Coming into the class, I was thoroughly interested in the subject but leaving it now, I regret taking the class!! I spent $50 on a "required" course reader when it was no help and was not needed for ANY of the assignments. You could use it for extra understanding or context, but he could have simply have put it on reserve at the library or online. Speaking of online, HE DOES NOT PUT SLIDES, SYLLABUS, OR ESSAY PROMPTS ONLINE which is extremely barbarous, we're in the 21st century! Furthermore, the organization for this class is horrible. I felt clueless the whole time, despite attending every lecture, discussion, or even going to office hours whether it being my TA's or Rescorla's. The class was soooo bad that even my extra help, peer learning facilitator (PLF), had no clue how to help us. The TA's were just as bad where they only restated what Rescorla stated and had trouble answering questions we asked. Each essay was given with no guidance or rubric so I got a B on each and everyone of them. Lastly, the final is coming up yet he gave us a review sheet FOUR DAYS before the final, in which he only listed the topics with no context. The so-called review sessions were horrible and more like "Q&As" and despite going to TWO review sessions I STILL HAVE NO CLUE WHAT TO EXPECT FOR THE FINAL. Highly DO NOT recommend this class, specifically with Rescorla. If you want extra stress and confusion on your plate, go right ahead.

Rescorla's Philosophy 7 class has been one of the worst experiences I've had at UCLA thus far. I can't believe how unorganized and unclear this class was. First of all, he made us buy his course reader of "required readings," of which we never actually needed any of. That's $50 I won't be getting back. His essay prompts are insanely vague with no rubric or anything of the sort, so I went in completely blind (B- on each and every paper). The TAs are utterly useless, with their knowledge on the course and what Rescorla expects from his students being on par with ours (the students'). With the final exam fast approaching (Monday, June 10th), I find myself completely lost in this course despite having attended every single lecture and discussion. I look forward to never taking a class with Rescorla again, and to be quite frank, he's made me hate philosophy as a whole.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. If I could go back in time and stop myself from taking this class, I'd hire a swat team to help me out with it. The actual Phil 7 class itself is fine. The subject matter is basic intro to philosophy stuff, nothing too crazy. The problem is with the professor. Professor Rescorla made videos for the class a few years ago and posts them weekly. Then he asks a multiple choice or writing question over Canvas and you need to fill them out during the lecture. None of this is a problem, as it's graded on completeness and he wants to make sure that you even glossed over the video. It's a minuscule part of your grade, maybe 5-10%. But that's all the lecture is. He talks for maybe 20 minutes about the subject matter of the day and then opens up the prompt and leaves most of the rest of class time to fill it out. You can attend class from Zoom too. Unless you really have some burning questions or are already on campus, it's much easier to zoom into the class. Section is typically just a discussion about the topics and a quick review. Now comes the issues. The papers are graded incredibly harshly for an introduction to philosophy class. As I write this, I'm taking Phil 100A with Mendell, who himself doesn't have a great Bruinwalk score. He grades much easier than Rescorla and is teaching an upper-division class, with much more confusing subject matter. That's the issue with this class. Since Rescorla requires definitions on definitions on definitions, and then cuts the word counts super low on papers, you're screwed either way. You can go over the word count (they won't read the extras) or not add explanations for why the skies blue, and you're screwed. Understanding the concepts perfectly and knowing the subject matter is the bare minimum, as you can expect to be dropped a whole letter grade for not explaining the same argument 6 different times in a 500 word paper.
That's for the 2 papers that there are in the class. Next is for the final and midterm. Those both were clearly developed during COVID-19, when students could type responses for midterm and final questions. They are now in-person and, to say the least, torture. My TA and the Professor both started the class by saying that the bruinwalk reviews were relatively BS, and that the class will be fine. This was not true, and is no more evident than during the Midterm and Final. The Midterm, we were told, was going to be 7 questions off the study guide, where we'd have to write 2 or so pages for each one. Rescorla does not seem to comprehend that it is physically impossible for someone to put pen to paper for this full amount of time without their hand cramping and falling off, not to mention the some questions were not off the study guide. (This is another reason why I say mastering the course material is the bare minimum, you will have no time to outline or even think of what to respond with, just write.) However, the midterm itself was only 3 questions, which was excellent, as 7 seemed physically impossible. This however did not stop him from asking us to bring 7 bluebooks (This, along with the reader is just a waste of money, since everything is covered in the videos as well.) In the final, however, we were not granted such mercy. The final was three hours, in the rolfe auditorium, where it was hot, crowded, and PROFESSORLESS. He literally LEFT after the first 15 minutes, leaving us with the TA's. This final had 10 questions, of which to properly define all the terms requires at least a page or two each, leaving you writing 10/20 pages in 3 hours. If we average that out at 15 pages in 3 hours, that's 12 minutes to write each page. This does not give you time to even fire a neuron to come up with an answer. You literally need to have the concepts within you as muscle memory and just start writing. Your hand will cramp - it'll pass the cramping stage and just enter abject physical misery. I'd say that you would be miserable, but the final doesn't really give you enough time to do so - the amount of people sucking up oxygen in the minuscule room will make you lightheaded. The final was more of an Ironman endurance challenge than an actual demonstration of what you learned. After all of this, even knowing the material fully, you can still get a B-, or god forbid you forgot one thing, or even a minuscule definition of a subject that wasn't even on the test, you're toast. Do yourself a favor and never take this class with Rescorla, unless COVID-21 hits and you can type up exams. Even then, prepare for whatever grade you'd usually get in an upper division class to be dropped a letter. If you take this as a GE you may actually just be a sadist. If you're a first year this class might be reason you drop out.

