I took Philos 7 with Professor Rescorla last quater and I got scared initially because of the rumors around that class and how challenging it is. I came into the class with little formal philosophical background (except a high school class). I am cheap and didn't buy the course reader. In the beginning, I would look the readings up on online with "pdf" after them--worked like a charm. After a while though, the readings got to be a lot, so instead I would skim them (or pretty much skip doing them) and really analyze his arguments in the videos, often rewatching them multiple times. I tried to find holes in the arguments presented or things the philosophers failed to address in their thought experiments or arguments. I would go to his office hours pretty much weekly as well as my TAs and ask a TON of questions in lecture, discussion, email. I really think engaging with the material and becoming passionate/interested in it is the best way to go. Do the papers early and go over the writing excercises and essays with your TA and Rescorla. Practice your essay prompts for the final and practice doing them in about 15 minutes per essay. Rebuke your own arguments and address all the counters you can. This class is pretty darn interesting and because people say it is challenging and I ended up really liking my professor and TA, it provided a really rewarding pat on the back--you can do this!

Rescorla is really willing to help and it is fun to question him and engage with the material as much as you can. In the end, he even reached out to tell me about how well I did on the final and to thank me for my participation. You can succeed in this course and more importantly, you can learn a lot and ponder some difficult questions...are you awake right now??? good luck

- Online-recorded lectures were all that was really required to get a passing or good grade in class

- Make note of the professor's recorded videos lecture structure, i.e. how he presents ideas step-by-step; replicate this in your essays (there are 3 that I had to write and 5 of a similar type for the exam) which makes for an easy essay score

- Slides were incorporated during lectures but are less important than the recorded videos that he uploads before a lecture

- Definitely offer to peer-check with classmates for essays; be the student who offers to share their A/A+-graded essays, or be thankful of those who do (MVPs) since they will be the ones that most strongly stick to how Prof Rescorla likes to have his essays written

- Online essays were easy; exemplar questions are posted a week or two before the finals, so-called "made to help students practice". Make sure to write up full essays to the best of your ability for every single question in the practice. The finals that I experienced online had at least 2 of those questions copied and pasted exactly word for word (so I just had to re-write my practiced answers in the exam, giving me time to spare for the newer questions)

He was a very clear lecturer and used slides. We had three essays, none of which were very long. I found that I had to go to my TA's office hours for each paper, though, since I had never written a philosophy paper and it was quite different from writing a paper for any other class.

Sometimes he can be too opinionated in lecture, so take what he says with a grain of salt whenever he sounds overly passionate. We had assigned readings every class, but we didn't really end up using them. We didn't have a midterm, and the final consisted of short-answer questions. Overall, this was an interesting and very manageable class.

It's so unfortunate this professor has such poor reviews. I took his class in the Fall and found it extremely engaging, and I left it feeling like I had a full grasp of the material he wanted us to know. The class was challenging and required a lot of work to be put into it. I, for most part excluding a few readings in the end, didn't do readings from the course reader because they were so well laid out by either Rescorla during lectures or the primary text. This class is an upper division class and was not easy. However, doing the primary readings before class every week set things up in a way that I felt well versed in the material.

3 papers, 2-3 pg, 3-4 pg, 4-5 pg, and a final consisting of material that was either necessary for the papers, plus a little extra from the beginning and end of the course. Course reader is expensive but it makes things far easier for the assignments. So, it's not necessary per se, but why make life harder if you can afford it? If you can't you can find it all online, which, if you do, print it off and bring it to class so you can keep up.

If you want to understand the subject, take this professor! If you want an easy A, look somewhere else!

DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS, especially with Rescorla.

I took this class during online school to fulfill a GE requirement, and it was a disaster front to back. When you start the class, Rescorla will seem like a quirky, but nice guy. As you continue though, you will gradually realize more and more what a terrible professor he is. His "lectures" were glorified Q&A sessions. Instead, he posted several pre-recorded videos per week that you were expected to watch in lieu of actual lectures. The class has 3 essays you have to write. For every single one, the prompt was extremely vague and gave little direction. The TAs, or at least my TA, seemed to be equally confused as I was, and had no idea how to give feedback.

Until about Week 10, I figured Rescorla was your run-of-the-mill bad professor who just didn't teach you much, but it was what happened after Week 10 that made me dislike Rescorla with a burning passion. For one, his final was absurd. It was 5 mini-essays, with the same kind of vague, confusing prompts used in the earlier essays. My TA told us that they expected about 3 pages per question, in a 3-hour final. If you do the math, that comes out to 12 MINUTES PER PAGE, which is absolutely absurd. It's completely unreasonable to expect someone to be able to write a page in 12 minutes, especially for questions that are expecting you to break down and analyze dense philosophical concepts. Our TA LITERALLY told us that the only way to do well on this exam is to pre-write essays for every concept we've covered, and then just copy-paste the relevant ones in once the final starts, and then use the actual finals time to fine-tune and edit the pre-written essay to reflect whatever prompt it was answering. This just boggles my mind.

They had 3 "review sessions" for the final. Rescorla wasn't even there, the review sessions were run by TAs, and they weren't even review sessions. They were literally just Q&A sessions.

But I still haven't even mentioned the real kicker. They announced this absurd final on Friday of Week 10, 3 days before it opened. The final opened Monday afternoon, and with zero warning or heads up, RESCORLA REMOVED EVERY LECTURE AND VIDEO HE HAD UPLOADED TO HIS SITE. All of a sudden, there was literally no material on his site. If you weren't finished studying by that point, you were completely screwed, and just to reiterate, he did this with absolutely zero warning or notice.

