Philosophy Alumni describe their post-graduate experiences in the following testimonials.

From Tadd Ruetenik:
"I completed the Ph.D. [Purdue University], with a dissertation entitled "Sickrooms and special revelations: the significance of the sick soul in the religious pragmatism of William James."  I suppose that my cerebration began with courses in American philosophy, Continental philosophy, and psychoanalysis at EMU.  In addition to James, I also have chapters engaging the work of Freud, Kristeva, and Sartre. I am adjuncting at Penn State Altoona, teaching courses in philosophy and English.  The opportunities for teaching what I want are actually quite good. . . I am enjoying my interactions with colleagues -- a successful novelist, a Hegelian, a technical writing specialist, and a nuclear physicist -- in the interdisciplinary environment of a small college."

From Teresa Lazslo:
"I am in the Ph.D. program at Arizona State.  I am about half way done and I am working primarily in Metaethics on the topic of Responsibility with Professor Peter French.  I am also doing a little work on Epistemic Responsibility with the chair of our department Stewart Cohen.  I love it out here.  The weather is fantastic and allows for a lot of rock climbing."

From Mark Wenzel:
"I've begun teaching feminist philosophy because my students need to know of this impressive and diverse body of work.  The critical questions feminist philosophers ask are so good and so challenging.  The two traditions that I have profited from most since the 1970s are contemporary phenomenology [I studied 'classical' phenomenology [Husserl] with Tom Franks in the mid to late 1970s] and American pragmatism.  I am writing a dissertation in aesthetics at Wayne State University and so have considerable training in analytic philosophy.  I reject all such labels [continental philosophy, analytic philosophy, pragmatism] and simply make for my own what seems most fruitful for thinking and research.  Some years ago, I began reading in feminist philosophy and was immediately struck by the highly critical nature of the questions being asked - the more difficult the questions the better I like it and feminists ask some of the most difficult.  As we know, it is by their questions that a discipline is known and not only by their answers."

From Dera Sipe:
“After graduating from Eastern in 2002, I entered Villanova University’s Philosophy Ph.D. program; the supportive faculty at EMU helped me to get where I am, and I will be forever thankful for that.  While at Eastern, I took courses with Margaret Crouch, Kate Mehuron, Michael Jones, and Michael Reed. Each and every one of these courses helped me prepare for and survive graduate school in one way or another.  I am currently in the middle of my third year, and am enjoying grad school: the people, the coursework, and the location.  At Eastern I particularly liked the Continental, feminist, and history of philosophy courses a great deal, and at Villanova I have been able to further my work in these areas considerably.  I have studied phenomenology and existentialism with Thomas Busch and John D. Caputo, feminism and socio-political philosophy with Sally Scholz and Barbara Wall, and ancient and contemporary Continental philosophy with John Carvalho.  The teacher-training program I am involved in currently is  wonderful as well.  I love teaching philosophy to undergraduates: it reminds me daily how exciting philosophy can be.  Philosophy continues to inspire me, and though it is also often exasperating and I now know that it always will be so. It is a way of life unlike any other; I really can’t imagine doing anything else.” 

From Barry Hall:
“Encounters with determined thinking and writing turn me on. This may be the reason I remember my time as an EMU philosophy major with such fondness. The faculty’s passion for the discipline and focus on students were wonderful, really. The truly lasting memories of my undergraduate years are all from my philosophy experience. I remember spending two weeks trying to decipher Descartes’ “Meditations”...imagine. In what other discipline could you read the Greco-Roman philosopher Epictetus and find a kindred soul?

After my bachelor’s degree in 1996, I pursued a master’s degree in literature. The background I had received in philosophy writing and thinking paid substantial dividends in my master’s program. I was conferred the graduate student of the year in literature honor in 1998, the year of my master’s degree completion. And I passed the cumulative master’s exam with distinction.

This may not all be directly attributable to my time as an EMU philosophy major. The agility with language and thought I first mastered there, however, spurred in me the confidence and drive for further academic work. I still rely upon this confidence and sound thinking in my daily teaching. At present, I teach full time in EMU’s English department.”