There’s a lot of stuff that freshmen don’t get told when they’re registering for their first semester classes. One of those things is which classes NOT to take. A major one, in my opinion, is philosophy.
For philosophy, there’s really not a lot of appealing stuff that it offers. However, if you’re more of a philosophy person and you actually enjoy philosophy, take as many courses in it as you want. But for the normal people, here are some reasons why it sucks.
1. It’s just too much thinking.
Most people aren’t normally the kind of people who enjoy sitting around and thinking about what exactly this certain philosopher meant so many hundreds of years ago. The people who enjoy philosophy must be of a certain breed. Also, with the philosophy course I’m taking, the professor will ask questions all the time and expect us to answer them according to whatever we’re studying at the time. Philosophers, please understand that college students are not mind readers.
2. It’s basically pointless.
I know, I know. I sound like a high school student who’s mad cause they failed a math test but think about it. Philosophy is basically a study in which all you do is ask questions. “Is God real? If He is, then what makes Him real? According to what evidence can you know that? If He is not real, then how can we know that? Is there more to the mind than just the brain? What is a soul? Where does it go when we die? Are our souls immortal? Do they get reincarnated into other bodies when ours fail to fulfill their needs? What are their needs? What is happiness? How do we know that that is what happiness is? What is good? How can we know? What is bad? How can we know? What do we know? What can we know? Is there a limit to what our brains can handle as humans? Will we ever reach a point to where we can know everything? How can we tell if the table we see is real? Are we really seeing the table? Or is it just our minds’ idea of what the table might look like based on its properties? How do we know things exist outside of our minds? Is there more than just thought? What makes a thought pure? How can we know?” These are all questions that I have heard asked by my philosophy professor at least once, if not a couple times through the semester. You know what the kicker is? THERE ARE NO ANSWERS. You can ask these questions as many times as you want, but there will never be an answer. No philosopher has an answer for all of those questions. Maybe someone had a couple answers to three of them, but not all of them. And even if they did think they had an answer, then the answer would only lead to more questions that they didn’t have an answer to. It’s an infinite circle. One I’d really rather not be involved with.
3. Philosophers are rude.
Okay, if you weren’t already dissuaded by the multitude of questions that you will never be able to answer, then you definitely will be when you look at any philosophers’ character. Let’s take my professor for example. When he comes to class, he’s always acting like it’s an inconvenience for him to be there. He seems like he would rather be somewhere else. He rarely ever smiles. He just comes to class, lectures, and leaves. He doesn’t ever talk to any of us, or make jokes, or even act like he likes his job at all. And if he sees you so much as even touch your phone, he will interrupt himself to call you out about it and tell you (not ask you), in the rudest way possible, to put your phone away. Who wants to be around someone like that twice or more a week for fifty minutes or more? Definitely not me, I don’t know how I’ve survived.
4. There’s ridiculous homework in ridiculous amounts.
There are papers due every other week. There are readings of 100+ pages every week and on Thursdays, you have to turn in questions based on that week’s reading to prove you read it. And yes I know, that doesn’t sound very bad, but when you have 100+ pages to read for another class, and 100+ pages to read for philosophy, obviously one of them isn’t going to get done unless you lose sleep. Sparknotes has been my best friend this semester, needless to say.
5. Some people just don’t understand it.
Like I said in the first point, most people don’t enjoy thinking. It’s just not their cup of tea. And that’s perfectly fine. The ones who do get it spend their entire lives either getting shunned, like multiple philosophers have, for their works. Some of them even get killed, like Socrates did, because people generally don’t agree with the philosophers’ ideas.
In general, philosophy is just something to stay away from. Unless you think you can take the stress of all I just explained, I would stray far from anything even similar to a philosophy course. I made the mistake this semester, and trust me when I say, I will never do it again.
