Peter Soldato graduated in May 2010 with a double major
in philosophy and religion.
Since attending Butler, I have been attending University of
Chicago Law School. I am about to start my second year of law
school. This past summer, I worked for Elkhart Legal Aid
Services, a clinic which provides free legal aid to low-income
persons in need of representation. I hope to continue this
sort of work after graduation.
I value my philosophy degree because of its comprehensive nature
-- my philosophy major gave me the ability to ponder the most
important philosophical issues of many different disciplines.
Science, aesthetics, logic, morality, religion, and political
science were all explored - sometimes all in the same
semester! I think that this breadth of learning made me a
well-rounded individual, capable of understanding some important
issues in many different areas.
Also, I value the time I spent pondering philosophical issues
-- many students never have a chance to consider these sorts
of questions, and it is an unfortunate fact of life that most
people don't have time to think about philosophical issues once
they have entered the "real world." The time I spent reading
the works of great thinkers, both religious and secular, led me to
reflect on my own life and form my own set of values.
It is this reflection that led me to pursue a non-traditional
path in law - while working at a non-profit law firm certainly does
not maximize my earning capability, it is consistent with my core
beliefs and so makes me more happy than any paycheck ever
could.
I enjoyed studying philosophy at Butler in particular because of
the smaller class sizes and approachable professors.
Professors were happy to talk before or after class, and they were
always available for longer meetings during office hours. It
was during these personal discussions that I was able to work
through tough material, and I know many other philosophy students
took advantage of these meetings in much the same
way.
I especially enjoyed being able to work on my honors thesis with
Prof. Glennan. Working with him week after week for almost a
year really gave me a great insight into the creation of a
scholarly work. Prof. Glennan always went out of his way to
help me, even when it seemed that I would never make it past
deciding on a thesis topic! I really value the experience of
being able to feel like a philosopher - even a novice, struggling
philosopher - for a short period.