The Experiences of a Philosophy Major

By: James Patrick A. Twisdale, EC Scholar and Honors College Sophomore

It all started the summer before my freshmen year. I had received my schedule for my first semester of college, and my parents and I were at my Mema’s house talking about my future college plans. I remember seeing that I was registered for a class called Professional Ethics with Dr. James Leroy Smith, and I was commenting about why in the world I was put into this class as an incoming biology major. I still remember my mother looking at me and saying, “You know, your father loves philosophy, and you never know, you may love it too.” At the time, I could not have imagined how accurate she was.

You know that feeling of when you grow up with one of your parents constantly discussing a topic? At the time, you shrug it off, but then once you hear it from a different source you realize that you love it. That is exactly what happened to me. I sat down in that first philosophy class, and by the third class, I knew I wanted to major in philosophy.

That next semester, I took two more philosophy classes: another one with Dr. Smith called Healthcare Ethics and one with Dr. Henry Jacoby called Introduction to Ethics. After the first class with Dr. Jacoby, I talked to him after class and told him about my intent to major in philosophy. Immediately, he took me to the office of Dr. Collins, the philosophy advisor, and I was officially signed up to be a philosophy major.

Currently, I am the Dean’s Student Leadership Council’s representative for the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department, and I am taking my fifth and sixth philosophy classes about Critical Reasoning and Legal Punishment. I am also in the process of creating my own personal philosophy class about Kantian Ethics through the directed readings option of the philosophy department.

I am so glad that I was put into that first philosophy class my freshmen year by the Honors College. It has enriched my life immeasurably and provided me with a passion for the rest of my life.

Image featured on ECU Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies home page. Featured caption: “Dr. Raymond Moody, a psychiatrist and philosopher who coined the term and initiated the conversation about “near-death experiences,” discusses the distinction between intelligible texts, nonsensical texts, and meaningful text in a meeting with students, philosophy and religious studies faculty members and others on February 24th 2015 at East Carolina University. Here, Dr. Moody is talking with Patrick Twisdale, a philosophy major and the department’s representative on the Harriot College Dean’s Student Leadership Council.”