Introduction to Philosophy · Philosophy
Not too bad. Three papers and a final. Reading for every class, but he goes over it very thoroughly so there is no need to read it very carefully.
By covering a wide range of philosophical thinkers, including but not limited to Nietzche, Hume, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Descartes, I was able to grasp a fundamental education on the concepts philosophy builds upon. Additionally, by associating real-world dilemmas and applying the concepts learned throughout ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophy, I was able to understand how philosophy, and its principles, affect us in our day-to-day life. Hence the course's name, Introduction to Philosophy, students can expect to be presented with a wide array of texts and concepts for which they will later build on through other, more specific philosophy courses.
Midterm (20%) First Paper (20%) Final (30%) Second Paper (30%)
avg. 10 page readings per lecture, one 1-page paper, one 5-page paper, a midterm and a final.
Completely reasonable. Weekly readings (averaging at about 35 to 50 pages a week). One paper, one midterm and one final. She makes sure that you're completely prepared for them, though!
A LOT of reading, but worth it if you actually want to learn philosophy for itself. The readings were well selected from the huge collections of each philosopher.
A few papers, but not particularly long or difficult ones. 1000 word written response for a final.
Super light!! 5-30 pages of reading for every class (usually around 10 pages on average), and you need to be "discussion leader" three times during the semester, which basically just means doing the reading for that day and creating three discussion questions about the reading for the class. There are two essays and a final, which consists of short-answer and long-answer questions that you write responses to in a blue book. For my class he made the final optional!
I took Professor Gabbey's class Spring of 2009. The class is not the most engaging class I ever took in college, but it was a good introduction to philosophy. I took a more advanced philosophy class at the same time and the topics flowed nicely. Gabbey is a very sweet man who will happily explain anything to you after class. He welcomes questions and will actually help you on papers. If you attend each class and do each paper, you will most likely get at least an A-. I would definitely recommend this class to anyone who is remotely interested in philosophy.
I thought this would be an interesting intro class to dip my feet into philosophy and instead he has only properly taught one unit and then his grading is so harsh. His grading is not reflective of an intro class. He also doesn't know our names. Even on the last day of class he was like 'remind me of your name again?'