Shadowing Practice: Is a Philosophy Degree Worth It? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Is a philosophy major or a philosophy degree worth it?
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That is the question we are going to be asking and answering today.
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Is it worth going $40 ,000 in debt in order to get this degree?
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And we are going to be jumping right into it.
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What exactly is philosophy?
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Well, according to Google, philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially considered as an academic discipline.
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And so a lot of the time philosophy majors will focus on tackling very difficult questions
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and trying to answer them using logic and ethics.
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They'll learn about constructing arguments both written as well as verbal and then delivering those arguments.
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Every year here in the United States around 5 ,600 people graduate with a bachelor's in philosophy.
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Some common career paths they end up going down, journalist, paralegal, arbitrator, lawyer, and writer.
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Now in order to figure out if this degree is going to be worth $40 ,000 in four years of your time,
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we are going to be going over four important factors and the first one is going to be salary.
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So the average person who graduates with this degree can expect to earn around $48 ,000 a year starting out
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and $89 ,000 in mid -career pay.
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You can compare that to a high and a low paying degree and you'll see that it's kind of in the middle.
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You'll also see here that it does take a huge leap from early career pay to mid -career pay.
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So apparently there's not a lot of opportunity out there for early career, but mid -career there's going to be more opportunity.
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But I was really curious about that because it doesn't score all that bad, especially for kind of a liberal arts or social science type degree.
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It's actually pretty good.
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And so I looked into it and I think one of the reasons it scores
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so well is many people who graduate with a philosophy degree, a bachelor's degree in philosophy, end up going back to graduate school.
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In fact, according to this website right here, it's 57 .3%.
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That is astounding.
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That means 57 .3 % of the people who get a philosophy degree in undergrad end up going back
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and getting either a master's or a doctorate.
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And I think one of the main reasons for that is
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because philosophy is kind of a pipeline type degree to becoming a lawyer, for instance.
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But I guess the big point here is because of the fact that people who get, you know, master's and doctorate degrees tend to earn more than people who get bachelors,
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but they also take on more debt and more risk and it takes a lot longer, that might explain why it shows that the mid -career pay is
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so much higher than early career pay and it does seem to be pretty decently paying overall.
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But I'm not 100 % sure about that.
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It could also be that people who pursue philosophy degrees tend to be really smart
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and so they just tend to do really well in life.
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Or it could be that the skills you learn in philosophy, studying it is going to help you in other areas of your life.
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I think it probably has a little bit to do with each of those.
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Now when you look at the specific careers you could become a paralegal for instance
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and they make around $51 ,000 a year and that's around $24 per hour.
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Writers and authors make $63 ,000 a year or $30 an hour and arbitrators, mediators, and consolators make $63 ,000 a year or $30 an hour.
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So these are some decent paying careers you know just to put
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that in perspective the average career here in the U .S you're going to make around $50 ,000 a year.
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Now when you look at philosophy
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which is technically a liberal arts degree although some types of philosophy involve more social science side of things
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because they focus more on like politics and ethics
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but philosophy is technically a liberal arts degree
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and over a lifetime you'll make around $2 .1 million and
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that is definitely lower than the average for all majors of $2 .4 million.
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So overall there is some conflicting evidence here, and we don't know exactly why philosophy majors score relatively well compared to a lot of the other liberal arts majors,
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but I'm going to give this one a 7 out of 10 overall.
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Next, we're going to be talking about satisfaction, which is probably the most subjective of all the different sections.
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This could be completely different depending on what type of person you are, your personality, your background, career that you end up working in, the job that you work for,
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the company you work for, the industry you work in, all kinds of different things can affect this.
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So keep that in mind.
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This is a very subjective section, so take it with a grain of salt.
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But with that being said, when it comes to the meaning score, which is how much somebody thinks their career positively impacts the world,
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people who graduate with philosophy degrees have a 41 % score.
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And you can compare that to one that's really high and one that's really low.
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And it's actually on the lower side.
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I was pretty surprised by that.
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I personally think philosophy is interesting, and I think a lot of people agree with me on that.
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And so I was surprised to see the meaning score is so low.
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Now
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when you look at a specific career you might go into
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like becoming a paralegal for instance they have a meaning score of 45 % which again is on the lower side.
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However when you look at the job satisfaction it comes out at 69 %
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and if you compare that to a really good one
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and a really bad one like before you'll see that it's kind of on the higher side of things.
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It's a little bit above average.
