By Jordan Morey
Staff Writer
Tucked away in his townhouse sitting at a kitchen table, Brett Keegan interprets excerpts from Albert Camus’ novel “L’Étranger.” Keegan wields a highlighter the size of a carrot in his right hand, and a fresh cup of Egyptian hibiscus tea in his left. He scans the existential writings picking out absurdist points to incorporate into his thesis. On page 41 he highlights, “I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all.”
This is how Keegan unwinds at the end of his days.
There are 10 to 15 philosophy majors and around 10 minors at St. Bonaventure University. In May, three majors, including Keegan, will graduate, said Roderick Hughes, associate professor of philosophy.
After college, philosophy majors have many roads they can take with their degree.
“Philosophy provides a very good foundation,” Keegan said. “You might not have many things to put on a résumé for qualifications, but you’ve improved your ability to think, communicate, argue, look at an issue and think independently. You have all these skills in philosophy that you can apply to the real world.”
Philosophy serves as a viable option to students uncertain of what field they want to enter.
“Most of the philosophy majors come from more of the professional kinds of majors, like journalism and business,” Keegan said. “I started out in journalism and changed to philosophy once I realized that’s what I really wanted to do.”
A majority of philosophy majors go to graduate school after undergrad work.
“Most of the philosophy majors here want to go on to law school,” Keegan said. “In philosophy, you learn about argumentation, logic, reasoning, etc. – all things that you need for law school. When you take symbolic logic you even take LSATs. Another portion of students go to grad school to study more philosophy.”
Students at SBU are required to take a handful of ethics classes in accordance with Clare College requirements. Classes like Good Life, the Intellectual Journey, and Catholic and Franciscan Heritage each explore a basic level of philosophy.
Keegan dislikes the Clare courses offered to non-philosophy majors due to the lack of student involvement in discussions.
“In the Clare courses I have taken, probably 90 percent of the people don’t care about the subject and don’t want to be there,” Keegan said. “It gets frustrating because you’re in it and want to talk about the subject and you can relate things from other classes to the material, but since it’s an introductory ethics course everyone has to take, you can’t go too far.”
As leader of the philosophy club, Keegan has seen interest in philosophy from students enrolled in other majors.
“We mostly get bio majors for philosophy club,” Keegan said. “A good portion of the program kids have such a packed schedule, so they don’t get a chance to take many interesting philosophy courses. It gives them an opportunity to talk about intellectually stimulating things they don’t get a chance to talk about inside their curriculum.”
Freshman Rajat Goyal, a biology major in the pre-medical program, plans to stay involved in the club during his tenure at the university. He will decide if he wants to minor in the subject in the near future.
“I am interested in a lot of the topics we talk about,” said Goyal. “I like that there are a lot of thought provoking discussions with intellectual people; that’s why I come.”
The major has aided in Keegan’s understanding of his introspective.
“Overall, I think I have become a better person by studying philosophy,” Keegan said. “It has taught me to be myself, and look at the world in a certain way and be patient with other people.”
Goyal also finds philosophy helpful to self-growth.
“It builds character knowing philosophical discussions,” said Goyal. “I think that it’s important to have them.”
Keegan reflected on his experiences with the school.
“I think philosophy is a cure for a lot of the shallowness and frenetic energy everyone is caught up in nowadays, and it’s a tragedy that it’s one of the elements that can fix these problems.”
