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I went straight to work and didn't get to college until 41/42. I'm working on my undergrad and plan to continue to my masters. I've found it incredibly rewardin

I went straight to work and didn't get to college until 41/42. I'm working on my undergrad and plan to continue to my masters. I've found it incredibly rewarding for two main reasons. First, since I have a career already, I'm free of the pressure to go to school for career purposes and can focus on something I enjoy, which also provides immense value to what I'm doing every day (I chose philosophy, much more relevant and practical than I think many realize). Second, I enjoy the experience and get quite a bit more depth from it than I would have in my 20's. It's a richer, more meaningful experience now that I'm older, have a strong sense of who I am, and am not put off in the slightest by naysayers or influenced by people's opinions of what I should or shouldn't be doing. I have more maturity now than at any other time in my life, and this has served me well in the sense of approaching topics with intellectual humility and just enjoying the process of knowing nothing to knowing a little. I do all the reading and then some, reading far and wide as well as doing deep analysis, writing all my notes, reviewing, and doing practice essays, and I enjoy every bit of it rather than seeing it as a chore. So, some initial thoughts for you, hope they're helpful. The only advice I can give is to enjoy it, realize it's a wonderful opportunity, be structured and disciplined with your time, and use your hard-earned experience to your advantage.

letsgo39 4y ago
Can you expand on how you found philosophy practical?
- isthisthingon99 4y ago
  Teaches you to think in ways that other courses won't.
  - capitalsigma 4y ago
    Upper level proof based math courses are much better in my experience (speaking as someone with a BA in philosophy who has been taking math courses part time for the past few years)
    - isthisthingon99 4y ago
      Not mutually exclusive. I took comp sci and philosophy so yeah I would agree.
- inphovore 4y ago
  I find philosophy is the sauce that goes well on everything. Sure, you can live on the bland essentials, and you cannot live on toppings alone, yet who doesn’t like a little… sauce with that?
- daviddever23box 4y ago
  The ability to conceptualize and abstract a problem into its component parts is a key skill that will never underserve you.
- killjoywashere 4y ago
  My daughter is a philosophy major while most of my family has been STEM for generations (father's an engineer, mother taught college math, grandfather was an engineer). I'm reassured by the requirements for formal logic, and the obvious applications in law, but also at the intersection of law, ethics, and many of the ML systems that I foresee coming online. She actually brought up this Harvard philosophy professor who had a story about keeping track of parantheses. I took advantage of the opportunity to show her the connections to Curry and from there to Lisp and the Little Schemer. She got it. She can reason, formally. That's important.
  - lampshades 4y ago
    In my experience, philosophers make great software engineers. I’ve worked with a few and always been happy to work with them.
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  Just to offer a counter-point to the others here, I've personally noticed that quite a few people who study philosophy (either formally or via self-study) tend to become "disembodied". Formal reason becomes king, even when informal methods are more appropriate for solving the task at hand, and the intangible becomes irrelevant, even when it matters deeply. Perhaps things would be different for someone in their 40s, who has a wealth of real world experience to draw on, philosophy would be valuable. But for the average 18 year old kid, studying it seems to create a set of terrible habits that take years to undo before the student can become a properly integrated adult.
  - writeinpencil 4y ago
    I started as a philosophy major and switched to history and economics for this exact reason. My philosophy classes became incredibly disconnected from reality and ended up being endless arguments about frameworks and formalisms, but without the rigor of mathematics outside of formal logic. I still loved my philosophy classes, but I'd recommend anyone studying it as their first undergraduate degree pair it with something more concrete.
  - gergov 4y ago
    I guess philosophy education tends to vary from region to region, but "young people into phil" tend to be insufferable in one way or another, while older people with an understanding of philosophy (...and a great many real world problems) tend to be pretty okay people. But that seems to be a broader issue with specialization anyway. Focus on one lane for too long and your brain starts to disfunction in odd ways.
  - melvinmelih 4y ago
    > Perhaps things would be different for someone in their 40s, who has a wealth of real world experience to draw on, philosophy would be valuable. But for the average 18 year old kid, studying it seems to create a set of terrible habits that take years to undo before the student can become a properly integrated adult. In the time of Plato and Aristotle it was frowned upon to teach philosophy to students below the age of 35 because they wouldn't know what to do with that knowledge.
specproc 4y ago
I really second this. The best thing about study as an adult is that you're largely studying for pleasure, even if there is a work goal in there somewhere. You know what's relevant and interesting to you and what's not.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
> (I chose philosophy, much more relevant and practical than I think many realize). As others have already asked, could you expand on this? Very interested.
- ramesh31 4y ago
  > As others have already asked, could you expand on this? Very interested. I started undergrad in my 30s, and also majored philosophy for similar reasons. It really is the most rigorous non-STEM undergrad degree you can get. And for people (like myself) who can’t pass calculus, but are still fairly intelligent, it can easily be parlayed into a more technical graduate program.
  - markdestouches 4y ago
    Everybody can pass calculus. The only way one can fail at math is gaps in knowledge. If you managed to get through something like Kant or Hegel, you can get through any math subject provided you have the necessary prerequisites.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- qorrect 4y ago
  I hear a lot of non-engineers say this. Talking about formal logic, and how philosophy and math were once the same discipline, how math proofs are akin to philosophical arguments etc. I don't think this crowd would get much out of it.
  - roenxi 4y ago
    It depends. Some people have really weak philosophical foundations and really need to hear about it if there is something out there that grounds them a bit better. We can't say if any particular approach to life is the best, but we can say that if you change your mind about which approach is best at age 70 you've spent a lot of years setting up for the wrong outcome. It is never to late in theory. But as a practical matter 70 is a bit late to sit down, take a step back, ask why and try to act on it. Better for people to line themselves up with good foundations from their 20s or maybe 30s. It is good to explore the options early, and think a bit about what the word 'option' even means philosophically.
devwastaken 4y ago
Philosophy is essential, how it's taught is unfortunate. In my philosophy class it was almost all about the history of philosophy, not the reasoning behind it. Assignments and tests were all about time periods, the specific names of philosophical ideas, from whom they came from, etc. I'd rather have open ended assignments. Ones that give moral dilemmas, and challenge their solutions. Make me think about something In a perspective I haven't thought of before. That's a powerful tool. But that's how academics works, the culture wants tests and assignments with check boxes.
- nathan_compton 4y ago
  I can't help but come to the defense of the traditional style, particularly for introductory philosophical classes. The fact is, people have thought about every moral situation from every angle already and just asking undergraduates to wax on about the trolley problem is kind of a waste of time. It is much more valuable to get them into the detailed history of ideas so they can appreciate just how long these problems have been open and discussed.
- capitalsigma 4y ago
  I have never taken a philosophy class that involved tests or naming philosophical ideas. The work of an academic philosopher is to write papers (like an academic historian or sociologist), so a philosophy degree should focus on writing papers. Often the papers will be analyzing previous philosophical work and attempting to present some novel synthesis of it, either with itself or with some broader context. Neither "giving moral dilemmas" nor "quizzes about history" fit anywhere into that picture.
- codingdave 4y ago
  I'm not sure where you went, but my undergrad philosophy courses matched your desired approach:. We were presented with problems, and presented solutions in return. Sure, we had to know the historical context of what solutions other have brought already... but our work was not regurgitation of those ideas, it was reconstruction into new ways to advance the discussions.