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Now
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when you look at how much somebody regrets a particular degree
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choice with ZipRecruiter for some reason they didn't put liberal arts degrees on there, but I think they bunched them in with social sciences and law.
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And that came out to be the fourth most regretted type of degree choice, and the reason for that was because it's too general, impractical, hard to find a job without further studies.
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However, I will say here
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that I think most people who get a philosophy degree kind of know what they're getting themselves into.
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There's pretty much no jobs out there for philosophers, and I think everybody knows that.
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It's not one of those degrees where it's sort of a bait and switch, where they tell you that there's going to be a lot of jobs, and then you graduate, and you're like, where's the jobs at?
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I'm not able to get a job hey go to starbucks
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so realistically speaking i think most people who get a philosophy degree know
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that they're probably not going to become a philosopher and
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so they're usually either doing it because they're really passionate about it
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or they at least know what kind of career path they
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might end up going into maybe they plan on going back to school for instance
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and i do think philosophy is extremely interesting
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and it teaches you some really practical you know thinking skills being able to formulate an argument
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and then present it
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so i think realistically here people kind of know what they're getting themselves into at this degree
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and they probably know
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that they need to have some kind of plan for what career path they're going to go down afterwards.
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So I might be a little biased here
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but I think I'm going to give this one an 8 .5 out of 10.
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Next we're going to be talking about demand
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and this is basically how much hiring managers and business owners want to hire people who graduate with these degrees.
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So looking back on paralegal for instance there's around 337 ,000 jobs available
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and it's growing at 10 %
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which is much faster than average meaning over the next 10 years there's going to be 35 ,000 new jobs created.
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So that's really good
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but the problem here is you only have to get an associate's degree in order to become a paralegal
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and you don't necessarily have to major in philosophy in order to become a paralegal.
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There's a lot of other degrees that you could major in as well.
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Next is writer or author and there's 131 ,000 jobs available
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and it is declining at negative 2 % meaning there's going
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to be 3 ,100 less jobs 10 years from now than there is now
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and then with the other one we talked about arbitrator there's seventy three hundred jobs available
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and it's growing at eight percent
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which is much faster than average now of course there is
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no current data on unemployment rates for the specific degrees just
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because of everything that's happening in the world right now
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but liberal arts degrees in general tend to have higher levels of unemployment
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so for instance according to hey tutor a few years ago philosophy came in as number four
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when it comes to unemployment and underemployment and unemployment's pretty self -explanatory you're not able to get a job
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underemployment is where you are able to get a job
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but it's only part -time
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or it has absolutely nothing to do with what you actually wanted to do
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so it's kind of just menial labor sort of job
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so for instance you might get a philosophy degree
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and then end up working at starbucks serving coffee now one test
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that i like to do is to look up the degree name on monster .com
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or indeed .com and see how many job listings pop up
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so for instance
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when you look up philosophy degree you're going to see 15 000 job listings pop up
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which is actually on the better side so you can compare
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that to a really good one like computer science
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or one that's not very good like anthropology
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and it's not bad my theory on this is that business owners
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and hiring managers know that people who graduate with philosophy degrees tend to be pretty smart
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and not only are they smart
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but they're probably going to be able to get them at a relatively low price just
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because of the fact that there's not a a lot of jobs out there for philosophy.
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But overall, not super impressive in this category.
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I'm gonna have to give this one a seven out of 10.
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Next we're gonna be talking about X -Factors, which is anything that I think is important but didn't fit into any of the other categories.
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So going back to how much liberal arts majors make over a lifetime, we saw that it was below average at about 2 .1 million.
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Now looking down the list, it's going to vary greatly how much they make over a lifetime depending on what career path they go into.
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So for instance, if you graduated with a liberal arts degree
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and then you ended up working with computers You'd make around 2 .9 million, which is much better.
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If you went into management, you'd make around 3 million But if you went into office support, you'd only make around 1 .6 million Now this is data from let's say like the last 40 years
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or so so maybe 40 years from now This could be completely different.
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So it is kind of a bad sign overall
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But it is going to depend on what career path you're going down
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So if you really do your research and you know what you're doing
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and you know exactly what career you're going for this could work out for you.
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Now ZipRecruiter has a skills index and they didn't have philosophy as a skill
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but something that was close to it maybe was paralegal skills and that scored 57 out of 100.
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You can compare that to a really high one like software engineering
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or one that's not very good like industrial sewing and you'll see that it's kind of average or maybe slightly above average.
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Now one area where liberal arts degrees really shine is the risk of automation.