Rescorla is one of, if not the absolute worst professors I have had at UCLA, and he made this class an absolute nightmare. I said it once, and I'll say it again: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH RESCORLA.

I will forever scorn myself for taking this forsaken class. I am still trying to raise my GPA after taking this class. Before the end, I actually enjoyed this class. Discussion was interesting (albeit confusing), lecture was engaging. The lectures were filmed videos that were fun to watch. Professor Rescorla seemed like a very quirky and fun professor; I liked him.
However. The class grade breakdown included quizzes (which literally were made to give us points, so nice), 3 papers worth 15%, 20%, and 25%, participation, and the final. Each paper had the same prompt. Restate the argument or concept that we were talking about in class at that time. No opinions, no perspectives, literally just restate what the philosopher said exactly. Oh yeah, but use your own words. I got a B on the first paper, without putting too much effort in or getting any feedback beforehand. So, going into the second paper, I felt good and more prepared. I made an outline, drafted, edited, followed the prompt exactly. Felt like an A paper. Got a C...
I am an excellent writer, that is my strong suit. I have never received less than an A on almost any essay. The feedback I received was extremely vague, but I was explicitly told that I used the words "real"/"external"/"natural" interchangeably when I shouldn't have, or something of the sort. So ultimately, restate the philosophers' cracked up ideas perfectly and exactly using their words, but you have to do it using your own words.
The final was the same way. It was a 7 question paragraph style test and you had to explain different concepts. Same thing, explain in your own words but even if you had the concept down but didn't use the right words, failed. So ridiculous. Maybe philosophy just isn't my thing, but this is one of those classes where you feel like you have a grasp on it, and then suddenly, without any feedback or explanation, you are told you are wrong.

(Reviewing for Philosophy 7 - Intro to Phil of Mind)
Michael Rescorla is AWESOME. Super funny, used lots of examples from movies (Truman Show, The Matrix...) to illustrate his points, very entertaining lectures. Highlights PowerPoint slides in blue if the information is "must-write-down" and is super helpful in office hours. Highly recommend this class and this professor

There is a lot of nightly reading for the class but the essays are short, however, there are three of them in addition to the final. You are given plenty of time to do each essay. The questions were a lot to answer but they weren't impossible. The final was in person and a study guide was given in advance. All test questions were on the study guide, but it was unknown how many would have to be known or other specifics. He does his best to answer all questions and is very willing to take questions. Lectures are pretty dry but he does stick to important information. He is an amusing person (he's a little weird) wish that came through in his lectures. Overall he's a nice guy who wants you to succeed, but it's a class at UCLA, it requires a lot of work.

Do not buy the course reader. It isn’t necessary. All of his essay prompts are extremely vague and confusing. Also, he is very rude in lecture when students ask questions. His final consists of 10 “mini-essay” questions that come from a span of over 25 topics.

Rescorla is by far, one of the most disorganized, unconcerned, inattentive, sluggish professors I've had thus far. To begin, he assigned everyone to buy a course reader that costs about $50.00-- the reason I feel the need to address this is because the readings inside this course reader you CAN find online (if you take the time to search), as he literally provided online citations at the end of the course reader-- meaning, he could have easily made the readings accessible to EVERYONE through a PDF file, if he wasn't so lazy (hard to say, but it is true). There are student, like me, who do not have sufficient funds to just buy a $50 book that CAN be made into a PDF file. He does not have ANY material posted on CCLE-- not even his syllabus! Isn’t that weird? He does not post his slides or provide any Bruincasts. Weird, yet again. For his essays, he does NOT provide a rubric or format and he refuses to do so. Plus, he hands out the prompts about a week before the due date. Therefore, students have to somewhat wing it and hope for the best grade (even though there is no guide). The TAs evidently are not up to par with Rescorla as they seem to learn at the same speed as us. My TA rarely had answers to the questions our class asked him. It seems he didn’t update the TAs accordingly. They would ask questions in class, all the time, as if they were students. Personally, the first time I went to his office hours he gave off the impression that he was trying to get everyone out of his office as soon as possible. In class, he promotes his office hours but once you are there, you do not feel very welcomed. He always asks you first (name, year, major), which I find weird. Then he makes a comment or two about your major (no need to). I remember when I was in his office with 5 other students in hopes to get my first essay rough draft reviewed by him and ask questions. After I asked him my questions, he expected me to leave because he assumed that was the ONLY reason I was there-- so when i stayed longer to get my essay reviewed, he said “I thought you were only here to ask questions, you gave me false information. Now i’m reviewing more essays, you told me you were here only to ask questions.” Seriously professor? Why would a professor feel so deeply about students staying to ask questions AND get their essays reviewed? And what if i had not made it clear that i was there for those 2 points? Made it seem he was not at all interested in helping. Now, as we are getting closer to his final exam (happening Monday, June 10), he said he is providing a final review sheet on the Wednesday before the date-- giving us only 4 days to study what he recommends us to study. Unorganized! The upcoming review sessions are being hosted by TAs (who are just as clueless as students) who are NOT reviewing, rather just answering students’ questions. Evidently, no help. I cannot believe such professor is teaching at UCLA-- it is very disappointing and seems that the philosophy department didn't conduct an interview on him.. Idk how such person is teaching on campus.. honestly, save yourself a quarter's worth of mind games and dumb stress..