- Online-recorded lectures were all that was really required to get a passing or good grade in class

- Make note of the professor's recorded videos lecture structure, i.e. how he presents ideas step-by-step; replicate this in your essays (there are 3 that I had to write and 5 of a similar type for the exam) which makes for an easy essay score

- Slides were incorporated during lectures but are less important than the recorded videos that he uploads before a lecture

- Definitely offer to peer-check with classmates for essays; be the student who offers to share their A/A+-graded essays, or be thankful of those who do (MVPs) since they will be the ones that most strongly stick to how Prof Rescorla likes to have his essays written

- Online essays were easy; exemplar questions are posted a week or two before the finals, so-called "made to help students practice". Make sure to write up full essays to the best of your ability for every single question in the practice. The finals that I experienced online had at least 2 of those questions copied and pasted exactly word for word (so I just had to re-write my practiced answers in the exam, giving me time to spare for the newer questions)

When I say DONT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HIM... I MEAN IT.

Rescorla is extremely vague in his essay prompts (literally like 2 sentences) and offers no helpful information in what and how to write his essays. In lecture, he was very dismissive of our questions and said he'd answer them later but never did. He's a very miserable person and does not believe in making his class (which is a lower division!!!) easy and basically wants us to suffer.

He was a very clear lecturer and used slides. We had three essays, none of which were very long. I found that I had to go to my TA's office hours for each paper, though, since I had never written a philosophy paper and it was quite different from writing a paper for any other class.

Sometimes he can be too opinionated in lecture, so take what he says with a grain of salt whenever he sounds overly passionate. We had assigned readings every class, but we didn't really end up using them. We didn't have a midterm, and the final consisted of short-answer questions. Overall, this was an interesting and very manageable class.

DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS, especially with Rescorla.

I took this class during online school to fulfill a GE requirement, and it was a disaster front to back. When you start the class, Rescorla will seem like a quirky, but nice guy. As you continue though, you will gradually realize more and more what a terrible professor he is. His "lectures" were glorified Q&A sessions. Instead, he posted several pre-recorded videos per week that you were expected to watch in lieu of actual lectures. The class has 3 essays you have to write. For every single one, the prompt was extremely vague and gave little direction. The TAs, or at least my TA, seemed to be equally confused as I was, and had no idea how to give feedback.

Until about Week 10, I figured Rescorla was your run-of-the-mill bad professor who just didn't teach you much, but it was what happened after Week 10 that made me dislike Rescorla with a burning passion. For one, his final was absurd. It was 5 mini-essays, with the same kind of vague, confusing prompts used in the earlier essays. My TA told us that they expected about 3 pages per question, in a 3-hour final. If you do the math, that comes out to 12 MINUTES PER PAGE, which is absolutely absurd. It's completely unreasonable to expect someone to be able to write a page in 12 minutes, especially for questions that are expecting you to break down and analyze dense philosophical concepts. Our TA LITERALLY told us that the only way to do well on this exam is to pre-write essays for every concept we've covered, and then just copy-paste the relevant ones in once the final starts, and then use the actual finals time to fine-tune and edit the pre-written essay to reflect whatever prompt it was answering. This just boggles my mind.

They had 3 "review sessions" for the final. Rescorla wasn't even there, the review sessions were run by TAs, and they weren't even review sessions. They were literally just Q&A sessions.

But I still haven't even mentioned the real kicker. They announced this absurd final on Friday of Week 10, 3 days before it opened. The final opened Monday afternoon, and with zero warning or heads up, RESCORLA REMOVED EVERY LECTURE AND VIDEO HE HAD UPLOADED TO HIS SITE. All of a sudden, there was literally no material on his site. If you weren't finished studying by that point, you were completely screwed, and just to reiterate, he did this with absolutely zero warning or notice.

Rescorla is one of, if not the absolute worst professors I have had at UCLA, and he made this class an absolute nightmare. I said it once, and I'll say it again: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH RESCORLA.

Philosophy of the Mind was engaging even with Rescorla as my professor, so I definitely recommend it if you're interested in anything to do with philosophy. It pretty much covers the most commonly discussed philosophical subjects.. things like Realism, the Turing Test, God, morality, etc...

