Shadowing Practice: Is a Philosophy Degree Worth It? - Learn English Speaking with Video

Is a philosophy major or a philosophy degree worth it?

That is the question we are going to be asking and answering today.

Is it worth going $40 ,000 in debt in order to get this degree?

And we are going to be jumping right into it.

What exactly is philosophy?

Well, according to Google, philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially considered as an academic discipline.

And so a lot of the time philosophy majors will focus on tackling very difficult questions

and trying to answer them using logic and ethics.

They'll learn about constructing arguments both written as well as verbal and then delivering those arguments.

Every year here in the United States around 5 ,600 people graduate with a bachelor's in philosophy.

Some common career paths they end up going down, journalist, paralegal, arbitrator, lawyer, and writer.

Now in order to figure out if this degree is going to be worth $40 ,000 in four years of your time,

we are going to be going over four important factors and the first one is going to be salary.

So the average person who graduates with this degree can expect to earn around $48 ,000 a year starting out

and $89 ,000 in mid -career pay.

You can compare that to a high and a low paying degree and you'll see that it's kind of in the middle.

You'll also see here that it does take a huge leap from early career pay to mid -career pay.

So apparently there's not a lot of opportunity out there for early career, but mid -career there's going to be more opportunity.

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.

It's actually pretty good.

And so I looked into it and I think one of the reasons it scores

so well is many people who graduate with a philosophy degree, a bachelor's degree in philosophy, end up going back to graduate school.

In fact, according to this website right here, it's 57 .3%.

That is astounding.

That means 57 .3 % of the people who get a philosophy degree in undergrad end up going back

and getting either a master's or a doctorate.

And I think one of the main reasons for that is

because philosophy is kind of a pipeline type degree to becoming a lawyer, for instance.

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,

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

so much higher than early career pay and it does seem to be pretty decently paying overall.

But I'm not 100 % sure about that.

It could also be that people who pursue philosophy degrees tend to be really smart

and so they just tend to do really well in life.

Or it could be that the skills you learn in philosophy, studying it is going to help you in other areas of your life.

I think it probably has a little bit to do with each of those.

Now when you look at the specific careers you could become a paralegal for instance

and they make around $51 ,000 a year and that's around $24 per hour.

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.

So these are some decent paying careers you know just to put

that in perspective the average career here in the U .S you're going to make around $50 ,000 a year.

Now when you look at philosophy

which is technically a liberal arts degree although some types of philosophy involve more social science side of things

because they focus more on like politics and ethics

but philosophy is technically a liberal arts degree

and over a lifetime you'll make around $2 .1 million and

that is definitely lower than the average for all majors of $2 .4 million.

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,

but I'm going to give this one a 7 out of 10 overall.

Next, we're going to be talking about satisfaction, which is probably the most subjective of all the different sections.

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,

the company you work for, the industry you work in, all kinds of different things can affect this.

So keep that in mind.

This is a very subjective section, so take it with a grain of salt.

But with that being said, when it comes to the meaning score, which is how much somebody thinks their career positively impacts the world,

people who graduate with philosophy degrees have a 41 % score.

And you can compare that to one that's really high and one that's really low.

And it's actually on the lower side.

I was pretty surprised by that.

I personally think philosophy is interesting, and I think a lot of people agree with me on that.

And so I was surprised to see the meaning score is so low.

Now

when you look at a specific career you might go into

like becoming a paralegal for instance they have a meaning score of 45 % which again is on the lower side.

However when you look at the job satisfaction it comes out at 69 %

and if you compare that to a really good one

and a really bad one like before you'll see that it's kind of on the higher side of things.

It's a little bit above average.

Now

when you look at how much somebody regrets a particular degree

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.

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.

However, I will say here

that I think most people who get a philosophy degree kind of know what they're getting themselves into.

There's pretty much no jobs out there for philosophers, and I think everybody knows that.

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?

I'm not able to get a job hey go to starbucks

so realistically speaking i think most people who get a philosophy degree know

that they're probably not going to become a philosopher and

so they're usually either doing it because they're really passionate about it

or they at least know what kind of career path they

might end up going into maybe they plan on going back to school for instance

and i do think philosophy is extremely interesting

and it teaches you some really practical you know thinking skills being able to formulate an argument

and then present it

so i think realistically here people kind of know what they're getting themselves into at this degree

and they probably know

that they need to have some kind of plan for what career path they're going to go down afterwards.

So I might be a little biased here

but I think I'm going to give this one an 8 .5 out of 10.

Next we're going to be talking about demand

and this is basically how much hiring managers and business owners want to hire people who graduate with these degrees.

So looking back on paralegal for instance there's around 337 ,000 jobs available

and it's growing at 10 %

which is much faster than average meaning over the next 10 years there's going to be 35 ,000 new jobs created.

