TL;DR: even philosophy majors say this is their least favorite philosophy class. Do not take.

I read many reviews about how Hsu is hard to follow, how no one attends lecture, how TA's can grade harshly, etc. All of it is true. I did every single reading, yet could not follow Hsu's lectures at all, and would almost always end up falling asleep. Went to every single discussion (which they claim will allow them to boost your grade b/c good participation), went for help on my essays, yet still got a 77 and a 74 on both essays. Ended with a B-, no grade bump. It's ridiculous. The material is honestly not interesting, the lectures suck, discussion is pointless, and all your efforts end for naught. Do not take this class. A GE is supposed to be an interesting grade boost, and this satisfied neither.

The class is difficult. The topics are hard to cover and Hsu is often difficult to understand. A lot of the class was spent answering questions, but overall he did a good job of preparing everyone for the midterm/final. If you're a philosophy major, you have to take it. If you aren't a philosophy major, take another class.

This class was a lot harder than I expected. As a non-philosophy major, I did not know what I was getting myself into. Your grade is entirely determined by the midterm and the final split 50% to 50%. This means in order to get an A you need to get an A on both papers. As I got a B+ on my midterm I knew I couldn't get any higher than an A-. The prompts for the papers are also quite difficult to comprehend and also have to be short and to the point. I ended up working probably 60+ hours on my 2 essays for the final which allowed me to get an A- in the class. Wouldn't recommend the class but I did find the material interesting despite it not being taught well.

Not a great class, but one you can take if you need to! Dude is funny and kind of boring, so watch the lectures on 2x speed. They basically give you all the answers in discussion and in lectures. My TA was chill, and he knew that what we being taught kind of made no sense.

2 essays and 3 writing assignments in the quarter. As long as you try a bit, you will be fine.

Don't take this class for a GE. Big mistake. Sorry to be so blunt, but Professor Hsu is awful. Extremely unclear, no structure or focus during lectures, no slideshows or lecture notes, just him talking for the entire time. I stopped going to lectures simply because of how useless they were. TA's will save your life; sections were usually very helpful.

I took this class during the TA strike, so our grading schedule was out of the ordinary. Usually, you have to write two essays, and those are your ONLY grades all quarter. The week after we turned in our midterm essays, the TA's went on strike and when they returned they did not grade any of our essays, so Prof had to make last-minute changes to our grading scale, and I scraped by with a B. Since that was out of the ordinary, I didn't base my review off of that, rather the course material. The readings are interesting, it's actually fascinating to read about philosophers 400 years ago who talk about things that still apply today. It was a lot of theoretical-ness, which I like learning about, but it makes the class stressful and hard because it's so subjective. If you're the type of person who is more comfortable reading a textbook, taking weekly quizzes, and memorizing facts, this will not be an enjoyable class. I felt like I had to open up my third eye or something to understand what was going on, it was a lot of Inception type topics where it's hard to wrap your head around. I enjoyed the readings, but the lecture itself was extremely hard to follow. I'm not a philosophy major and I've never taken a philosophy course before, so when Prof would talk I would have no clue what he was talking about 90% of the time. His lectures don't have much structure, so it's hard to write down concise notes, I would just pay attention to the readings. He is very passionate and clearly VERY intelligent, but I feel like a lot of the material just went over my head. I would take this class again if it was something I did in my free time, but the lack of structure and very theoretical lectures makes it very stressful if you (like me) cannot follow his train of thought.

hsu was a super kind, sweet guy! lectures made absolutely zero sense and you learn the majority of the material from your TAs. however, Hsu was super accommodating during the TA strike and changed his final in order to help the students.

Pay attention to your discussion section and go to your office hours. Your entire grade is based on your midterm and final essay grade. The readings are difficult so creating study groups is a must.

I am a philosophy minor and this was my last required class to complete the minor. After reading the reviews, I almost didn't take the class for the sake of maintaining my GPA and was going to give up my minor. Ironically, I ended up getting my first A+ in all my years of college (I'm a senior). Here is how to do well in this class: go to every lecture and every discussion section and take amazing notes. I cannot emphasize enough how much lecture notes will help you answer the midterm and final questions. Then, go to your TA's and professor's office hours only before the midterm and final to ask questions and listen to others' questions. I mainly went to my TA because he was the one grading my paper and then went to the professor for additional clarification. They will tell you what they are looking for. There were people who complained about this professor but never went to lecture/discussion sections or don't pay attention when they did go. He repeats things during lecture a lot and rephrases so that even if you didn't understand or zoned out the first time, you are bound to hear him say it again and will understand it. The repetition is not annoying but is actually VERY helpful. I didn't find this class to be boring and his accent was not hard to understand at all. He does answer all questions and it takes away from class time, but when we shared in the groupme that it would be better for people to stop asking so many questions, they stopped and it was no longer an issue. Professor Hsu is so sweet and will never not have a smile on his face. He'll literally be smiling the entire time he's lecturing.

As someone who has had no philosophy experience ever and was taking this as a last resort GE as this was the only one that fit in my schedule, I was super nervous going into this class after reading these reviews. But I can wholeheartedly say this class was not that bad at all. In fact I think I enjoyed it.

The only workload for this class in the midterm and final, which is super nice. You only need to get a passing grade on 3/5 hw assignments, so once you do three you are done, and they are super easy. Also the readings are chill, they are short and I mostly skimmed because the professor would explain them in class and they didn't help much on the papers anyways.

The key to getting an A in this class is just putting the effort. Some students said the content was hard to grasp, but personally I didn't think so. The problem I think is that the professor has a pretty monotone voice, and it's easy to zone out at times and then you just get completely lost. Additionally, since he doesn't use slides and we usually just follow along on a worksheet, it can be hard at times to stay engaged. But I would do what a lot of people wouldn't: TAKE STELLAR NOTES. A lot of people didn't go to lecture, but I would go to every single one. I would literally just write down the important stuff he says in class, and my notebook became basically a textbook on the class. When the midterm prompts dropped, I literally had all the answers written down in my notebook and just turned it into an essay. (Oh btw, he tends to go on long tangents during lecture when philosophy majors ask random questions, you can zone out then.)

Additionally, I went to office hours. THIS IS KEY! My TA got sick and the professor was our TA for majority of the quarter, and only then did I realize how helpful it is to actually talk through the material with him. You only really need to go like the week of your midterm and final, but I went pretty often (at least once a week) because the professor is really kind and will genuinely try to explain things to the best of his ability if you don't understand. BUT DURING OFFICE HOURS THE TAS AND PROFESSOR WILL BASICALLY TELL YOU EXACTLY WHAT NEEDS TO BE ON YOUR PAPERS!! So basically I wrote a rough draft out from my notes alone, asked clarifying questions on it at office hours (you can literally show them your paper), fixed the things they commented on, and turned them in.

So by 1) going to class 2) taking good notes and 3) religiously going to office hours I got an A on both papers and ended with an A in a class I thought I was gonna fail. And I would honestly take another class with this professor again, I wish he would just change his grading a little because the 50% midterm 50% final grading scheme is a little stressful. But other than that, trust me, IT IS DOABLE!