I majored in Philosophy because I was interested in Science. And Music. And Art, and English, and Politics, and Magic, and Humor, and just a whole bunch of stuff. I figured if I majored in Philosophy I could work all those interests into my studies because, as I perceived it, Philosophy was the study of just about everything. Turns out, it is. But they didn't have enough faculty members in the Philosophy Department to cover all that so they compartmentalized.
I studied Ethics with some guy from New York, who kept talking about [Bentham] and using examples that posed the question of whether, if the greater good required it, we should smash babies into the sidewalk. It was a thought-provoking class. I had another professor who taught Existentialism and Phenomenology, and he was very ponderous and seemed to be deeply troubled by the implications of almost any question he received. The only specific thing I think I remember from those two classes was his revelation to the class that one of the philosophers we were studying had once had a disturbing belief that he was being chased by a giant crab. I took that as subtle message that we shouldn't take any of this stuff too seriously. Of course, that isn't what he meant. That guy took everything seriously. In fact, one time I needed to borrow his Husserl book to write one of the essays that we were assigned (the book store had had a run on Husserl books and had run out), and when I read the professor's book literally every line in the book had been highlighted in yellow.
The best professor I had was a guy named Michael Zimmerman. He was into Heiddegger, but I never held that against him. In fact, he is the reason I decided to major in Philosophy. I took an Intro course and he made us read Carlos Casteneda. That stuff was great, and I was hooked. Zimmerman told us that philosophy was a worthwhile pursuit only if we used it to help us guide our lives. He gave concrete examples of how various thinkers' beliefs might apply in real life (except Heiddegger, because he's too bizarre). I doubt I could expound in any great detail about the Great Philsophers, but there are one or two whose ideas I constantly reflect on, and overall I'm glad I majored in Philosophy,
