This was the most useless, insufferable class I've taken at UCLA. Burge is not a good professor. It's not that he doesn't know what he's talking about, it's that what he's talking about makes absolutely no sense. It's the most incomprehensible, needlessly complicated, abstract bunch of nothingness. There's nothing practical or useful to take away from it. Worse, he doesn't even try to make it easy to understand. He'll emphasize that's very important to use the correct terminology, but he'll use certain words exchangably sometimes and not other times, so you don't even really know what anything means for sure---which is insane when you're getting graded on how well you can explain the material. There's not really any clear progression or goal to learning the material. There's no powerpoints or lecture notes. It's just him scribbling (illegibly, I might add) on a chalkboard while rambling and not even completing his sentences half the time.

He's also pretty condescending and dismissive when questions are asked. Any time someone brings up new neuroscience research that contradicts what he's saying, he dismisses it and says [the authors] don't know what they're talking about. For someone that keeps claiming he believes in science and isn't trying to minimize it, it doesn't sound like it, which is extra frustrating to sit through as a STEM major.

He also made us read a paper towards the end of the quarter and then read a response to it that he and his son wrote, but if you read the original authors' response to their response it becomes very clear that Burge and his son are wrong lol. A bunch of their rebuttals to the author's arguments are actually in support of them. I asked the TA about it during discussion and he wasn't able to explain that away very well, although he tried. It's even more frustrating that we had to prepare material for it for the final---how are we supposed to explain the argument in Burge's favor when all use of logic points to the fact that Burge's arguments are incorrect?

His two midterm essays are also a pain. They're not very long, but he requires that each sentence be no more than 16 words or else you get docked points. Thankfully both the TAs during my quarter were leniant with this, and mine didn't mind that mine were 17-18 on average. He requires this in order to make us write more consisely, but honestly it's overkill and very frustrating to have to write like that. Everything about this class is needlessly complicated.

I got an A on both the midterm papers - my TA was great - but seriously do not take this class if you're looking for an easy A or looking for a worthwhile class in general lol. I feel it was a genuine waste of my time and energy and was incredibly frustrated the whole time. Easily one of the worst classes I've taken here.