Checkmate, Kierkegaard

If you look closely at my CV, you will notice that there is an odd-looking entry in my “Education” section:

Northern Illinois University 2021–2022 Graduate (M.A.) coursework in philosophy, 18 credits (non-degree) DeKalb, IL

It is odd looking because, first, I didn’t actually complete this program and, second, even though I didn’t complete it, I listed it as one of my ‘Education’ entries. I guess it is not necessarily a faux pas to list an incomplete degree in your CV, but some might find this puzzling and might have some questions when they look at this entry. What happened? Why did I quit midway? What was the motivation? (Also, who is Kierkegaard and why am I saying “Checkmate”?)

Honors Algebra

I actually changed my major like five times as an undergrad at Johns Hopkins. I might write another post about this later, so I won’t go into this too much right now. The final step of this major ‘evolution’, as I like to call it, was double majoring in Mathematics and Philosophy. This happened around when I was a sophomore. I was taking Honors Algebra, Philosophy of Religion, and Intro to Greek Philosophy, along with Complex Analysis. Initially, I put more effort into doing my homework assignments and trying to understand the materials for Honors Algebra. This is because I was, at the time, a Mathematics and Applied Mathematics major, so I wanted to make sure I did well in the course, more so than in the two philosophy courses. Then why did I take two philosophy courses? Don’t ask me why. (Just kidding.) Well… I was getting curious about philosophy and I just wanted to try to make the decision as soon as possible as to whether I would like to commit to philosophy or not, so I just decided to take them both at the same time.

Honors Algebra was brutal for me. It was one of the most brutal realizations I’ve had in undergrad. I took the class because one of my friends was taking it. I thought it’d be a good ‘test’ for me to see if I am cut out to be a math major. In retrospect, this was a terrible test, and I honestly shouldn’t have taken the honors version of abstract algebra without any prior exposure to abstract algebra. The pace of the course was extremely fast; the professor covered so many definitions and theorems and proofs that my classmates seemed to be able to digest pretty quickly. I later found out that they weren’t understanding everything 100%, by doing the homework assignments together, but still, they were understanding considerably more material from the class than I was. I was struggling to keep up.

At first I tried to take the approach of asking my classmates for help and asking them to explain stuff that I didn’t understand, but then as the semester progressed, I became increasingly reluctant to rely on my classmates so heavily, so I stopped asking them as many questions. I also didn’t want to reveal how much I was struggling, so I often stayed quiet even when I didn’t understand something. This proved to be detrimental to my performance in class. I ended up struggling on the exams, and by the end of the semester I still felt like I was having difficulty keeping pace with the course.

I was quite lost on what to do. I went to the professor’s office hours for help, but he only had an hour and a half per week to spare for undergrads. I went to every office hours every week and asked for help. He did help, obviously, but I was scared of asking too many questions in fear of revealing how far behind I felt. I also went to the TA’s office hours to no avail, for similar reasons. I tried to catch up by myself by staying up late and reading the textbook and looking up materials online on YouTube, but I was having trouble keeping pace with the class, and I never quite caught up that semester. I went into each class increasingly discouraged.

Philosophy of Religion and Intro to Greek Philosophy

However, weirdly, I found solace in the philosophy classes. In Philosophy of Religion, the professor opened by saying that this class will be examining the arguments for and against the existence of God. We read through some classic arguments from the medieval philosophers like Anselm of Canterbury and Gaunilo of Marmoutiers and also some contemporary arguments from the more recent philosophers like Alvin Plantinga. The arguments were interesting, whether they argued for or against the existence of God. The professor did an excellent job of dissecting the rather complicated arguments into easier bits and pieces to digest, so actually I didn’t need to do too much outside work to fully be present and participate in the class discussions, which I enjoyed. In addition, the professor and the TA also gave ample resources on how to write good philosophy papers, which were very helpful as well. The class made me feel welcome as a novice philosopher and it made me feel like I wanted to do more philosophy.

