Academic Accelerator - Bachelor of Arts - Philosophy

Program Description

As a student in the Academic Accelerator, you’ll receive:

• The right amount of support for your academic and English-speaking needs
• A full year’s worth of college credits
• Access to courses exclusively for international students
• English-language help with words you need to know for your classes
• A mix of classes with international and U.S. students

Philosophy (from the Greek “love of wisdom”) originated as the search for understanding concerning the most basic features of reality, the natural world, and human life. The discipline prizes and develops the skill of engaging effectively with arguments on a tremendous range of subjects. In ancient times, philosophers pioneered the study of topics from the physical cosmos to the gods to human conduct. They debated not only the character of fundamental reality but also questions of how we can attain knowledge of it. To this day, philosophy engages with questions drawn from every part of our life and experience. For example: Is there such a thing as a purely objective observation? Am I identical with my brain? Is it ever permissible to break the law? Why is there evil in the world? Is death to be feared, and why?

Job candidates and applicants to professional schools can only be helped by being able to examine both sides of a question, think critically, write cogently, and solve very general abstract problems. Moreover, the powers of reflection, imagination, self-expression, and engagement with the ideas of others that philosophy cultivates are in themselves of fundamental value for human life.