{"id":34337,"date":"2019-08-07T10:11:40","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T10:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/?post_type=career_profile&#038;p=34337"},"modified":"2024-11-25T19:02:38","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T19:02:38","slug":"philosophy-academia","status":"publish","type":"career_profile","link":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/philosophy-academia\/","title":{"rendered":"Philosophy academia"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":408,"featured_media":44862,"parent":0,"menu_order":25,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"[fn 9]The data here are a bit spotty, but the percentage of tenure or tenure-track positions at top-50 departments held by women [looks](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190407093352\/https:\/\/web.csulb.edu\/~jvancamp\/doctoral_2004.html) to be about 25%. Women get around 30% of philosophy PhDs. People of colour made up around [10%](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190627172657\/http:\/\/www.mapforthegap.com\/resources.html) of full-time faculty at all degree-granting institutions in the US in 2003 (the most recent year from which we could find data) and currently get around [15%](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190624164150\/https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/la-oe-0306-schwitzgebel-cherry-philosophy-so-white-20160306-story.html) of PhDs. Compare: people of colour make up an [estimated](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190613235610\/https:\/\/www.census.gov\/quickfacts\/fact\/table\/US\/PST045218) 40% of the US resident population. These dynamics can sometimes make women and people of colour in academic philosophy feel [out](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190615221631\/https:\/\/beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com\/) of [place](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190203203349\/https:\/\/beingaphilosopherofcolor.wordpress.com\/).[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 6]Doing high quality interdisciplinary work is challenging and uncommon, partly because it requires mastery in multiple disciplines, and partly because there are few institutional resources available for it. However, this may be changing. The Global Priorities Institute, for instance, fosters cooperation between philosophers and economists. If you are determined to work with thinkers in other disciplines, you will likely be able to do so.[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 7]Yale received [over 300 applicants last year](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20171120095507\/http:\/\/philosophy.yale.edu\/graduate-program\/admissions) for its PhD programme; Michigan Ann Arbor has received a 5-year average of [256](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180615164811\/https:\/\/secure.rackham.umich.edu\/academic_information\/program_statistics\/doctoral\/program.php?id=Philosophy) per year. Most programmes do not publicize the number of students they admit each year, but in typical cases the figure ranges between 10 and 16. This yields acceptance rates of around 4% or 5% last year for Yale and an average of around 6% for Michigan Ann Arbor. UCLA has full programme statistics [here](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180518164346\/https:\/\/grad.ucla.edu\/programs\/humanities\/philosophy\/).[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 8]Note: one author of this piece participated in the Global Priorities Institute's Early Career Conference Programme in summer 2019.[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 1]A collection of views from professional philosophers on becoming a philosopher can be found [here](http:\/\/wiki.80000hours.org\/index.php\/Philosophy_PhD#Views_of_Professional_Philosophers_and_Philosophy_Graduate_Students).[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 10]It's also worth noting that even at PhD granting institutions it can be hard to get much research done if the teaching load is too great. Many find it challenging to find time for research if they are teaching a 4-4 (that is, four courses each semester). A 5-5 would make research close to impossible.[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 11] Some argue that it has not been established that studying philosophy improves reasoning outside of philosophical questions [at all](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190111072214\/http:\/\/quillette.com\/2017\/07\/01\/study-philosophy-improve-thinking-case-false-advertising\/). For discussion, see [this](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190427232139\/http:\/\/dailynous.com\/2015\/10\/22\/does-philosophy-improve-critical-thinking\/) Daily Nous article.[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 12] Most programmes give no data on completion rates, some that do give incomplete data, and rates vary considerably from programme to programme and from year to year. This estimate is therefore very uncertain. It is based on information from five top programmes: New York University, Michigan, MIT, University of Southern California, Stanford, and UCLA. You can see our data and calculations [here](https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1XcKZoEG52PJYn42KQ4XtyCn4YS9WwB08fOpc4hmUV3k\/edit#gid=0). It's also worth noting that in general, completion rates are likely higher at more prestigious institutions, and that it's not true of everyone who drops out of graduate school that in retrospect they shouldn't have started -- though this seems to be the more common case. [\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 3]These estimates are based on data from the ADPA project from the period of 2012-2016, adjusted to take account of post-docs leading to permanent positions, for the [Leiter Reports](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20181205133656\/https:\/\/www.philosophicalgourmet.com\/overall-rankings\/)' top-15 programmes in philosophy. Some errors have been found in the APDA data in the past. For that reason and others, the figures here should be taken as highly approximate. You can see our data and adjustments [here](https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1c7S4auoVUMl73kv_H0mG_WqKp2L8sr5Kjb6bDZ16fIc\/edit#gid=0).[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 4]These estimates involve a lot of uncertainty. If your chance of going to a top programme conditional on applying is somewhere around 0.07 (most people who apply apply to more than one programme; however, many top programmes have admission rates slightly lower than 7% and acceptance to different programmes is highly correlated), and your chance of getting a permanent position at a PhD granting institution conditional on being accepted into a top programme is close to 0.22 (this is the nearly 30% approximate chance of such a job conditional on graduating, multiplied by an approximated 0.75 programme completion rate), and your chance of being a successful and impactful researcher in the long-term conditional on having a permanent position -- meaning you are able to stay in the profession and your research turns out to be useful -- is something like 0.75, then your chance of doing all this conditional on applying is somewhere close to 1%. This estimate should be adjusted somewhat upward however based on the chance of doing very successful research while coming from or working at a wider range of universities. [\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 5]However, if when you are at the end of your undergraduate degree you think you might pursue a PhD in philosophy later on, it can be a good idea to talk with professors and ask for  letters of recommendation before you leave, while their memories of you are fresh.[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 13] If you are applying to PhD programmes, it is probably worth exploring more the data available on different programmes. You can find the full results of the Academic Placement Data and Analysis project [here](https:\/\/placementdata.com\/), and the Gourmet Report [here](https:\/\/www.philosophicalgourmet.com\/). Two alternative programme rankings can be found [here](https:\/\/www.topuniversities.com\/university-rankings\/university-subject-rankings\/2018\/philosophy) and [here](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190329083133\/http:\/\/dailynous.com\/2017\/10\/02\/philosophy-phd-program-rankings-apdas-2017-final-report\/).[\/fn]"},"categories":[383,342,330,373,1311,1291,24,1189],"class_list":["post-34337","career_profile","type-career_profile","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-research","category-careers","category-moral-philosophy","category-phds","category-philosophy-academia","category-public-intellectual","category-in-research","category-research-into-global-priorities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Philosophy academia - Career review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/philosophy-academia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Philosophy is one of the hardest grad programs. 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