Intro to Greek Philosophy was definitely more dense, since we were reading the classic texts from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, but they were still interesting to me. It definitely took more time and effort to fully understand their arguments because a lot of Socrates’s and Plato’s arguments were hidden behind the lengthy dialogues so you really have to keep track of what each character is saying. Nonetheless, similar to Philosophy of Religion, I very much enjoyed the class. I never felt completely lost in class; I always came prepared reading the texts, and I looked forward to coming to class every morning (and that’s saying a lot, for me!).

My mental shift from Mathematics to Philosophy

It might have been a Sunday in November. I was reading Plantinga’s Free Will Defense. I had just realized that I completely forgot to complete the remainder of Honors Algebra homework. It was due the next day. I was inundated with the feeling of dread and existential crisis with the thought of having to complete that homework assignment. I decided to just deliberately ignore the assignment for that moment and just focus on reading the next text for Philosophy of Religion. That is also when I realized that, maybe, I should genuinely declare the Philosophy major and also think about pursuing Philosophy more seriously.

You might think that it’s a bit weird to come to this conclusion only after 3 months of taking two philosophy courses. It is true to some extent, but also this was not my first exposure to philosophy; my high school offered a course called Intro to Philosophy where the instructor went through the main ideas of western philosophy, and I quite liked the course, but I never thought about pursuing any further philosophy courses after that… until I became a sophomore I guess.

At any rate, this was a tumultuous moment in my college life because I was starting to think about applying to Ph.D. programs in mathematics. In my freshman year I was a Physics major trying to apply to Ph.D. programs in Physics, but that did not go well after a year of pursuing Physics. After that, it was naturally Mathematics. This was at the beginning of the semester. I was asking around among the graduate students in the department for advice, especially the TAs that I knew from the previous classes, and was thinking about the possibility seriously. However, now my mind was just almost completely abandoning that possibility and starting to think about applying to Philosophy Ph.D. programs.

The motivation was twofold: first, I began to wonder whether I was cut out for mathematics compared to my peers. In Honors Algebra, I felt like I was one of the students struggling the most. I had tried a lot of different strategies to try to keep afloat, but I didn’t necessarily succeed. I was feeling pretty bad about myself and I began to think that pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics was reserved for students who were performing much better than I was. At least, that was what I thought at the time.

Second, I felt like I was (somehow?) cut out for philosophy. Those two courses were my first courses in philosophy and the essays that I wrote for those courses received high praise from the TAs (not from the professors though, because they didn’t read the students’ essays). They said that my prose is clear, precise, and logical. That made me feel good! Imagine how that made me feel after struggling so much in Honors Algebra! Maybe receiving that praise didn’t necessarily warrant my seriously considering philosophy Ph.D. programs, but I did start to consider the possibility anyway. I think it was a combination of feeling bad doing math while constantly comparing myself to my peers and feeling good doing philosophy while receiving praise for my work, which I had never received in my math classes.

(The nonexistent) Philosophy Ph.D.

I declared my Philosophy major later in the month and I did a lot of research on applying to philosophy graduate schools. One of the first articles I ever read on this matter was Michael Huemer’s advice on applying to philosophy graduate schools. In sum, he emphatically says do not pursue philosophy academia. I was quite shocked. This should have rung some serious alert in my head, but for some reason I spent a lot of time trying to find other advice on applying to graduate schools in philosophy, and, unfortunately, a lot of the sentiments online were quite similar to Michael Huemer’s: one should not pursue a Ph.D. in Philosophy unless one has a very strong personal reason to do so.

After this, I also went to the department chair, Hilary Bok, to discuss the possibility of applying to Ph.D. programs in Philosophy. She also gave me the same response as Michael Huemer: do not do it. She said this many, many times during the meeting. She cited many reasons, but one of the most significant reasons was that, in general, the field is shrinking and there’s just no universe in the future where philosophy will be ‘mainstream’ enough to justify students going into the field without a strong understanding of what would follow if they chose to go down that route. I came out of her office perplexed, again. Why do people keep on telling me not to do this?? I thought she would be happy that I was considering applying to Ph.D. programs in Philosophy, but she was basically corroborating what Michael Huemer had said on his website.

