IF YOU ARE NOT GOOD AT WRITING AND/OR VOCAB, DON’T TAKE THIS CLASS.
Oh boy. I know the ratings for Rescorla suck, for good reason. I took this class for a psych prereq. It isn’t an easy class at all, but the material is engaging if you make it engaging (rescorla doesn’t do a good job of it, but thats philosophers for you). The basic set up of the class is: Rescorla will post videos to watch before each of his lectures (total 15-40 mins watch time), and then his lectures are basically overview/Q&A. There’s two papers, one midterm, one final. You are going to do a lot of writing in this class! The midterm and final are both a set of mini-essays. You do a lot of practice in lecture so he preps you for them, and you can get the practice checked by him in person. HOWEVER. Asking him questions is useless; he will talk in circles and never answer anything. My TA was really really helpful, so listen to TAs and come to discussion. They basically tell you exactly what to say in the papers and have good review sessions for finals.

TLDR; lots of writing, lots of concept memorization. Prof isn’t helpful (but his videos are), TAs are really helpful. If you’re good at writing and have a mid grasp of concepts, you’ll be fine.

If you do not come into this class with a mastered understanding of probability and inductive logic, then you are the architect of your own demise. The professor will not spend time on you catching you up.

I took this class as someone who has never taken philosophy. If you want to do well on the essays ATTEND TA OH. Your TA is the one grading the two papers you do in the quarter, so if you ask for their help you are more likely to get an A on the paper. I thought some of the topics were actually pretty interesting, but I am a psych major (I understand humanities better than STEM). I heard a lot of complaints about the midterm, but if you memorize the study guide you should be ok. My advice is to go to your TA to see if your responses to the study guide questions are good. If they are, memorize those responses for the midterm, and you will do well. Also, the lecture has a zoom link, and that was nice for whenever I was feeling lazy. DONT DO THE READINGS. I did not do a single one because they confused me more, and I got an A. This is not an EASY GE, but it is possible to do well.

Professor Rescorla's class was definitely not what I expected to take as a first quarter freshman. The class consisted of 2 essays, a midterm, and a final. Most lectures had an exit ticket question that counted as one point to make sure you're paying attention. He posts videos everyday that you need to watch and take notes on as well as readings. I personally think it depends on if you're interested in philosophy but if you just want an easy GE I would not recommend this class. He has a zoom option or you can attend class but the attendance is not essential considering the lecture discussion isn't new content it's mostly review.

do not ever take this class. no matter how much effort you put in it will not pay off unless you are cracked at philosophy.

Overall, this class was pretty solid. Professor Rescorla is super nice and genuinely wants his students to do well. I went to every lecture, but you could definitely get away without going. Also don't waste your money on the course reader—I never used it. Before each lecture, there are two to three short videos (usually between 10 and 30 mins) assigned, which give you all the information you need to know for the class. The lectures are pretty much just a Q&A session, and there's also a chunk of class dedicated to writing exercises—which are graded for completion and are pretty straight forward. Lectures are also on Zoom if you can't make it in person. Section attendance is mandatory, and you just discuss/clarify the material from the videos. The midterm and final are both in-person and consist of hand-written mini essay questions, but Professor Rescorla provides a review sheet beforehand that's very helpful for the exams. There are two papers, but they're both fairly short (under 1000 words). I heard some TAs are tough graders, but I think all of my work was graded super fairly. This class was by no means a breeze, but it was very manageable.

I hoped the reviews were wrong and I would ace this class. In fact, all throughout the quarter I thought I was doing great, but then I got a B. The professor is very very very boring and it's a bunch of philosophy jargon. I'm a STEM major and found the material simple to understand, but some humanities majors might struggle as they might overthink it. VERY IMPORTANT: Do not buy the materials. In fact, don't even read them. Just watch the videos and you should be fine.

listen to the other fall 2023 review. listen to it.

This class single-handedly made me switch my major from philosophy to sociology. None of my upper-division philosophy classes were as tough and complicated as this one. I found that whatever answer I gave was wrong, even if it was in the exact terms of the videos. Rescorla did not even teach during lecture hours, but instead held Q&A sessions about the videos he required you to watch before the lectures. The only good thing about lectures was that attendance was not taken and they were all available on Zoom. In each lecture, there was either a multiple-choice quiz or a written short response question for you to answer. Each was graded on participation rather than correctness, but I would rather be graded for correctness. Without feedback on the written responses, I didn't know what was expected in terms of writing style and wording. I found the essays to be more on the easy side, but TAs are looking for very specific wording as a slight change in language could convey an entirely different philosophical concept. The midterm and final were both outrageous. We were given short answer questions with a good amount of time to answer, but the answers expected were answers akin to what is written in an essay (even though Rescorla says that isn't what he is looking for). I would NOT recommend this class to anyone.

This class is really interesting and I enjoyed learning the course content a lot. However, the grading is so harsh and you won’t fully understand what you did wrong because the TA’s can be picky about the smallest details in your writing. The communication between the TA’s and professor is horrible, it seems like they all have different interpretations of the concepts and it was apparent during the final study sessions. One TA had a different interpretation of concepts and taught us that, then another TA disagreed so we spent a large portion of the study session trying to figure out what was actually right two days before our final. You’ll have to go above and beyond to get an A, and students I know who did go above and beyond still didn’t get an A, so only take this if you’re genuinely interested philosophy but don’t take it as a GE or your first philosophy class. This was my first philosophy class as a major requirement, and I wish I took a different one because of the harsh grading which brought my GPA down. The content is really interesting so don’t let the grading discourage you if you love philosophy.