Carol Rovane

Carol Rovane’s section was almost interminable and I always found myself looking at the clock to see how much longer I had to sit in class. Although I read every book for the class and took copious notes while reading, when I got to class, I would without fail be lost in her lecture by 10 minutes in. Rovane’s idea of “discussion” meant literally zero discussion among us at all. Basically, the class structure was this: Rovane gave a long lecture on the topics discussed in the book at hand, then she (kind of) opened the floor for questions from us. What frustrated me the most is that every time someone asked a question or explained some reasoning they had about a subject, she would proceed to shoot it down and trump it with her own apparently higher reasoning abilities. There was really no interaction or passing of ideas between students at all. Rovane is a very kind lady, but she was not all that helpful when I went to her for help. She also took an unbelievably long time to return our papers to us (I think her record was 6 weeks), which tended to be a problem when we wanted to gauge how we were doing in the class before, say, the midterm or the final. The only great thing about Rovane’s section is that she cut down the readings A LOT, which helped us both to focus in on the important topics and to maintain our sanity in the class.

Best professor I've had at Columbia. Wise, exceptionally interesting, willing to engage with students until their needs are met. The brilliance is intimidating, but the person is very warm. It makes for a rather odd combination of deference and comfort when speaking with her, the likes of which is always a positive and rewarding experience. I wouldn't recommend taking a senior seminar with Rovane unless one is decently invested in philosophy. She works on very deep material, and shares her nuanced thoughts at a rigorous pace. Without doing the assigned reading (of which there is quite a fair amount) and making solid effort to be engaged in class, it's not difficult to get lost; and given that the grade for the course is entirely determined by a single term paper on a topic of one's choice, grades won't be providing much motivation to do said reading or to maintain said engagement. This is one of those courses in which the amount you put in will be very much proportional to the amount you get out, and there's little besides personal interest in the course to keep you from slacking. That said, keeping up is incredibly rewarding. You'll certainly have a number of "mind-blown" moments. I have little basis to say what sort of grader Rovane is. From what I know, I would say that she's very fair. I would also say that she is fully cognizant of the significance of one's entire grade b…

Overall, I was pretty satisfied after having taken Prof. RovaneÂ’s course. She lectures well, and covers all of the most significant aspects of our readings in class. It did annoy me that she answered a few too many questions from a couple of students whoÂ’d have their hands raised every few minutes throughout the whole semester, and who rarely had anything very relevant or interesting to ask about. She would occasionally answer peopleÂ’s questions very briefly, but I donÂ’t think the way she did it was too harsh, and it was never called for that she go any more in depth as to why the personÂ’s question was misguided. Indeed, she did it to me once, and after her brief (but complete) response, I realized that my question actually was a pretty dumb one. On the whole, I really enjoyed the readings, which I thought were well selected (by her, to my understanding). The class was based off of DescartesÂ’ first four meditations, after the reading of each of which we would go on to some more modern philosophersÂ’ takes on similar topics: various aspects of philosophy of mind (identity, etc.), free will, and some moral philosophy. In the papers we basically had to show that we understood well the topics which we read and were lectured on, and that we knew how to make a philosophical argument—if you could do this, you were fine. I went to her office hours once to meet with her, and wai…

Not much. Honestly, I was disappointed by this course.

From readings that drew the most vehement reactions from me to readings that, I think, fundamentally changed the way I look at certain things, I do not think that there was anything in this class that I wish to have not read: everything was valuable. From the professor to my TA (Samara Burns), this class was an incredibly enjoyable one.

I think the one review below might have overstated Professor Rovane's excellence as a teacher. But I certainly disagree with those reviews saying she is an incompetent teacher. She is a senior professor of philosophy and BRILLIANT! Keep this in mind, because this will explain everything from a lot less reading to general silence in class. She has taught this class for many years, and she knows them so well that she deliberately takes away those parts of the text which are not as important or she found too absurd. That way, she can make sure that she covers all the material with equal attention. For those who think this class is meant for discussion, wrong. Well, the real issue is not that she disallows class discussion. It is quite perplexing. Professor Rovane actually makes an effort to stir up the class discussion while still keeping this class a very serious philosophical journey. The only problem is that we students are not exactly up to her standard. She runs this class very seriously. I believe her treatment to the texts are always delivered to us after she has thought about them extensively. She deserves at least a silver nugget if it is solely based on class content. (For some weird reason, being nice or not shy of glorifying students seems to be a more important criterion for getting a silver nugget.) She keeps every text to the simplest level she can accept. But stil…

Prof. Rovane assigned one and only one book for her seminar: her own book on Personal Identity. Although I liked her very much from the beginning, I quickly became very frustrated in the class. Working with just one book was stifling, especially as Rovane brooked absolutely no dissent. If you disagreed, you were wrong, and if she had to yell and refuse to listen in order to show that you were wrong, well...that's what she would do. More than a few of my fellow students had problems with her book, but we learned not to voice our objections in class. That was a bit of a problem, as there was not much to say in class other than to summarize the book. I was amazed that Rovane managed to structure the entire course so that she had to do no more work than to show up for class and read papers at the end. We spent most of the time listening to her go on for hours about child psychology. Any substantive issues that students raised in class were most surely not treated with any degree of seriousness, and most often they were just ignored or passed over. If she teaches this class again, and you're in it, my advice is to detach yourself from the class discussion, do a lot of outside reading on personal identity, write a paper that interestes YOU, and try not to get too frustrated with the direction of the class.

my feelings on rovane are slightly mixed. she knows how to lecture--there are no problems understanding her speech, and her lectures are fairly organized. she does get pelted with dumb questions, which, if she's in the mood, she will entertain ad nauseaum. the assignened readings are mostly very good--sometimes dry, but almost always right on mark with relevant content. they are of course only partially necessary. her answers to emails stink--very brusk and rudeish, dont let them intimidate you. oh and another thing--she is apt to shut you down if you ask a question that a)irritates her, b)goes against her beliefs, c)doesnt allow her to show off, d)she hasnt prepackaged an answer to etc etc etc. it can be embarassing because she has the gift of being able to effortlessly make you feel/look dumb. all that said, i might take another class with her if the other options were sparse or shoddy

I learned some of the basics of the philosophy of ethics from the point of view of a limited number of philosophers, many of whom were already represented in the Core Curriculum and many of whom had some personal or professional relationship to our professor.

I learned about ethics and pretty much the entire field of ethics.