Current Life Project: Business Owner
I didn’t choose to do a degree in philosophy because I thought that one day I would be a professional philosopher. I chose it because it was what I loved and it never stopped being stimulating. After starting my Master’s degree at the University of Windsor, I was astounded at how much the department focused on real social and political issues (something I felt was missing from the department where I received my bachelors degree). Lectures always strayed into current and often local events, which was an invaluable asset to teaching me to think critically.
It goes without saying that my MA in philosophy prepared me for many sleepless nights, meeting deadline after deadline, and juggling several obligations at once. What might get mentioned less is how it prepared me having to constantly defend myself and my business decisions. The seminars were particularly challenging and, at times, very unforgiving – the same is true for being a young woman who owns a business. Intellectual self defence is possibly the greatest tool I acquired.
I look back most fondly at the faculty and the sense of solidarity and bonding that I developed with my fellow grad students. My philosophy degree will always have intrinsic value, no matter where my career takes me. But more than anything, thanks to a degree in philosophy, whenever I am criticized for a decision I have made, I have already thought of ten different ways to defend it.