Overall pretty good class. The material is interesting and the work is pretty easy, but you do need to do some of the readings. Definitely worth taking if you're looking for an easy and interesting GE.

Selling the course reader and book (God, Reason & Theistic Proofs) for $40 or best offer. Will be here during C Sesh. Text me at **********.

Jewell is great. I'm a Psych/AfAm major, and I've had no experience with Philosophy, and Jewell made that transition super easy. I highly recommend taking this for a first timer. Make sure to read the text he assigns; they take a while to get through, but aren't that hard to understand.

I'm selling the course reader (w/ annotations) for $35! Email me @ *************

Selling the course reader for $40. Just really want to get rid of it. text me at **********

I'm just being honest. Andrew Jewell is a natural born genius. He's too smart. I cannot ask him any questions because when he replies I have no idea what the you know what he is talking about. He is the by far the smartest philosophy professor I had at UCLA but I felt way too intimidated to ask him any questions because I am just a peasant in the land of his genius brain world. I don't know how smart he is outside of the classroom but the man is pure genius. His class is very well structured and he is also a good teacher. He teaches the most abstract in depth philosophical ideas I have ever covered. His class is extremely well structured and that is why I took him multiple times because I knew from the get go what I was in for. A midterm, a final, and sometimes one page writing assignments (pass/no pass). He also did online quizzes which, if you did the dense reading you would have gotten most of them right. You could probably take turns with classmates on the quizzes if you know any but I never did. You can definitely get an A in this class if you actually learn the material that he teaches you. I actually think he is one of the smartest people I know. I'm not here to kiss his butt but I got to give the man respect for the way he structures and teaches his course, despite his speech impediment. I honestly believe people will be writing papers about his work decades in the future. Genius. But not an easy A, and not ridiculously hard either. It's pretty simple. This is one of the few pure professors where if you actually learn the material you will be graded according to what you learned or appeared to have learned. Super down to earth and chill guy, but every time I would ask a question I would feel like he looked at me like a 4 year old asking what is 1 + 1.

Walked in 20-30 minutes late every day to this class, didn't pay much attention during lecture. But I worked hard outside of class, reading every assignment, asking questions over emails and office hours. The class has interesting material because it answers questions we face every day of our lives: did something create us and why are we here?

We had two main exams.
For our midterm, he gave us roughly 15 questions a week in advance and told us he would pick 10 for the test and we had to answer ~6 of those 10. Our final exam was an essay we submitted online. He gave us the prompt over a week in advance.

Jewell is a great teacher, really nice guy, and I'm glad I took the class. Just make sure you do the work and understand the content and you should be good.

Andrew is fantastic. So sweet, so helpful, so approachable. He is a very considerate professor, as he postponed our midterm due to the strike that occurred to ease the stress of any TAs or students who wished to participate. He clearly wants everyone to succeed: he gives the midterm questions in advance, he gives a clear outline of what the final paper is to be about (which you are given about a week to complete), and ensures that the reading responses are fairly graded. I attended his office hours over my TAs because he is so knowledgable and easy to talk to. I have never seen a professor so quickly come up with great answers to difficult questions, both in class and in office hours. I'm not a philosophy major, but if I was I would take every class he taught. Philosophy is daunting subject because it is rarely taught in high school and it can be a shock to students with no prior experience, and Andrew makes the transition into the oftentimes difficult subject easy and enjoyable. 11/10 would recommend this class with Andrew.

Grade breakdown:
Midterm: 38% (in-class, questions distributed in advance)
Final: 40% (essay via TurnItIn, prompts given about a week before the due date)
Reading responses and quizzes: 17% (3 reading responses submitted through TurnItIn and 4 online quizzes)
Participation: 5% (calculated through turning in the in-class worksheets and participating in section)

In sum: enjoyable class, thought-provoking subject, amazing professor, great for philosophy lovers and haters alike

Everyday I would pray that I would wake up late so I didn't have to go to this lecture. That being said, I put zero effort into this class and ended up with an A-.

The only reason to attend lectures for this class is the participation points from the in-class worksheets. Listening to him lecture didn't help with the midterm or final paper at all, and the only readings you actually need to do are the ones that have quizzes or are covered in the midterm or final paper. He gave out the midterm questions over a week ahead of time, so if you prepared it was very manageable.

Disclaimer: I just took this class to fulfill CPA credits, and have no prior experience or interest in philosophy.

This was by far one of the worst classes I've ever taken at UCLA. Jewell is a nice guy and clearly very knowledgeable in his field, but he is not a good lecturer. He tends to just ramble forever and very rarely writes anything down on the board. I found his lectures very boring and difficult to follow so I just stopped going by week 3. The readings are very dry and dense, so good luck getting through them.

The midterm and finals consist of in class essays which are graded harshly for a GE class. You are given the prompts ahead of time which does aid in preparation.

I recommend skipping section as well and trying to figure things out on your own based on the readings. My TA had the interpersonal skills of an eggplant and was of no help.

Summary: If you must take this class, just take it pass/no pass and put in the bare minimum to get a C. It's structured very poorly and just isn't worth the time required to earn a good grade.

I actually took philosophy 7 with professor Andrew Hsu but he is not a listed instructor on bruinwalk. I really enjoyed this class and thought it was an interesting intro to the world of philosophy. The professor tended to explore a ton of avenues during his lectures but given the topics that seemed necessary. It can sometimes be tough to follow but if you try to pay attention, take some notes, and do the readings then the class should be an easy A. The workload was really really light. Only 3, short, required homework assignments for the entire quarter and you grade was your score on the midterm/final. Really try to look into your TA because that's the person that grades everything and actually determines what you get in the class. I had a super awesome TA, Catherine Hochman, she was really fair and encouraged discussion and she was really good at articulating unclear concepts. Overall I would definitely recommend the class.