There are three essays that make up most of your grade and all the other small assignments are quick and easy. The TA has a huge part of your grade as they are the ones grading the essays. The professor is nice and the subject matter is interesting, it just depends if you get a good or bad TA as they decide your grade for the most part. Not a lot of guidance is given for the essays and they are graded pretty hard.

I am extremely grateful to have had Dr. Gallagher for this course. While her lectures were very information heavy and st times hard to pay attention to, they had everything needed in order to get a good grade in this class. Here was the breakdown for my session:
Take-Home Midterm Exam -- 25%
Take-Home Final Exam (Mult. Choice & Essay) -- 25%
Discussion Quizzes (5 out of 6 counted) -- 15%
Section Attendance/Participation -- 20%
She was extremely flexible with my accommodations and always willing to help out more with explanations. Readings at times seemed overwhelming, but that is also considering some disability-related issues I had to face during this course. The important aspects of readings however are highlighted in the slides.

The majority of this class revolves around the midterms and the final. The ethical content of this class is not that tough, but writing the timed essays for the tests can be a bit difficult, considering there is no wrong or right answer. Participation in discussion counts for this class, and it is MORE than just showing up. The grade you get ultimately ends up in your TA's hands, since they grade your essay. The readings are long and not that interesting for the class, and the lectures feel REALLY long and there was so much writing on the slides.

Gallagher's a pretty boring lecturer, I always fell asleep in class. The workload's not that bad if you don't do the reading, which honestly you don't need to do because they cover all of it in lecture and discussion. An A is pretty possible.

Some things about this class:
- I think getting an A in this class is definitely doable. It's not an easy A because you do have to put in the effort and to make sure that you at least skim through the readings and have a good understanding of the concepts to get a decent grade in the class.

- With that said, the lectures are about two hours long and they can get very tiring towards the end because she barely (if at all) takes breaks in between and she's kind of monotonous. However, every single thing that she mentions during lecture will come up on the midterm and the final with almost the same wording. Her slides alone won't really help you if you miss class and try to use it for reference, so the notes that you take in class is a good determinant of the amount of information that you need to know. If you think she said something that sounded pretty important, write it down.

- Like the previous reviews mentioned, your grade depends on your TA. I had a good TA that, during discussion, was able to clarify or add depth to a lot of the concepts that he talked about in class, so the essay and short answer portions of the exams were manageable. You can't skip discussion and it's pretty important especially if you don't have any background in ethics or philosophy because they teach you how to structure your arguments.

- As for the exams, they can be long and tiring because you have to write so much, but they're not too bad if you feel confident that you know the material. There are a few multiple choice questions, and for these ones you have to make sure you know the difference between different schools of thought, etc., because the differences can be very vague (but there is one right answer). The short answers are more open-ended because if you argue using one school of thought, you'd have a different answer than someone who uses another. The essay questions will be given to you beforehand and both times (midterm and final) you get to choose which one you do, so prepare your points beforehand so you don't lose time brainstorming during the test. There is no right answer for these writing portions, but they do want to make sure that your arguments make sense and that you show that you understand the material from lecture. I often got marked down for being too vague or for noting down ideas that don't really relate to my thesis, so I guess that's one thing to watch out for.

- The content is okay. They're interesting but the readings can be too long and boring (especially during the first few weeks). What I realized midway is that she goes through the readings and goes into detail about points that she wants you to know for the test, so even if you don't read it and just take notes on what she says about the reading during lecture, you're fine. She wouldn't test you on things she didn't mention during lecture.

- She gives back her exams, and while the questions don't repeat, it's good to go over it and see the feedback from your TA so that you don't get marked down the same thing next time. The grading scale for exams is calculated GPA-style or something, and I don't think it's curved because most people do well. The MCQ and short answers are graded to a 4.00 scale and the essay is graded on a separate 4.00 scale, and the average of those two is your total grade. She will send you a long email about how the grades were calculated, how the class did, and the cutoffs for an A, etc.

That's it I think! I didn't hate it, but I didn't really love it either. You get the grade that you work for and it's pretty fair. Some parts were really interesting to me and some were just meh. Don't stress too much if you want to/have to take this class, it will all turn out well in the end!

Gallagher is a super boring lecturer! She just goes off all for 75 minutes and expects you to grasp every detail she mentioned. The class is based off of the readings, so as long as you understand those you should be fine. Your TA really determines your grade, since they grade your midterms, finals, and participation. This is kind of unfair, since some TA's are a lot more lenient than others.