I started to ask my TAs in the two philosophy courses I was taking. They gave me a more nuanced story of applying to such programs. They said that if I am genuinely interested in doing philosophy and enjoy reading and writing philosophy, I should consider applying, with the caveat that the intro courses are not necessarily a good reflection of what real philosophy looks like. One of the TAs, who ended up becoming my great mentor in philosophy, Zach Gartenberg, emphasized that if I truly feel like I love philosophy then I should most definitely apply.

I was receiving a bit of conflicting advice so over the winter break I discussed this matter with my friends and family, and most of them said that I would be crazy to consider applying to Ph.D. in Philosophy and try to become a professional philosopher. I don’t think they were necessarily doubting my capabilities, but rather they were just pointing out how extremely competitive of a field it is, especially my parents. My parents were not happy when they heard me say that I want to apply to Ph.D. in Philosophy. It took me about half a year of constant convincing and imploring for them to finally begrudgingly accept that I would be pursuing philosophy. This didn’t necessarily mean that I wouldn’t be doing mathematics at all, but my focus would shift from mathematics to philosophy. My intention was to double major in both, but just to apply to Ph.D. programs in philosophy.

I decided to give this route a try, after the winter break. Maybe there was also a stubborn part of me saying, all these professors and online philosophers telling me that I shouldn’t do this, well, I’ll prove them wrong by pursuing philosophy! This, of course, wasn’t the major motivation, but it was an underlying force behind my decision to apply to the programs.

A problem arose: COVID-19. In the 2020-2021 cycle, a lot of graduate programs in Philosophy (and other disciplines in general) halted admissions due to budget cuts and capacity reasons. It did bother me a bit, because there were quite a few departments that I was planning on applying to that I could no longer apply to. In addition, there were summer programs in philosophy that I was admitted to that I couldn’t go to anymore, and instead they conducted the program remotely. This was definitely better than just completely shutting down the program, but still, I was sad that I couldn’t spend time with other young philosophers in person discussing epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, etc. The only silver lining was that they all waived the GRE requirements due to COVID-19.

My strategy was to apply to as many departments as I possibly could, given that many departments also reduced the number of students that they would admit for the cycle. This might have been my mistake number 1 because I fear that my personal statements were a bit too exchangeable for certain departments. In addition, I also don’t think my writing sample was too good. Maybe I will write something about this later if I feel like it, but all in all, I was spreading myself too thin, and on top of that, COVID-19 happened. I was rejected by every program I applied to. I was quite disappointed.

Master’s in Philosophy?

I was at a crossroads: I could just take a gap year and try to apply again the following year, or I had to find some other plans to enhance my application. I wanted to try to make my application package better. So I hastily looked up Master’s programs in Philosophy. Thankfully, there were some programs that were still accepting applications even after March (which is when all of my decisions for the Ph.D. programs were finalized). I applied to a few of them and heard back from one program: Northern Illinois University. I was accepted! I remember that I wasn’t necessarily very happy, but I was at least relieved that I would have some kind of a destination for the upcoming semester.

My goal was simple: try to write a better writing sample, take more graduate courses, get great letters of recommendation, and try to apply again the next next cycle. I arrived in DeKalb, IL with that goal in mind. I was eager and ready to be an active member of the department. Until this happened.

“Seriously consider other options, guys.”

This was the opening statement of the graduate studies director during the first week of the program. The professor basically told everyone in the program that not many of us will ‘make it’ and therefore we should genuinely have alternative plans in case this path does not go as planned. This was technically not news to me. I had heard this many, many times before coming to the Master’s program. However, I was still deeply impacted by this statement.

I want to be clear that I am not decrying that statement made by the graduate director. I think it is a completely warranted thing to say to the graduate students, given that he was trying to provide a realistic landscape of what the field looks like. I think it probably would have raised my eyebrows if he had said that it was going to be all rainbows and butterflies. However, I was still left wondering, what the hell am I doing here. I had basically been told by a lot of people in the field to not pursue the field and somehow I was still pursuing this. Was this a hill that I was willing to die on?

