PHIL 2060

I would say this class is different from what it's branded as, with HEAVY emphasis on philosophy and less so on law (Prof. Adams warns about this on the first day). It's not so much about practical, implications of law and more so on theories of law and what law COULD be. The course-content was interesting enough, though it gets repetitive. For a philosophy major/minor, Prof. Adams is an excellent lecturer, and this is probably a great class. For someone like me, pre-Law and more interested in LAW, I tended to be bored, especially during the discussion sections. Work-wise, I would say you could get by with going to the lectures and then just doing the 2-3 readings that are relevant to the prompt you choose to answer for the midterm/final, instead of all of the readings. This was a very solid class overall, as it definitely gave me a moral basis to reflect upon when I consider being a lawyer later in life, but I probably wouldn't have taken it if given the choice again, as my brain isn't wired to appreciate philosophy. I found the nuances and circular reasoning that goes into philosophizing tedious and pointless.

It's a pretty chill class. The 8 am start is pretty rough, but overall, it is a good class. Professor Adams is really funny and cares about what he is teaching. He uses the chalkboard, which is an engaging class if you choose to be engaged. I will say that for half of the lectures, I didn't pay attention, but I was still able to understand the midterm. The midterm is also a TAKE HOME assignment where you have a week to write 8 250-word responses to questions. Two main questions with four subquestions. The questions use examples from class and discussion, so take notes, even if it's brief. My TA was Anna, and she was amazing.

Professor Adams, what a GUY! Such an amazing professor, and so knowledgable about the subject. If you have any interest in politics, philosophy, or law, this is a foundational course and you MUST TAKE it! Weeks consist of one reading of about 20-30 pages, but prof covers everything you need to know from the reading in class (I would recommend reading them and writing down important page numbers/quotes etc.) There's an ongoing project that helps with your grade but the work is very doable and efficient if you stay on top of it. This course helped my reading comprehension of complex articles and also a better understanding of what the law is. TA sections were really good (My tA was John Mancini, great guy), and very engaging to regurgitate the material and discuss. The midterm and final were two-1000 word essays with a week to do them and 4 prompts to choose from, with questions telling you how to answer. I recommend taking this class!

The concept of this class is super interesting. Basically you read philosophy readings and the discuss them in lecture. The biggest pro of this class is definitely Professor Adam’s — he is clearly highly knowledgeable of all of the texts we read and that shows in how easily he is able to explain complicated philosophy readings in a fifty minute lecture. I think the selection of readings has been pretty solid — they’re some of the only readings I genuinely enjoy from my coursework.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of my experience with this class has been defined by my TA. If you are going to take this class, make sure you know someone who has taken a class with your TA. The discussion sections have been incredibly redundant and oftentimes more confusing than the actual lecture. My TA does not provide good feedback for how to improve my work and seemingly assigns grades arbitrarily at times. I think this is in part because this is not an introductory-level philosophy class ny nature. Probably over half of the class is first years, yet there is little instruction on how to actually write philosophical arguments, which are very different from standard papers. This is coming from someone who is about to earn an A in the class.

I took this class thinking it would be an easy A and it was not. While some of it was interesting, I quickly learned I do not have a philosophy brain. I would read the homework articles (which were long, and very confusing), think I had a grasp on it, and then come to lecture only to get more confused. Your grade is made up of attendance to his unfortunately boring lectures with his notes where he just writes random words on the board, an ongoing deep understanding project, a midterm that consists of two 4 page papers, and a final that is also two 4 page papers. It was frustrating because there was no rubric, and there's no grade distribution shown here which should have been a red flag. If you're a philosophy major, maybe this class is for you. But I found this class made me want to throw my head into a wall have the time because everything contradicted itself.