So that's really good

but the problem here is you only have to get an associate's degree in order to become a paralegal

and you don't necessarily have to major in philosophy in order to become a paralegal.

There's a lot of other degrees that you could major in as well.

100

Next is writer or author and there's 131 ,000 jobs available

101

and it is declining at negative 2 % meaning there's going

102

to be 3 ,100 less jobs 10 years from now than there is now

103

and then with the other one we talked about arbitrator there's seventy three hundred jobs available

104

and it's growing at eight percent

105

which is much faster than average now of course there is

106

no current data on unemployment rates for the specific degrees just

107

because of everything that's happening in the world right now

108

but liberal arts degrees in general tend to have higher levels of unemployment

109

so for instance according to hey tutor a few years ago philosophy came in as number four

110

when it comes to unemployment and underemployment and unemployment's pretty self -explanatory you're not able to get a job

111

underemployment is where you are able to get a job

112

but it's only part -time

113

or it has absolutely nothing to do with what you actually wanted to do

114

so it's kind of just menial labor sort of job

115

so for instance you might get a philosophy degree

116

and then end up working at starbucks serving coffee now one test

117

that i like to do is to look up the degree name on monster .com

118

or indeed .com and see how many job listings pop up

119

so for instance

120

when you look up philosophy degree you're going to see 15 000 job listings pop up

121

which is actually on the better side so you can compare

122

that to a really good one like computer science

123

or one that's not very good like anthropology

124

and it's not bad my theory on this is that business owners

125

and hiring managers know that people who graduate with philosophy degrees tend to be pretty smart

126

and not only are they smart

127

but they're probably going to be able to get them at a relatively low price just

128

because of the fact that there's not a a lot of jobs out there for philosophy.

129

But overall, not super impressive in this category.

130

I'm gonna have to give this one a seven out of 10.

131

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.

132

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.

133

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.

134

So for instance, if you graduated with a liberal arts degree

135

and then you ended up working with computers You'd make around 2 .9 million, which is much better.

136

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

137

or so so maybe 40 years from now This could be completely different.

138

So it is kind of a bad sign overall

139

But it is going to depend on what career path you're going down

140

So if you really do your research and you know what you're doing

141

and you know exactly what career you're going for this could work out for you.

142

Now ZipRecruiter has a skills index and they didn't have philosophy as a skill

143

but something that was close to it maybe was paralegal skills and that scored 57 out of 100.

144

You can compare that to a really high one like software engineering

145

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.

146

Now one area where liberal arts degrees really shine is the risk of automation.

147

So the soft skills

148

that you learn with a liberal arts degree especially philosophy being able to you know formulate an argument and then present it,

149

communicating with people, those sorts of skills in my opinion are probably never going to be automated.

150

It would be very difficult to teach a robot how to do that.

151

So for instance an arbitrator only has around a 6 % chance of being automated.

152

Now according to tab .com philosophy is one of the more difficult majors

153

so it's not going to be a cake walk getting a philosophy degree by any means.

154

That is something to keep in mind.

155

That might be a good thing or a bad thing.

156

Sometimes it's a good thing to have a difficult major because that means there's gonna be a higher barrier to entry.

157

Now, you could argue that the soft skills

158

and some of the intangible skills in general

159

that you learn with a philosophy degree aren't going to be able to be measured when it comes to salary.

160

So for instance, it might teach you skills

161

that help you open your own business where you make a

162

lot more than anybody who just has a normal nine to five job.

163

And so indirectly, it taught you skills that helped you out later on down the line.

164

On top of it, it could just help you in life in general.

165

You know, this is a personal finance channel, so of course I focus on that, but personal finance is part of the pie.

166

It's part of the equation.

167

You definitely don't want to ignore it, but it's not the most important thing by any means.

168

So overall, I'm gonna give this one a score of seven out of 10 when it comes to X factors.

169

So when you add up all four scores, divide it by four, you're gonna get 7 .375 out of 10.

170

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.

171

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.

172

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

173

that a lot of people didn't regret this one as much as a lot of the other liberal arts degrees.

174

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

175

and because of the fact that they just really enjoyed it

176

and it taught them skills

177

that will help them in other areas of their life they didn't regret it so take

178

that for what it's worth a lot of the time it

179

might be a better idea for you to just minor in this one

180

or double major in it or just take extra classes

181

or study it on the side

182

but for the right person who has a good game plan

183

you know exactly what you're doing this can be worth it for you now

184

if you're still waiting for your college degree video to come out

185

because i have hundreds of different requests on different college degrees that people want me to review.

186

You can check that out down in the description.

187

It's my college degree ranker and my Patreon.

