PHIL 1000

He was ok but there are better professors out there

My only complaint was that it was hard to get a feel for where you stood grade wise. The lectures were good, and the teacher is very accommodating.

Professor Gertler was a pretty good professor. She made learning the material fun and interesting. I finished the class with a B but that was mainly because I got a B- on the first paper and did not attend discussion regularly. As long as you attend lecture, take notes, read (not that much reading per week), go to discussion, and start your paper early and consult your TA about it you should be able to pull out an A-/B+. The class grade consisted of: a midterm, 2 three-page papers, a final, and discussion participation/attendance.

Because PHIL 1000 was asynchronous online this semester, the only interaction I had with Professor Gertler was essentially through recorded lecture videos, not counting the few times when she popped into our discussion session. PHIL 1000 is intended to be an introductory lecture course, with a discussion required. It mainly focuses on giving students a basic interpretation of philosophy, starting with Socrates, Plato, and Clifford and delving into more complicated works of Rawls, King, Boxhill, James, and Pereboom. In this course, you learn to think like a philosopher and think about things for yourself. If you don't like thinking about abstract concepts, this course IS NOT FOR YOU. Overall, Professor Gertler was great at explaining concepts in lecture, although the recorded lecture videos were sometimes longer than what the class would actually run to if it were in person (she speaks a bit slower). My TA's for discussion section were great; we went through a bit of a transition but shoutout to Nikolina Celtic and Fr. Ambrose Little who were pretty good at facilitating discussion! The work in this class involves reading the assigned pieces before the lecture (which can sometimes take a while because the language used by philosophers were at times difficult to understand).. You're expected to take your own notes on the readings, as well as during the lecture. These will be really helpful for the final exam. The only time I really stressed about this class was writing the papers. You end up writing two short papers in this class and revising one of them. The TA's grade. In general, this was a decent class that heightens your awareness of the application of philosophy in everyday life.

I really did not enjoy this class because my brain wasn't built for this but I needed to fulfill a graduation requirement. I'm a little biased since I hate philosophy but Professor Gertler explained concepts relatively well. At the beginning of the semester, I disliked my TA but my discussion group ended up with a new one halfway through the semester (shout out Nikolina) and I found it easier to pay attention and had more interest in the subject. If I could grade Nikolina she'd get an A+++. Quizzes for the readings are easy since they are solely graded on completion. Readings are extensive and time-consuming and further confused me, but after the first few weeks I learned I could just watch the lecture that went with the readings and I was fine. The only thing I would stress over were the essays (one w/ revision and one w/o). The final was relatively easy as long as you took notes during the recorded lectures. My biggest complaint was there was no way to track your grade, so it was mostly a guesstimate.

Overall it's not a hard class. The quizzes are graded on completion, and although some of the readings are pretty long and dense, Gertler's lectures do a good job of explaining them so you can honestly get away with just skimming the readings and listening to the lectures. The final is also fairly easy if you use the study guide Gertler provides. The hardest part is probably the essays and you definitely need to participate in the discussion section if you want a good participation grade. It's also annoying that they don't really post grades until the very end of the semester so you never clearly know where you stand grade-wise. Pretty easy to get an A-/B+ but much harder to get an A, especially with Gertler.

#tCF2020

My TA was Nathan Frank, who was amazing and always helpful in office hours. Prof Gertler's asynchronous lectures were very clear and engaging, I loved them. The final was harder than expected, but not too bad (open note). It was short answer and identification. I got an A in the course. There were 2 essays, and you could revise one of them for a higher grade.

I'm just here to say Prof. Gertler is the loveliest person ever in the world!!! She is just super brilliant, warm, and sharp, and she is simply a really great philosopher. I do hope that I can take more of her classes. If she teaches metaphysics I would fall in love with metaphysics, if she teaches logic i would fall in love with logic.