A Degree Is An Investment (Whether You Like to Admit It or Not)

When I graduated from UT '98, I was totally clueless about my future career path. Like most philosophy majors, I wanted to continue utilizing what I had learned in philosophy, but didn't have really the first clue about where to start or how to find careers that utilize philosophical methods, other than the Ph.D. track.

Now, I don't know if the Liberal Arts college is the same as it was when I was in school; but, back then the career service departments weren't as quality or developed as, say, the Business School's career development services. I attribute this to the Liberal Artist's penchant for idealizing the world and forgetting about practical concerns (like making a living). Or, it could simply have been a simple matter of budget; it only takes a little observation to see that certain University colleges procure substantially more funds than others. (That's all I'll say about that ;)

Of course, I'm being facetious. But let's call a spade a spade: in the Business School, everyone knows that a college degree is, among other things, an investment. And this belief is expressed explicitly - not just tacitly acknowledged - by professors, counselors, and in the Business School curricula themselves: no investment is good if you don't get a decent return on it.

However, in the College Liberal Arts (at least when I was there) this real-world acknowledgment was not very well expressed, in my opinion. As a result, we as Liberal Arts students very often wander around, a bit aimlessly, with passionate interests in history, theoretical economics, classics or art history - but with no real clear plan for how this will translate into gainful employment.

A Career in Philosophical Practice
So, as a former philosophy graduate, and a current professional philosopher who isn't in the Ivory Tower of Academia, I would like to make all philosophy students in particular (and Liberal Arts students in general) at my Alma Mater aware of a viable career path for philosophy majors: Philosophical Practice.

What Does A Philosophical Practitioner Do?
Philosophical Practitioners can serve in many different capacities. But in short, philosophical practitioners (a.k.a. "philosophical counselors") combine philosophical method with psychological theory to create a therapeutic, healing environment for clients. It is an emerging profession that has an official certification program and a professional academic organization which underwrites the certification process.

For details, visit the American Philosophical Practitioners Association, at

http://appa.edu

APPA supervises the certification process. The Association works in conjunction with The City College of New York system (known as CUNY).

Additional Information:

American Philosophical Practitioners Association

The City College of New York
137th Street at Convent Ave.
New York, NY 10031
phone: (212) 650-7827
e-mail: admin@appa.edu

I'm sure there are other certification programs at other colleges, but in my opinion, New York's is the best. New York is the location of the renowned C.G. Jung Psychoanalytic Institution. New York is a hotbed for interdisciplinary studies in philosophy and psychology. (As an aside, Professor Kelley, who no longer teaches at UT, strongly recommended the CUNY M.A. program to me when I was an undergrad.)

Eric Bryant
Philosophical Practitioner & Director
Gnosis Arts Multimedia Communications LLC