In short, Phil 7 with Mr. Rescorla can be summed as a total and complete DISASTER!!! I never have had a professor who is so pretentious, unconcerned, and even alright flippant towards the concerns of his students. I believed buying the $50 course reader was idiotic when the readings could easily be found online, and could be provided on CCLE for FREE! In addition Mr. Rescorla did not use CCLE to post anything of consequence such as the syllabus or any of the essay prompts. This is absurd especially if you lost the syllabus or did not show up to lecture when one of the essay questions was given out. If that seems wack, just wait until I describe his lectures.
At first i thought Rescorla's lectures were interesting especially when he used movies like the Matrix to demonstrate some of the concepts we learned. However toward the later half of the course, his flaws at lecturing and interacting with students became apparent. He would often be rude toward students who asked questions, and very dismissive of interesting takes that students would present to him. His policy of not posting any go the material on CCLE is valid in principle but horrible in practice. It is easy to copy everything down from the blue (important) slides but Rescorla wants students to expand on the material something he fails at in class. Also Rescorla gets annoyed when people do not pay attention to him and goes on a rant if people are talking or a whole group of people come late to class. Also do not get me started when he got mad because there was not an expo that worked or his computer did not work. Also i found it absurd that he blamed us students for his CCLE quiz not functioning properly which is insane!
The TAs, (well most of them) seem like they care but most of them are left in the dark on what is expected for the grading. The three main essays are very vague in their instructions, even though at first glance they seem specific. Going to Office hours with Mr Rescorla does not help because even though he tells people to come to his office hours he is as helpful as a wooden doll. He makes you feel uncomfortable and feels like he wants to rush you out, and always makes a comment about you, and does not like be corrected on anything including on stuff outside his field. Because of the vague and baseless grading system basically everyone i knew got Bs on the papers, and i only got an A- on the first one.
The final can be described as a train wreck, but even then a train wreck is more organized than that exam. Mr. Rescorla refused to talk about the final until the last class which was only FOUR DAYS before the exam on the 10th. Even then he gave a very "helpful" review sheet and did not take any substantive questions about the exam saying that was for the four review sessions. However Rescorla was present for a grand total of 0 of them, as they were hosted by the TAs were just as clueless and did not review but just answered questions from lost students. His exam was of ten "mini" essays which Rescorla did not explicitly mention how long they should be. He implicitly made it seem that he wanted them to be just as long as the first paper, but he was okay at allowing an unstructured response for some of the questions. However he came off as unhinged and rude when some students had questions regarding some of the logistical and mechanical questions for the exam.
Overall, avoid this class with this professor as it was the plague!! This class felt like a struggle against him rather than a pursuit of ineffable knowledge. As i said Resorla is the first professor i had that seems like he does not care at all for his students! If I was to give him a grade it would be an F- but even that is too high for him.

This is my first philos class as a philos major and let me say... its not as bad as people are making out to be. That being said, I think it really comes down to which TA you have. I had one of the female TA's and she was amazing. During her discussions she went into a lot of detail and helped clear up a lot of things I did not understand about the videos that the prof posted. She also spent a lot of time going over my papers and letting me know where I had to improve on, so I did decently well on all of my papers.

Prof Rescorla... he is not a bad guy. I can see that he enjoys teaching the content, and there are many things that he explains pretty well, but overall, I think the way he formatted his content was really messy and hard to follow.

