From Clemson to DC to New York: Felicia Finney (’19)
"Philosophy provided a forum for me to foster my intellectual curiosity while honing the analytical skills that are essential for pursuing a career in public affairs."
Felicia works in New York as a Vice President in the Global Communications and Marketing team at Lazard, a financial services firm. After graduating from Clemson she initially worked in Washington D.C., including service as a congressional staffer in the Executive Office of the Speaker of the House.
At Clemson Felicia majored in Philosophy with an emphasis in Law, Liberty, and Justice, and was awarded the South Carolina Supreme Court Pre-Law Summer Internship that the Department offers for its majors. She was very active on campus, serving as a first year student welcome leader and working in student government, and was a member of the Clemson Model United Nations team. She also studied abroad in Florence, Italy.
Felicia sees a direct connection between the skills that she developed as a Philosophy major and her success after graduation. She reflects: “Philosophy provided a forum for me to foster my intellectual curiosity while honing the analytical skills that are essential for pursuing a career in public affairs. The coursework challenged me to evaluate my convictions, construct well-reasoned arguments, and develop a deeper understanding of the ethical, logical, and moral frameworks that shape public discourse. As I began my professional journey in Congress, I relied on this foundation to assess complex policy issues and communicate their implications. Moreover, as a strategic communicator, I continue to leverage these critical thinking skills to craft messages that resonate with diverse audiences and enhance integrated brand campaigns.”
Pictured above is Felicia in her SC Supreme Court internship, speaking at graduation, and at work in Washington D.C.
About the Philosophy Major
Why study philosophy?
Philosophy Prepares You for Future Study
The philosophy major is very well regarded as preparation for law and medical school. Graduates also pursue graduate work in a wide variety of humanities, social sciences, and other disciplines
- Thinking About graduate school?
- On average over its three sections, philosophy majors are the most exceptional on the GRE.
- Thinking about professional school?
- Philosophy majors top the LSAT and are behind only physics math, and engineering students on the GMAT. Philosophers enjoy the best chance of admission to medical school of any major.
General Problem Solving
Many different problems share a common structure or "bottom out" in a common concern. Philosophy will teach you to identify those patterns and to address the common fudamental concerns. It will teach you to organize ideas, sort the relevant from the irrelevant, and to identify what is essential.
Persuasion, Writing, and Effective Communication
In your philosophy classes you will confront difficult texts and be asked to get the bottom of them. You will be required to extract ideas from these texts, many of which will be alien to you, and you will have to analyze and evaluate them as clearly as possible in your own writing. Philosophy students learn to charitably compare contrasting viewpoints, to describe them with detail and rigour, to analyze them with clarity and depth, and hence to develop and communicate their own views as persuasively as possible.
Understanding the Wider Intellectual World
All fields of knowledge employ reasoning and operate according to standards of evidence. Philosophers learn to examine those very tools and thus bring a valuable perspective to any field of inquiry. Moreover, each intellectual discipline has its own set of foundational concepts, and stands in its own relations to other disciplines, which bear philosophical examination.
Enduring Questions
People also study philosophy because of its enormous and enduring interest — and because of its inescapability. All of us have to answer, for ourselves, questions about what we should believe, what we should desire, and how we should live. Philosophy students learn to ask these questions well and how to formulate possible answers to them.
Philosophy emphasizes foundational intellectual skills, such as the discernement of similarity and difference, the evaluation of cogency, and clarity of thought and expression that are highly transferable and indispensable for successul intellectual inquiry generally.
Who Studies Philosophy?
Philosophy majors include political activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina, NCAA President Myles Brand, famous fund manager/investor George Soros, Lana del Rey, Susan Sontag, Emmanuel Macron, Phillip Glass, Alex Tribek, and many others. The word “philosophia” means “love of wisdom,” and — true to their name — philosophers have challenged, enlightened and sustained human society since the time of the ancient Greeks. Clemson’s philosophy degree will help you gain a broad understanding of the human condition and develop the ability to bring critical thinking and organizational skills to creative problem solving.
Our graduates have gone on to study philosophy at Brown University, medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, and law at Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and Duke, among other places. With three distinct emphasis areas (a standard philosophy track, Law, Liberty and Justice, and Medicine, Health, and Human Values) Clemson’s program is well equipped to meet your specific career goals.
