Out of the 9 quarters I've been at UCLA, this has been without a doubt the worse class I've ever taken here. And its not even close. The papers are so incredibly specific, with about 3 sentences of explanation followed by TAs trying to clarify what the hell the assignment was for the next 3 weeks. I've never seen a professor been so rude. Which would be one thing if he was good, but he wasted so much time covering the most inane details. I also feel as though I've learned absolutely nothing, besides a few basic facts of philosophical history. Avoid at all costs. If you have to take it, don't bother with the course reader.

Philosophy of the Mind was engaging even with Rescorla as my professor, so I definitely recommend it if you're interested in anything to do with philosophy. It pretty much covers the most commonly discussed philosophical subjects.. things like Realism, the Turing Test, God, morality, etc...

The class has a simple structure -- you'll watch some videos of Rescorla before lecture, complete a few questions in lecture, and ask him any questions. I learned early on that he's awful at answering questions. It almost seems like he doesn't understand his own videos a lot of the time. He means well, certainly, but when he's confused, it's like listening to a 7th grader give the class a presentation.

Grading mostly comes down to a midterm, a final, and two essays. The final is handwritten and involves around 10 essay questions, so be prepared for your hand to cramp up and barely make it out of the test. I didn't think any of the material was hard to learn or write about, but Rescorla makes a point of saying that he instructs the TAs to grade the tests pretty harshly. I think I ended up with a B on both, and my essays carried my grade a little bit.

Biggest advice is that if your TA is clearly knowledgeable (and generally a helpful person), they are a great resource. Mine was willing to give me tons of advice on my essay structure. Rescorla gives a very complete list of topics you should know before the midterm and final, so as long as you have those concepts down, you'll be fine.

At the time I'm writing this, I am a graduating senior. I took this class winter of my sophomore year and it was by far not only the worst GE, but the worst class I've taken at UCLA. My TA was a firm believer of "you can't get an A on a philosophy paper" so really I was doomed from the start. No one I knew in my section got As on the papers regardless of how often they went to office hours or how early they started their papers.
The professor is sarcastic, which I would normally enjoy, except he came off as arrogant and uncaring for students. He did not even show up for the final, which was a very long written exam that was extremely harshly graded. I spent a lot of time studying for it and did not receive the grade I hoped for, and when I asked the TA and the professor to show me my final they were very unaccommodating. My advice is if you want to take a GE you enjoy, don't take one with bad reviews.

Honestly, this class was very easy as I had stopped watching the lectures at week 4 and ended with a B+ in the course. DO NOT BUY THE COURSE READER ! I literally did not use the course reader once throughout this entire class. The only hw you have for this course are weekly quizzes which are basically free points as they are dumb easy to do. There are also three required papers which all are very short and honestly I just rewatched and copied what he said on his recorded lectures into my essay. If you want an easy ge class take this and you'll end with a B+ for putting no effort into the course. But if you really wanted to try you could definitely end with an A if you were to go to office hours to get help on the paper. There is no midterm but there is a final and gives out a review sheet before and the final is exactly the same as the review sheet.

I chose this class very initially very interested in the content. However, going into the class my TA was not helpful or clear at all (Jacob) and the professor either. The prompts were not clear and I don’t think their aim was to make sure all their students can get an A because I did try to and I do think this was one of the worst classes because of how they handles the grading and prompts. The content of the class was very interesting to learn but the grading was not fair considering the lack of clarity.

I took this class fall 2020 as a freshman, so it had not occurred to me to read the reviews beforehand. I really, really wish I had. There is absolutely no clarity in the way this class is graded, and it seems as if that is intentional. I ended up checking my final grade on the last day that we had to contest it, and there was only an overall letter grade, nothing about the quizzes, final, or the three papers we are assigned. I had to literally email the professor for a grade breakdown, and he only gave me more obscure letters on each paper and the final but had never given a rubric that told us how grades were assessed (if you ask for one, the TAs say they can't give you one). The professor also doesn't like to answer questions, the TAs were the most helpful resource in this class. Finally, don't bother with the purchase of the course reader; it's useless.

I did not really like anything about this class, but honestly I'm not too big of a fan of philosophy of mind (maybe I just need better experiences with it). I never showed up to lectures or discussions (we're in the middle of a pandemic) but i managed to get a B, which depended mostly on my TA. The amount of reading is pretty heavy but I didn't do any of it after Week 4 and I realized it wasn't even necessary. The quizzes, papers, and exams all really were based on the videos that Prof. Rescorla would post every week. So, really my grade was based off my understand of the videos and I did alright, I could've done better if I had tried but yeah. ALSO, the book is also a waste of money don't buy it!!! i promise

I'm honestly not sure if it's the subject or the professor. I do think Rescorla could be a lot better though. I came into this class thinking I would be thinking abstractly, getting philosophical and existential. This was not the case: we were taught theories and often just reworded them for essays which in principle seemed easy but proved hard. Grades weren't put in until the end of the quarter...the only grades we really knew were essay grades, after about a week or two. However, the final essay, a third paper, wasn't graded or at least the grades weren't released until after the final and very late in the quarter. If we had any issues with our grades there was little to no time to actually address them. Essays were graded VERY tough, but eventually I got the hang of it: my grades went from C to B to A. The most annoying part of this class was probably the fact that we didn't even get grades for the final. We just got the final grade. The class was boring, and DO NOT buy that $50 course reader, you can find pdfs online. Rescorla's lectures weren't half bad and based on the fact that we're remote right now, he was pretty good about that. He had "group office hours" rather than live lectures and recorded his lectures and uploaded them to CCLE so we could watch them asynchronously. He also did different topics in every video so there were multiple 10-30 minute videos per week, which I found helpful for going back to study/review if I was confused. My TA really wasn't the best and I think he graded harder than others might have. He often had no answers for my questions during discussions because philosophy can be complex. When essay topics were posted, it was hard to actually get information about what to write from him. He was vague about things, which I guess had a purpose so we can produce original thought but it was horrible for my grade. Essay prompts were vague, except for the last one. But the final was great, it was literally just exactly the questions he gave us on the study guide. Overall, I would give this class a D, maybe a low C. It was a difficult GE and a lot of people were struggling more than me.

This class was EXTREMELY unorganized. The concept of a certain material is not hard to learn but this class was not put that well together. It really depended on your TA to help you in order to catch up. The textbook in my opinion was NOT needed. I only looked at it once the whole quarter and I never did again. You have 3 papers throughout the quarter and lecture view quizzes that are easy because all you have to do is watch the videos. I regret taking this class but had it not been for my TA helping me out I would have most likely failed.

I did well in this class because I had a good TA. The professor was pretty vague and didn't really care about his students. However, if you take advantage of the resources you have, like your TA, it is more than possible to do well. My TA was Shan Vartanian and I would highly recommend him. During Covid, the professor would post the prerecorded lectures which were usually pretty short, then have class open at the scheduled times where anyone could ask questions. If you engage with the material and ask questions, it is not a hard class.