Advice needed, which MA Philosophy London part time

[coldpizzalover]

Dear MNs, i’m serious about wanting to apply for a masters in philosophy and I live in London. Ideally, I want to do a part-time course. I’m looking at UCL, KCl and Birkbeck. But I’m open to applying anywhere. I’ve booked for an open day for one of these. My question is if I’m going to make such a huge investment of time and work and money into this, which course genuinely promotes freedom of thought and speech, and will equip me with solid skills and knowledge? I really don’t want to waste my time going somewhere which is promoting a single, unitary woke agenda. I’m too old for that and I’m serious about the subject. I already have a Masters in a related area, But I feel I need a talk course as I have had no academic experience of this subject. Thanks

My experience of philosophy at uni (caveat - it is 40 years ago!) is that it is about studying the work and ideas of philosophers. Then they were mostly DWM but maybe there is more diversity now.

You say you want a course that promotes freedom of thought and speech, and will equip me with solid skills and knowledge – not sure about the freedom of thought aspect as I guess that is down to you. Are phi courses today all about "what do you think about this? Please debate"? to be fair they may be as I have not looked at it for years. The A level is definitely like my degree tho.

Solid skills and knowledge to do what? Philosophy as a degree is IMHO no more or less useful than (say) history or Eng lit or any other hums degree – it supports with skills in critical thinking, research, assessment – all good things to have. But what is your degree and masters in that you already have? Do they not tick that box? I am interested to know why the masters in phi is appealing tbh.

Hi thanks for swift reply. I’m interested in developing the academic rigour of a philosophy training and knowledge of the different schools of thought as they develop over time. I want a structured taught course that exposes me to different schools of thought and sets challenging assessments so that I can practice the skills of writing and thinking.Eventually I would like to incorporate that knowledge into a research degree in my own field. I am worried about signing up as a mature student for a university course where people might not be able to say what they think about the issues of the day: sex and gender, feminism etc.

Philosophy is not my field but what’s your impression of each of the three courses you’ve mentioned, in terms of what they cover? I note for example that KCL’s course has pathways for both philosophy grads and ‘conversion’ students, so if your aim is to get a good grounding in the subject, that sounds like it could work for you. Are the UCL & Birkbeck courses similar, or are they already more specialised, and thus might not offer that kind of wide scope?

Birkbeck is superb. And not at all one think.

That’s reassuring. I like the structure of the Birkbeck and KCL courses