I spent the next couple of months soul searching, while still trying my best to commit to the studies. It was a bit hard to focus on the studies 100% while soul searching about the very thing that I was studying, but I tried my best nonetheless. I would frequently take long drives out in the cornfields. DeKalb is surrounded by cornfields upon cornfields, so I would just listen to music while driving to clear my mind. It was one of my favorite things to do, actually.

I finished the first semester without finding the answer to my situation. I was a bit lost but I couldn’t consult anyone else about this matter. I didn’t want to bother my undergraduate professors and mentors after graduating. I didn’t want to talk to my parents about it because I didn’t want them saying, “I told you so.” I couldn’t talk to the other graduate students because, at that point, I had grown somewhat distant from the other students to the point where I felt a bit awkward trying to talk to them about this kind of personal matter. I did talk to my close friends, but they didn’t really provide me with any insights. Of course, I was grateful for them listening to me, but the question was still looming over my head: should I quit?

The second semester began. I found myself just having a very hard time focusing on the class material. I found myself having an increasingly difficult time reading the material, keeping up with my courses, or even writing. I just felt like I was being haunted by the past version of myself who had decided to pursue philosophy despite so many people urging me not to. At some point, I started to wonder what I’d do if I were to quit. I thought about many possibilities, and I realized that I had always loved teaching. Working as a teaching assistant for the mathematics and applied mathematics departments in my undergrad was one of the highlights of my college life. So I decided to look for opportunities in teaching, and I ended up applying to a few of them.

As soon as I was accepted to one, I told myself, this is it. I’m done. I no longer wanted to continue to drag myself to do something that I was not sure about. At that moment, I very much regretted not listening to Huemer’s and my department chair’s advice to not pursue philosophy. I thought that perhaps my life would have been better if I had listened to them and pursued something else. I thought that I had wasted a few years of my life pursuing something that would never be useful for me.

Kierkegaard.

If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or if you do not marry, you will regret both; whether you marry or you do not marry, you will regret both. Laugh at the world’s follies, you will regret it; weep over them, you will also regret it; if you laugh at the world’s follies or if you weep over them, you will regret both; whether you laugh at the world’s follies or you weep over them, you will regret both. Believe a girl, you will regret it; if you do not believe her, you will also regret it; if you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both; whether you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both. If you hang yourself, you will regret it; if you do not hang yourself, you will regret it; if you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both; whether you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the sum of all practical wisdom.

This is one of my favorite passages in philosophy. It is from Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, and it appears in the first chapter, named the Diapsalmata. This passage is one of the passages that pushed me to pursue philosophy. Kierkegaard told me this: no matter what you choose, you will end up regretting it. So, to me, the decision was obvious: okay, let’s at least regret it after trying to pursue philosophy. However, towards the end of my time with philosophy, it seemed to me that deciding to pursue philosophy in the first place had been a mistake and I regretted pursuing philosophy. Nevertheless, in some ironic fashion, I ended up regretting pursuing philosophy anyway. Kierkegaard was right.

Now I think about where I stand with all this, and the answer is clear: I actually do not regret it. I am happy that I spent a good chunk of my life studying philosophy. When would someone ever get an opportunity to genuinely study philosophy under the guidance of philosophers, reading and writing philosophy, discussing ideas with fellow students who are interested in philosophy? This opportunity is something that you can’t get later in life. It is a genuine privilege to be able to pursue something like this either in undergrad or in graduate school. I was extremely privileged to be able to go through all these philosophical texts and try to digest them and write my thoughts about those texts. I guess this is the essence of why people end up pursuing philosophy even though everyone tells them not to. It’s just that, for me, I didn’t love philosophy as much as others did, which is completely fine. Ironically, I eventually returned to mathematics with a very different relationship to difficulty than I had as an undergraduate. I still read philosophy leisurely from time to time.

Checkmate, Kierkegaard.