letsgo39 4y ago

Can you expand on how you found philosophy practical?

isthisthingon99 4y ago
Teaches you to think in ways that other courses won't.
- capitalsigma 4y ago
  Upper level proof based math courses are much better in my experience (speaking as someone with a BA in philosophy who has been taking math courses part time for the past few years)
  - isthisthingon99 4y ago
    Not mutually exclusive. I took comp sci and philosophy so yeah I would agree.
inphovore 4y ago
I find philosophy is the sauce that goes well on everything. Sure, you can live on the bland essentials, and you cannot live on toppings alone, yet who doesn’t like a little… sauce with that?
daviddever23box 4y ago
The ability to conceptualize and abstract a problem into its component parts is a key skill that will never underserve you.
killjoywashere 4y ago
My daughter is a philosophy major while most of my family has been STEM for generations (father's an engineer, mother taught college math, grandfather was an engineer). I'm reassured by the requirements for formal logic, and the obvious applications in law, but also at the intersection of law, ethics, and many of the ML systems that I foresee coming online. She actually brought up this Harvard philosophy professor who had a story about keeping track of parantheses. I took advantage of the opportunity to show her the connections to Curry and from there to Lisp and the Little Schemer. She got it. She can reason, formally. That's important.
- lampshades 4y ago
  In my experience, philosophers make great software engineers. I’ve worked with a few and always been happy to work with them.
AussieWog93 4y ago
Just to offer a counter-point to the others here, I've personally noticed that quite a few people who study philosophy (either formally or via self-study) tend to become "disembodied". Formal reason becomes king, even when informal methods are more appropriate for solving the task at hand, and the intangible becomes irrelevant, even when it matters deeply. Perhaps things would be different for someone in their 40s, who has a wealth of real world experience to draw on, philosophy would be valuable. But for the average 18 year old kid, studying it seems to create a set of terrible habits that take years to undo before the student can become a properly integrated adult.
- writeinpencil 4y ago
  I started as a philosophy major and switched to history and economics for this exact reason. My philosophy classes became incredibly disconnected from reality and ended up being endless arguments about frameworks and formalisms, but without the rigor of mathematics outside of formal logic. I still loved my philosophy classes, but I'd recommend anyone studying it as their first undergraduate degree pair it with something more concrete.
- gergov 4y ago
  I guess philosophy education tends to vary from region to region, but "young people into phil" tend to be insufferable in one way or another, while older people with an understanding of philosophy (...and a great many real world problems) tend to be pretty okay people. But that seems to be a broader issue with specialization anyway. Focus on one lane for too long and your brain starts to disfunction in odd ways.
- melvinmelih 4y ago
  > Perhaps things would be different for someone in their 40s, who has a wealth of real world experience to draw on, philosophy would be valuable. But for the average 18 year old kid, studying it seems to create a set of terrible habits that take years to undo before the student can become a properly integrated adult. In the time of Plato and Aristotle it was frowned upon to teach philosophy to students below the age of 35 because they wouldn't know what to do with that knowledge.