188

I'll eventually get to all the videos.

189

It takes a long time to make and it's a lot of work, but I'll eventually get to them.

190

But if you don't want to wait for it, then check out that college degree ranker down in the description below.

191

If you haven't done it already, gently tap the like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm.

192

Hit that subscribe button, ring the notification bell, and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc.

193

that you have on the video and share the video

194

that helps a lot and before you leave check out my other videos right here I made them just for you

📺 Zelfde Kanaal

✨ Aanbevolen Video

146 zinnen

【English Podcast】Is a College Degree Still Worth It? — 4 Things to Consider

Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students

116 zinnen

3 philosophy classics that are better than self-help books

Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

132 zinnen

Are You Made For A Career In Consulting? | MBB and Big 4

Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students

56 zinnen

80% of programmers are NOT happy… why?

Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

100 zinnen

The exact moment I destroyed my college career

Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students

314 zinnen

If you're trying to get RICH and in your 20s or 30s, please watch this.

Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

29 zinnen

What is Social Science?

Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

13 zinnen

What Your Goals Say About Your Self-Worth | Bailey Schildbach #shorts

Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

201 zinnen

Every Level of Engineering in 15 Minutes

Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

312 zinnen

Asking 20 and 30 Year Olds About Their Biggest Regrets in Life

Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students

Over deze les

In deze les oefen je Engels door een video over de waarde van een filosofie - diploma te analyseren. Je leert hoe je complexe onderwerpen begrijpt, argumenten structuurt en gesproken Engels met verschillende snelheden en toonhoogten volgt. Dit helpt niet alleen bij het verbeteren van je luistervaardigheid, maar ook bij het ontwikkelen van je spreekvaardigheid, vooral voor examens zoals de IELTS, waar het begrijpen en reproduceren van argumenten cruciaal is.

Belangrijke woorden en zinnen

Philosophy degree: Filosofie - diploma
Mid - career pay: Inkomen in het midden van de loopbaan
Liberal arts: Vrije kunsten
Constructing arguments: Argumenten opbouwen
Pipeline type degree: Diploma dat een route biedt naar een specifieke loopbaan (bijv. advocatuur)
Subjective: Subjectief

Oefentips

Om je engelse spreekvaardigheid en uitspraak te verbeteren, gebruik je de shadowing - techniek. Deze video heeft een gemiddelde snelheid met momenten van langzamere uitleg, wat ideaal is voor beginners. Volg de spreker direct na (maximaal 2 seconden achter) en probeer dezelfde toonhoogte en intonatie over te nemen. Gebruik een shadowing app om je prestaties op te nemen en te vergelijken met de originele video. Dit helpt je om fouten in uitspraak te herkennen en te corrigeren.

Voor IELTS spreekvaardigheid oefenen is het belangrijk om de argumenten in de video te herhalen. Kijk de sectie over salaris en loopbanemogelijkheden meerdere keren en probeer de feiten en cijfers (zoals 57,3% of $89.000) zonder aankijken te reproduceren. Dit traint je geheugen en je vaardigheid om complexiteit te verwerken terwijl je spreekt.

Leer engels met video's zoals deze door na elke sectie (bijv. over salaris of tevredenheid) een korte samenvatting in je eigen woorden te maken. Dit helpt je om de structuur van het Engels te begrijpen en je taalgebruik te verrijken. Herhaal dit dagelijks, en je zult al snel merken dat je zelfvertrouwen en vaardigheid toenemen.

Grammatica in deze video

De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:

Structuur	In de video
Betrekkelijke bijzinnen who / which + zin — extra informatie over een persoon of ding	person who graduates · people who graduate · people who get
Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet	being said · be automated · being automated

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?

Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.

Shadowing-techniek: lees de volledige stap-voor-stap-gids →

Shadowing Practice: Is a Philosophy Degree Worth It? - Learn English Speaking with Video

5 Claude AI Side Hustles You Can Do In Retirement

What Is Biomedical Engineering? (Is A Biomedical Engineering Degree Worth It?)

Here's Why Mechanical Engineering Is A Great Degree

Is Becoming An Accountant Actually Worth It?

【English Podcast】Is a College Degree Still Worth It? — 4 Things to Consider

3 philosophy classics that are better than self-help books

Are You Made For A Career In Consulting? | MBB and Big 4

80% of programmers are NOT happy… why?

The exact moment I destroyed my college career

If you're trying to get RICH and in your 20s or 30s, please watch this.

What is Social Science?

What Your Goals Say About Your Self-Worth | Bailey Schildbach #shorts

Every Level of Engineering in 15 Minutes

Asking 20 and 30 Year Olds About Their Biggest Regrets in Life

Over deze les

Belangrijke woorden en zinnen

Oefentips

Grammatica in deze video

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?