Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)
I&#x27;m going to reproduce a reddit post I made recently that I think is relevant:<p><i>Analytic philosophy has made my mind a razor. It forged in me the confidence and mental discipline to learn anything, and I&#x27;m now dominating the tech scene despite having little in the way of formal coursework.<p>I was lucky to choose one of the few disciplines that can be fruitfully studied at Brown. As any student of a rigorous discipline, I was ultimately responsible for my own intellectual growth; everything I ever truly learned has been in solitude. The less-than-brilliant technical faculty, weak course offerings, and charlatan arts professors had little negative impact on me. In fact, being forced to retreat within myself was necessary for my success, because it allowed me to look at reality more critically, unmired by the prejudices and preoccupations of the misguided or less thoughtful around me.<p>I have nearly everything I want in life, but I was lucky to (1) pursue rigorous scholarship and (2) be born with the abilities and personality that made such a pursuit feasible at Brown. The less intelligent[^] or more impressionable will be made failures at Brown. Those are the people I&#x27;m trying to warn.<p>[^] For example, those who were not invited to attend a better Ivy League university. It&#x27;s very tempting for someone in this position to choose Brown over a better option simply because it is wrongfully perceived as prestigious for technically being an Ivy.</i>