Majors and non-majors are encouraged to sample the various Special Topics courses offered by the Department. Recent Special Topics courses have included Aesthetics of Film, Knowledge, Philosophy of History, Souls, Bodies and Persons, and Philosophy and Feminism. Individualized tutorials are available for selected students who wish to study a specific philosophical problem or philosopher under the direction of a member of the Department. Also, a senior honors program is offered to qualified majors who wish to pursue individual research. The aim of the honors program is to provide the talented student an opportunity to develop a thesis in which a particular position is articulated and defended.
Students majoring in philosophy have a variety of vocational interests.
Each major is assigned a faculty advisor from among the members of the Department, and serious effort is made to provide the student with advice not only regarding his academic program, but his post-graduate career as well. Although some majors do continue their philosophic education in graduate school with the intention of preparing for college teaching and scholarship, most enter other fields. Philosophy majors go to law school, medical school, become involved in educational administration, and enter full time employment after their undergraduate careers. The majority of philosophy majors are intellectually rather than vocationally motivated to major in the discipline, and find its greatest benefit in self-discovery. Through the study of philosophy students can find something of themselves and their aptitudes for careful and precise thinking on a variety of important problems.