The class has a simple structure -- you'll watch some videos of Rescorla before lecture, complete a few questions in lecture, and ask him any questions. I learned early on that he's awful at answering questions. It almost seems like he doesn't understand his own videos a lot of the time. He means well, certainly, but when he's confused, it's like listening to a 7th grader give the class a presentation.

Grading mostly comes down to a midterm, a final, and two essays. The final is handwritten and involves around 10 essay questions, so be prepared for your hand to cramp up and barely make it out of the test. I didn't think any of the material was hard to learn or write about, but Rescorla makes a point of saying that he instructs the TAs to grade the tests pretty harshly. I think I ended up with a B on both, and my essays carried my grade a little bit.

Biggest advice is that if your TA is clearly knowledgeable (and generally a helpful person), they are a great resource. Mine was willing to give me tons of advice on my essay structure. Rescorla gives a very complete list of topics you should know before the midterm and final, so as long as you have those concepts down, you'll be fine.

Don't take this class if its not required. If it is, good luck. Professor sucks and is very confusing. TAs are even worse except for like one of them that I did not get. The communication between all of them is awful so every kid gets different info. The content was horrible, the way it was taught was even worse. Lectures are mandatory but available through zoom, he will open an assignment during class as credit, multiple essays through the quarter, and midterm and final are three hours of hell. He literally said, "if you do not use the full three hours to write, you did not write enough" But for the final it was 10 prompts and you're expected to mention and accurately write every theory including theories that are adjacent, so even 3 hours was not enough. Just don't take this for ur own sake.

The workload for this class was not bad, there were only a couple papers along with a midterm and a final, and the content was covered in both videos and lectures. Course material was actually interesting especially if you are interested in philosophical ideas. However, grading was very harsh and no matter how much you explained or put in effort it seem like the professor and TAs were trying to take off points. Overall interesting class to take but definitely not a good GE and would not recommend taking if you want an easy A.

IF YOU ARE NOT GOOD AT WRITING AND/OR VOCAB, DON’T TAKE THIS CLASS.
Oh boy. I know the ratings for Rescorla suck, for good reason. I took this class for a psych prereq. It isn’t an easy class at all, but the material is engaging if you make it engaging (rescorla doesn’t do a good job of it, but thats philosophers for you). The basic set up of the class is: Rescorla will post videos to watch before each of his lectures (total 15-40 mins watch time), and then his lectures are basically overview/Q&A. There’s two papers, one midterm, one final. You are going to do a lot of writing in this class! The midterm and final are both a set of mini-essays. You do a lot of practice in lecture so he preps you for them, and you can get the practice checked by him in person. HOWEVER. Asking him questions is useless; he will talk in circles and never answer anything. My TA was really really helpful, so listen to TAs and come to discussion. They basically tell you exactly what to say in the papers and have good review sessions for finals.

TLDR; lots of writing, lots of concept memorization. Prof isn’t helpful (but his videos are), TAs are really helpful. If you’re good at writing and have a mid grasp of concepts, you’ll be fine.

I took this class as someone who has never taken philosophy. If you want to do well on the essays ATTEND TA OH. Your TA is the one grading the two papers you do in the quarter, so if you ask for their help you are more likely to get an A on the paper. I thought some of the topics were actually pretty interesting, but I am a psych major (I understand humanities better than STEM). I heard a lot of complaints about the midterm, but if you memorize the study guide you should be ok. My advice is to go to your TA to see if your responses to the study guide questions are good. If they are, memorize those responses for the midterm, and you will do well. Also, the lecture has a zoom link, and that was nice for whenever I was feeling lazy. DONT DO THE READINGS. I did not do a single one because they confused me more, and I got an A. This is not an EASY GE, but it is possible to do well.

Professor Rescorla's class was definitely not what I expected to take as a first quarter freshman. The class consisted of 2 essays, a midterm, and a final. Most lectures had an exit ticket question that counted as one point to make sure you're paying attention. He posts videos everyday that you need to watch and take notes on as well as readings. I personally think it depends on if you're interested in philosophy but if you just want an easy GE I would not recommend this class. He has a zoom option or you can attend class but the attendance is not essential considering the lecture discussion isn't new content it's mostly review.