specproc 4y ago

I really second this. The best thing about study as an adult is that you're largely studying for pleasure, even if there is a work goal in there somewhere. You know what's relevant and interesting to you and what's not.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

> (I chose philosophy, much more relevant and practical than I think many realize). As others have already asked, could you expand on this? Very interested.

ramesh31 4y ago
> As others have already asked, could you expand on this? Very interested. I started undergrad in my 30s, and also majored philosophy for similar reasons. It really is the most rigorous non-STEM undergrad degree you can get. And for people (like myself) who can’t pass calculus, but are still fairly intelligent, it can easily be parlayed into a more technical graduate program.
- markdestouches 4y ago
  Everybody can pass calculus. The only way one can fail at math is gaps in knowledge. If you managed to get through something like Kant or Hegel, you can get through any math subject provided you have the necessary prerequisites.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
qorrect 4y ago
I hear a lot of non-engineers say this. Talking about formal logic, and how philosophy and math were once the same discipline, how math proofs are akin to philosophical arguments etc. I don't think this crowd would get much out of it.
- roenxi 4y ago
  It depends. Some people have really weak philosophical foundations and really need to hear about it if there is something out there that grounds them a bit better. We can't say if any particular approach to life is the best, but we can say that if you change your mind about which approach is best at age 70 you've spent a lot of years setting up for the wrong outcome. It is never to late in theory. But as a practical matter 70 is a bit late to sit down, take a step back, ask why and try to act on it. Better for people to line themselves up with good foundations from their 20s or maybe 30s. It is good to explore the options early, and think a bit about what the word 'option' even means philosophically.

devwastaken 4y ago

Philosophy is essential, how it's taught is unfortunate. In my philosophy class it was almost all about the history of philosophy, not the reasoning behind it. Assignments and tests were all about time periods, the specific names of philosophical ideas, from whom they came from, etc. I'd rather have open ended assignments. Ones that give moral dilemmas, and challenge their solutions. Make me think about something In a perspective I haven't thought of before. That's a powerful tool. But that's how academics works, the culture wants tests and assignments with check boxes.

nathan_compton 4y ago
I can't help but come to the defense of the traditional style, particularly for introductory philosophical classes. The fact is, people have thought about every moral situation from every angle already and just asking undergraduates to wax on about the trolley problem is kind of a waste of time. It is much more valuable to get them into the detailed history of ideas so they can appreciate just how long these problems have been open and discussed.
capitalsigma 4y ago
I have never taken a philosophy class that involved tests or naming philosophical ideas. The work of an academic philosopher is to write papers (like an academic historian or sociologist), so a philosophy degree should focus on writing papers. Often the papers will be analyzing previous philosophical work and attempting to present some novel synthesis of it, either with itself or with some broader context. Neither "giving moral dilemmas" nor "quizzes about history" fit anywhere into that picture.
codingdave 4y ago
I'm not sure where you went, but my undergrad philosophy courses matched your desired approach:. We were presented with problems, and presented solutions in return. Sure, we had to know the historical context of what solutions other have brought already... but our work was not regurgitation of those ideas, it was reconstruction into new ways to advance the discussions.