This is the worst class I have ever taken. I have told every one of my friends who needs to take a philosophy class to STAY AWAY from philosophy 7. Professor Rescorla is utterly unhelpful and confusing, and in no way answers questions he is asked in a manner that anyone can understand. My TA was THE WORST and offered limited help on essays. He would create slots for office hour appointments and not make enough for the entire class to sign up with. He reads your paper for all of 30 seconds, gives you EXTREMELY limited feedback, and then proceeds to give terrible grades with no concrete reasoning as to why. With my entire heart and whole being DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS is you value your sanity, college experience, or GPA.

The weekly quizzes are so easy. The papers are hard though. You have to write exactly how English teachers told you not to write. I got bad grades on my papers because I had no example on how a philosophy paper is supposed to look. Overall interesting content though.

Material was super interesting (if you are into humanities) but the class otherwise kinda sucks.

Posted videos (separate from lecture) that you NEED to understand the content, and they are helpful. However, the actual class lectures were totally useless, unless you had a very specific question (and even then, eh)

Workload was pretty manageable, but the actual essay assignments are EXTREMELY UNCLEAR. The idea is that you learn how to write a phil paper as the quarter goes on, but it makes it sorta impossible to get a good grade the first/second paper.

My TA was pretty helpful in holding office hours about the essay assignments, but only because it was nearly impossible to understand how you were supposed to write your essay without help from your TA.

If you're super interested in Philosophy I don't think this is a BAD class? But if you want it as a GE, I would recommend something else instead (maybe SOC)

Wow where do I begin. So the reason I took this class was purely because I saw it under an easy GE list for the philosophical reasoning or something GE requirement. So my thought process was, "okay, so this class is supposed to be easy and philosophy is something I've never taken before so it must be pretty interesting". I think this reasoning would be valid for ANY OTHER professor than Michael Rescorla. Man is as unempathetic and convoluted as it gets. For example, on the first essay that we had to write, he gave the most VAGUE prompt I've ever seen in my life, suggesting at two sides we could pick from and defend. HOWEVER, when I got to discussion section, our TA said that the prompt was wrong and that we would only be able to defend one side. Then when we went back to lecture and confronted Michael about it, he seemed to suggest that either interpretation of the prompt was correct. Like, uh hello? They are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. Some people wrote one way, some people wrote the other, but in my experience going through the first essay, I did not meet anyone who got an A. I would call myself a pretty good writer, as I've taken many many writing classes in the past and flew through with A's all around. However, the definition of "good writing" that you're probably used to doesn't translate here. Even my best writing where I felt as if I defended every angle and position was not good enough. I never got above a B on an essay. The TA's will basically carry you through this class, but even so, my TA was still a very very tough grader. I had James Gu, and though his discussions "outlined" what he wanted to see in the essays, following his outlines is still not good enough. I would know because I took notes WORD FOR WORD during his discussions and practically translated exactly what he wanted into my paper and still got a B so... I guess everyone in the philosophy department are pretentious a**es? Yeah, this class is god awful even though it was supposed to be a GE. This class F'ed up my GPA and I regret it so much. Please save yourself, don't be me. I got a B- in an easy A class. Don't trust the easy GE lists either.

The MOST important advice I can give for this class is to rely on your TA checking your paper before submitting it, NOT the professor. You will have three papers due for the course and definitely take the time to meet with your TA to check each one. The TA's are the ones who grade the papers, so meeting with the professor helps, but do not rely on his critics only. My grades improved significantly once I began meeting with both to check my work, so I highly recommend it. The papers are also graded pretty harshly, so that is something to keep in mind as well.

Also, it is true what they say about the Course Reader. Save yourself the money, you don't need it.

Overall, Philos7 was an easy class if you put the work into it!!! I took the course when it was online so Professor Rescorla would have us watch pre-recorded lectures. After almost every lecture there was a one question quiz. These were very easy and were pretty much just to ensure that we watched the videos. The professor held optional Q&A meetings via Zoom twice a week. I used to consistently go but then I noticed that I wasn't learning that much during the zoom so I stopped going and I was fine. Readings are assigned every week but are NOT necessary to succeed in the class. Just like attending the zooms, I would read all the readings in the beginning of the quarter, but stopped around week 4.

This class has you write three short papers. The papers are easy, but the prompts are very vague so go to your TAs and ask for help!!! I had James as my TA and he was sooooo helpful. I set up meetings with him and he was able to read every single one of my papers before I turned them in and he helped me get As on all of them.

The final is a series of short response questions that were on topics we covered throughout the entire course. The professor gave out a study guide beforehand and the sample questions on the study guide ended up being literally the exact same questions on the final.

In terms of content, this class was ehhh pretty interesting. Maybe philosophy just isn't for me but I thought that a lot of what we covered was a little trivial but at the same time so deep for no reason. LOL like we spent weeks learning about arguments for why the external world might not exist.... like why do we even need to question that???

I would def recommend this class to someone who's looking for a GE that isn't too much work...... but if you want a good grade you definitely can't completely slack off... you still have to put in effort. This class is very manageable, I don't regret taking it.

This class wasn't easy, but it wasn't hard either. It was manageable, and I don't think it was bad. I took this class when it was online, and it was pretty chill. Professor Rescorla did a great job at simplifying difficult concepts. (IMO)

We watched pre-recorded lectures that had one question at the end; it was very easy. There was a textbook for the class, and he assigned us readings every week, but they weren't necessary. The readings were there for students who wanted to dive deeper into the subjects covered in class. He also assigned three short essays. The essay prompts were unclear, but my TA helped us understand them. The final exam wasn't hard. We had to answer 5-short response questions about the topics we learned in class. The professor gave out a very useful study guide to the point where some of the questions on my study guide ended up being on the exam.

He's pretty passionate about the content, and sometimes I found him amusing. I don't regret taking this class, but I regret not putting more effort into it.

This is actually for 170 but it wasn't an option and I thought it was important for me to balance out some of the reviews here. I thoroughly enjoyed this class and the professor. I didn't think I would be interested in the subject, but the professor and the required text made it easy to understand. The course reader was not "necessary" but some things can be useful without being necessary, and the course reader is a great example of that. The workload was hard, but doable in a full course load. He can seem snarky, but, ultimately, extremely knowledgable. He was my first prof at UCLA and an great one at that. If you want to understand the subject your assigned to learn take professor Rescorla, read the primary text(the Kim text), and go to lecture. You'll do great.

Don't take this class if its not required. If it is, good luck. Professor sucks and is very confusing. TAs are even worse except for like one of them that I did not get. The communication between all of them is awful so every kid gets different info. The content was horrible, the way it was taught was even worse. Lectures are mandatory but available through zoom, he will open an assignment during class as credit, multiple essays through the quarter, and midterm and final are three hours of hell. He literally said, "if you do not use the full three hours to write, you did not write enough" But for the final it was 10 prompts and you're expected to mention and accurately write every theory including theories that are adjacent, so even 3 hours was not enough. Just don't take this for ur own sake.

The workload for this class was not bad, there were only a couple papers along with a midterm and a final, and the content was covered in both videos and lectures. Course material was actually interesting especially if you are interested in philosophical ideas. However, grading was very harsh and no matter how much you explained or put in effort it seem like the professor and TAs were trying to take off points. Overall interesting class to take but definitely not a good GE and would not recommend taking if you want an easy A.