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So the soft skills
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that you learn with a liberal arts degree especially philosophy being able to you know formulate an argument and then present it,
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communicating with people, those sorts of skills in my opinion are probably never going to be automated.
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It would be very difficult to teach a robot how to do that.
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So for instance an arbitrator only has around a 6 % chance of being automated.
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Now according to tab .com philosophy is one of the more difficult majors
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so it's not going to be a cake walk getting a philosophy degree by any means.
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That is something to keep in mind.
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That might be a good thing or a bad thing.
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Sometimes it's a good thing to have a difficult major because that means there's gonna be a higher barrier to entry.
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Now, you could argue that the soft skills
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and some of the intangible skills in general
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that you learn with a philosophy degree aren't going to be able to be measured when it comes to salary.
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So for instance, it might teach you skills
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that help you open your own business where you make a
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lot more than anybody who just has a normal nine to five job.
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And so indirectly, it taught you skills that helped you out later on down the line.
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On top of it, it could just help you in life in general.
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You know, this is a personal finance channel, so of course I focus on that, but personal finance is part of the pie.
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It's part of the equation.
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You definitely don't want to ignore it, but it's not the most important thing by any means.
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So overall, I'm gonna give this one a score of seven out of 10 when it comes to X factors.
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So when you add up all four scores, divide it by four, you're gonna get 7 .375 out of 10.
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I think this is one of these majors that attracts a lot of smart people, and that's why you saw some confusing and almost conflicting statistics.
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Overall, I think this one can work out for the right person, especially if you have a good plan and you know exactly what you're getting yourself into.
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And when I was doing research on this one, I always go to different forums of people who graduate with college degrees and do extensive research, look at different case studies, YouTube videos, etc. I saw
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that a lot of people didn't regret this one as much as a lot of the other liberal arts degrees.
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Many of them said that it didn't really help them get a job, but at same time it didn't hurt them all that much
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and because of the fact that they just really enjoyed it
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and it taught them skills
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that will help them in other areas of their life they didn't regret it so take
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that for what it's worth a lot of the time it
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might be a better idea for you to just minor in this one
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or double major in it or just take extra classes
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or study it on the side
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but for the right person who has a good game plan
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you know exactly what you're doing this can be worth it for you now
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if you're still waiting for your college degree video to come out
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because i have hundreds of different requests on different college degrees that people want me to review.
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You can check that out down in the description.
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It's my college degree ranker and my Patreon.
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I'll eventually get to all the videos.
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It takes a long time to make and it's a lot of work, but I'll eventually get to them.
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But if you don't want to wait for it, then check out that college degree ranker down in the description below.
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If you haven't done it already, gently tap the like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm.
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Hit that subscribe button, ring the notification bell, and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc.
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that you have on the video and share the video
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that helps a lot and before you leave check out my other videos right here I made them just for you
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¿Qué aprenderás en esta lección?
En esta práctica, analizaremos un video sobre si estudiar filosofía merece la pena, lo que te ayudará a mejorar tu comprensión auditiva y tu speaking. Trabajarás con vocabulario académico y temas de debate, ideal para practicar la expresión clara y estructurada, útil incluso para exámenes como el IELTS. Además, aplicarás técnicas de shadowing para mejorar tu fluidez y pronunciación.
Vocabulario y frases clave
- Philosophy degree: Título en filosofía
- Fundamental nature: Naturaleza fundamental
- Constructing arguments: Construir argumentos
- Mid-career pay: Salario a mitad de carrera
- Liberal arts: Artes liberales
- Pipeline type degree: Título que sirve de paso (hacia otra carrera)
Consejos para la práctica
El video tiene un tono calmado y analítico, con una velocidad media, perfecto para practicar el shadowing. Aquí te explico cómo hacerlo: 1. Escucha un fragmento corto (5-10 segundos) y repítelo inmediatamente, imitando la entonación y el ritmo. Esto ayuda a entrenar tu oído y tu boca para reproducir sonidos naturales. 2. Presta atención a palabras como "fundamental" o "arguments", que tienen acento en la segunda sílaba; el shadowing te ayudará a pronunciarlas correctamente. 3. Usa una app de shadowing si lo prefieres: graba tu voz y compárala con el original para detectar diferencias. Si estás preparando el IELTS, esta técnica es esencial para mejorar tu speaking, ya que te enseña a estructurar ideas como un hablante nativo. Recuerda: la clave es la consistencia, practica 10 minutos al día y verás cómo tu fluidez y confianza aumentan.
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | person who graduates · people who graduate · people who get |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | being said · be automated · being automated |
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.