The grade you receive in the class is basically a reflection of 3 essays that you write throughout the quarter and the final. The three mini essays are difficult for two main reasons. Number one, they are ambiguous. Number two, most students have never written a philosophy paper. How do you get a good grade on the papers? GET TO KNOW YOUR TA. Write your paper early. The week that it is assigned, and ask your TA to read over it. They will give you a lot of pointers. Do not wait for when they have specific office hours for everyone, do it before. When the TAs go over a lot of essays they get fatigued and don't give as good advice as opposed to if you were the only one.

The final was writing 5 mini papers, basically the same size as the papers that you have to write throughout the quarter so the task was pretty daunting, but it was fine. However, as long as if you understand the content and understand how to write a philos paper then you will be fine.

The best advice I would give for this class is GET TO KNOW YOUR TA. Always go to their office hours, and ask them about questions that you have or literally anything. I would say the most crucial thing is to learn from them how to write a philos paper.

If you are taking this class, Good Luck! If you are deciding whether or not you want too... take something else :D

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

I think the reviews here don't give him enough credit. The homework he assigns (videos to watch) are extremely well put together. He explains the concepts that you later write about in the essays and exams with great detail. For some of the more difficult concepts, he makes the videos pace slower and illustrates the concepts with many examples. The videos are well crafted and very clear. Even if confusion persists, lecture is the time to ask questions!

This is not to say that this course isn't difficult. It is! The exams and essays are all graded harshly. If you do not take the time to really think about the concepts and the material, you will not get a good grade. It isn't stated in class, but answers to the exam questions are expected to be at least a page long. You have to explain everything in great detail. Honestly, I felt the degree of detail I had to explain these concepts to be excessive.

If you're into Philosophy this probably an interesting class. If you're doing this for a GE reconsider.

Prof. Rescorla gets kind of an unfairly bad rap IMO. I think that Phil. 7 is not only a pretty decent class, but it is taught reasonably well. I think the main problem a lot of people have is that if you are a Cog Sci or Psych major and this is a required class, it is very tough as a first philosophy class. USE THE TAs!!! Go to office hours!! The papers are no joke and are graded pretty harshly. You absolutely need to pay attention and watch the videos/study regularly, but if you do you are going to be fine.

I didn't read the reviews on bruinwalk before taking this course, and that was surely a mistake because otherwise I would've spared myself the mental energy and exhaust that this class took up. I'm not a philosophy major or looking to study anything adjacent to it, this was just an elective I had decided to take because it seemed interesting enough. If you're interested in philosophy as a major/ minor then maybe I'd recommend taking this course if you had to, but if you're looking for an easy GE or elective I HIGHLY recommend steering clear. The workload was manageable, but the papers (what the majority of your grade is based on) are graded obnoxiously harsh, especially considering many of the students taking this course have never written for philosophy before. It really is unlike any type of writing I've been taught, which made the whole experience even worse considering the professor and TA I had didn't do a great job at teaching the type of writing for philosophy they were expecting. I also found that the constructive criticism I received on my papers during office hours didn't line up with the criticism given to me on my paper grades. The course material was informative and interesting, but seemed to be orchestrated around Rescorla's own opinions and views regarding philosophy of the mind, which I don't think is the best. Overall, I would avoid taking this class if you could and I thank the ucla gods for extending the deadline to declare pass no pass this quarter or else my gpa would've been absolutely screwed.

IT IS NOT AS BAD AS WHAT YOU THINK.
I came in this class panicking and thought that Professor Rescorla is terrible and was afraid that I would fail the class. I was seriously thinking about dropping this class in the beginning of the quarter because of the rating on bruin walk, but as time went on - it proved that this class and the professor are not as bad as the comments described.
Professor Rescorla's videos make those hard philosophical concepts so clear and straightforward. He often gave out very vivid and appropriate examples to support all the arguments, which REALLY helped me understand the material. The three papers in this class really prepared and improved my writing skills for rigorous thinking. Watch those videos he posted many times and fully understand the concepts before you start writing your paper.
I am a science major and really enjoyed this class, I learned many interesting philosophical arguments and concepts about minds - I thought that I will never be good at philosophy in my life. Professor Rescorla's office hour is helpful, I really don't think that he is rushing people out or indifferent or anything, I guess he just wants to answer students' questions in the most clear and fastest way.
I do agree that the grading scheme in this class is a little unclear, but oh well c'est la vie and I don't always get 100% clarity on everything in my life. I just tried my best to write every paper and to prepare for the final. If you want to take this class probably don't set up high expectations on knowing exactly where points are taken off.
One thing that the professor taught in this class is "if you are going to ask, you are never going to know." So don't let the mean comments on bruin walk affect your decision too much, go experience this intro to philosophy class yourself and you can be the judge :)
Overall, Professor Rescorla is a great and very knowledgeable professor and I would like to take more philosophy classes with him in the future if chance permits.