Philosophy Alumni
The SIUE Department of Philosophy would like to hear from you! Feel free to contact us with your updated information.
Our alumni go on to many career paths and life pursuits. These include careers in education, law, business, healthcare, religiously-affiliated areas, social and community services, government and politics, and communications.
Alumni Spotlight
Karey Lakin
In what year did you graduate?
Summer 2010.
What have you been up to in the time since graduation?
After I graduated with my B.S. in Philosophy in 2010, I enrolled in SIUE’s Music Department (with a focus on Jazz Studies, having previously studied jazz at a music school in Los Angeles). Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity because I partially tore my rotator cuff, so was not able to return for a second semester. At that point, I considered going to graduate school to study Philosophy, but chose instead to go to law school. Ultimately, I chose Pepperdine Law enrolling in fall of 2012 and graduating in 2016.
I passed the Uniform Bar Exam in February 2020 and moved back to Edwardsville from Malibu, CA, in November 2020. I immediately secured a paid-intern position with a local attorney. I presently work for the same attorney, though I did take some time away from that work to care for my father. I am currently working toward becoming a fully licensed attorney with the final step of completing my Character and Fitness Report
How has the study of Philosophy benefited you?
Although I could name many ways, I want to focus on how my studying at SIUE as a Philosophy Major was most responsible for my success on the LSAT, which gained me scholarships to good law schools. When my peers taking LSAT-prep courses were consuming the bulk of their course learning Symbolic Logic for the first time, I was taking practice exams. Concerning my familiarity with Logic, although Symbolic Logic and Critical Thinking contributed most, nearly every Analytic Philosophy Course I took reinforced this familiarity. They often required at least some knowledge of Logic.
Here’s a quick anecdote concerning my conviction that Philosophy is the best major for prospective law-school students. One year, Dr. Littmann and I were representing the Philosophy department at a University Preview event. To two separate pairs of prospective student and parent, I gave my whole spiel about Philosophy being the ideal major for prospective law-school students. After I finished with the last pair, and the prospective student and accompanying parent walked away, Dr. Littmann turned to me, and said jokingly, “we should be paying you for this!”
What part or parts of the SIUE Philosophy Program do you appreciate most?
This question is especially easy to answer: relatively small class sizes, which offers more opportunity to participate, and access to faculty.
At least while I was at SIUE, in upper-division courses especially, in classes with Dr. Littmann, Dr. Crane, and Dr. Pearson I was afforded many opportunities to participate in class discussion and engage in some of the most interesting debates of my life.
Access to faculty was the other part of SIUE’s Philosophy Program I greatly appreciated. All the professors had very generous office hours, of which I took great advantage. Any time I had a theory I wanted to work out, I would drop by Dr. Crane’s office.
My years at SIUE were some of the best and most memorable of my life.
