

[tarski]

We have very similar research interests.

Anyways, don't give up before applying: apply, and see what happens! I've read all those blogs as well; the disclaimers get boring after a while .

As for which MA programs you want to apply to: my own strategy is being very cautious, (I'm applying to around 20 total programs, PhD and MA) so I would advise that you try to find an MA with an alright placement record that's not mentioned in the MA section of the Philosophical Gourmet Report (because I'm pretty sure that all the ones you mentioned are).

[porfiry]

Yeah, I'm definitely applying! It's just that sometimes it feels like insiders are trying really hard to dissuade me!