TL;DR: even philosophy majors say this is their least favorite philosophy class. Do not take.

I read many reviews about how Hsu is hard to follow, how no one attends lecture, how TA's can grade harshly, etc. All of it is true. I did every single reading, yet could not follow Hsu's lectures at all, and would almost always end up falling asleep. Went to every single discussion (which they claim will allow them to boost your grade b/c good participation), went for help on my essays, yet still got a 77 and a 74 on both essays. Ended with a B-, no grade bump. It's ridiculous. The material is honestly not interesting, the lectures suck, discussion is pointless, and all your efforts end for naught. Do not take this class. A GE is supposed to be an interesting grade boost, and this satisfied neither.

The class is difficult. The topics are hard to cover and Hsu is often difficult to understand. A lot of the class was spent answering questions, but overall he did a good job of preparing everyone for the midterm/final. If you're a philosophy major, you have to take it. If you aren't a philosophy major, take another class.

This class was a lot harder than I expected. As a non-philosophy major, I did not know what I was getting myself into. Your grade is entirely determined by the midterm and the final split 50% to 50%. This means in order to get an A you need to get an A on both papers. As I got a B+ on my midterm I knew I couldn't get any higher than an A-. The prompts for the papers are also quite difficult to comprehend and also have to be short and to the point. I ended up working probably 60+ hours on my 2 essays for the final which allowed me to get an A- in the class. Wouldn't recommend the class but I did find the material interesting despite it not being taught well.

This class was interesting. Dr. Hsu does not use slideshows or notes or anything like that. He just talks at you for an hour and fifteen minutes. You read about a different philosopher like every week, but you mainly return to Descartes. The grading scheme is 50% midterm and 50% final. The average score on both of these is a B. You also have to do three homework assignments, or you will get an F. It does not count for a part of your grade; you just have to do it.
This class was weird because everyone gave up. No one went to lecture or discussion. So, if you literally did anything for the class, you would get a good grade. They gave the answers to the midterm and final in office hours, but no one went so everyone bombed it.
Dr. Hsu is very sweet though. He always had the biggest smile every single lecture, even though every student was asleep or didn't care. He was super kind, he just talked in 1800's limericks. He spoke in Shakespearean English, which was hard to understand but you get used to it. I actually really liked him as a person though. He is such a kind soul.
Basically, do not give up on the class and attend lecture. You will likely perform better than 90% of the class, and you'll make Dr. Hsu happy. I wouldn't say I recommend the class, because there are easier courses to do, but if you take it, it isn't hard to out-do many of your peers

This was one of my least favorite classes but I think that was because I am not into philosophy. The professor is nice and engaging but hard to understand. Class is not mandatory but it is already hard to follow so going to class helps. I believe discussion sections were mandatory but not challenging.

This was one of the worst classes I've ever take here. The lectures were extremely boring. I got help from my TA and wrote exactly what they told me to write and converted to a new situation only for my TA to tell me I'm wrong when I wasn't when I brought it to the Professor.

Not a great class, but one you can take if you need to! Dude is funny and kind of boring, so watch the lectures on 2x speed. They basically give you all the answers in discussion and in lectures. My TA was chill, and he knew that what we being taught kind of made no sense.

2 essays and 3 writing assignments in the quarter. As long as you try a bit, you will be fine.

Don't take this class for a GE. Big mistake. Sorry to be so blunt, but Professor Hsu is awful. Extremely unclear, no structure or focus during lectures, no slideshows or lecture notes, just him talking for the entire time. I stopped going to lectures simply because of how useless they were. TA's will save your life; sections were usually very helpful.

I took this class during the TA strike, so our grading schedule was out of the ordinary. Usually, you have to write two essays, and those are your ONLY grades all quarter. The week after we turned in our midterm essays, the TA's went on strike and when they returned they did not grade any of our essays, so Prof had to make last-minute changes to our grading scale, and I scraped by with a B. Since that was out of the ordinary, I didn't base my review off of that, rather the course material. The readings are interesting, it's actually fascinating to read about philosophers 400 years ago who talk about things that still apply today. It was a lot of theoretical-ness, which I like learning about, but it makes the class stressful and hard because it's so subjective. If you're the type of person who is more comfortable reading a textbook, taking weekly quizzes, and memorizing facts, this will not be an enjoyable class. I felt like I had to open up my third eye or something to understand what was going on, it was a lot of Inception type topics where it's hard to wrap your head around. I enjoyed the readings, but the lecture itself was extremely hard to follow. I'm not a philosophy major and I've never taken a philosophy course before, so when Prof would talk I would have no clue what he was talking about 90% of the time. His lectures don't have much structure, so it's hard to write down concise notes, I would just pay attention to the readings. He is very passionate and clearly VERY intelligent, but I feel like a lot of the material just went over my head. I would take this class again if it was something I did in my free time, but the lack of structure and very theoretical lectures makes it very stressful if you (like me) cannot follow his train of thought.

hsu was a super kind, sweet guy! lectures made absolutely zero sense and you learn the majority of the material from your TAs. however, Hsu was super accommodating during the TA strike and changed his final in order to help the students.