Stephanie Beardman

I had Professor Beardman for Intro to Philosophy this semester and became very fond of her and the subject matter. The material is difficult to grasp at times, especially for someone who has never taken a philosophy course before, but she really delves into each concept and is extremely articulate with her English so that if you listen and ask questions, you will gain a comprehensive understanding of the concepts. She is usually available after class for office hours and is very casual and non-rushed about them. She also earned brownie points in my mind for making a solid effort to learn everyone's name (there were over 30 people in the class) and to address everyone by his or her name when calling on/responding to students who had questions. Overall, she is very sweet and knows the material extremely well, the reading and assignments are reasonable, and the exams are based on points from the readings stressed in the lectures. Do take this class either to fulfill a requirement, out of personal interest, or (and especially, I think) if you are considering majoring/minoring in Philosophy. Professor Beardman not only touches upon a wide range of topics in philosophy, but she also teaches and reinforces the key concepts and methods of thinking in philosophy through the different topics studied.

Professor Beardman is a nice person. She is clearly very, very smart. She is enthusiastic about her subject matter. At times her explanations of difficult concepts aren't terribly helpful, but of course that is because the concepts are difficult. I thought at times she could be a little short with people, but overall she tried to encourage participation and really wanted people to understand what was being taught. The problem with this course was not Professor Beardman. The problem was the other students. If you're a philosophy major, this is not going to be a big deal for you. If you're not, it will be. Having to listen to students recount every detail of their infallible argument against Cartesian Skepticism that they just thought up while sitting in class in the last five minutes is unbearable. No one has any humility these days. Everyone thinks that their idea is the best idea in the history of the world, and even if they themselves did not spend any time working on it, we should all drop whatever we are doing to listen to them explain it in excruciating, class time-consuming detail. Beardman tried to cut these interruptions short, but too many of the students apparently didn't respect her or their classmates (or, probably, anyone but themselves) enough to shut up, despite repeated hints (and by hints I mean the professor said, "Okay, well I don't want us to spend too much…

Professor Beardman is a really nice person, however there's something very timid about her teaching style that made this class difficult to sit through. When I took it, it was capped at less than 20 students and it was heavily discussion-based. The readings are interesting, but kind of all over the place. It was hard to understand what she wanted from the papers. She's helpful and easy to contact, however I would say this class was a negative experience for the most part. Took it as a requirement for the philosophy major.

Professor Beardman is a very knowledgable woman who is excited about philosophy and the students she teaches. I have never met a professor that takes so much time reading each student's paper. She is very atuned to details and is by no means an easy grader, but she is very fair. Beardman loves class discussion and made the atmosphere of the class really intellectually stimulating. Beardman is sometimes on the nervous end but she is the most caring and involved of professors. Meet with her on her office hours and you will be astounded at the amount of time she gives each student!

ARGH. I was looking forward to this class, but it turned out to be the biggest pain I had all semester. Prof. Beardman was nice in class, and she incorporated a lot of discussion (prob. because our "lecture" had only 15 students in it), but between the overly-broad scope of the class and the madness of having to write 400 word papers (that were graded very harshly) I hated going to class by October. I agree with the previous reviewer who said that the class should be less broad - I felt like I didn't really gain a deep enough understanding of anything we discussed. Writing 400 word papers may have sounded good in theory, but again, I didn't get to develop any sort of detailed argument. If you're a major, find another way to get rid of the ethic requirement, and if you're not, P/F this class if you're going to take it at all.

Okay so I am a big science and math geek. I took this class to fulfill a requirement and I'm actually SO happy I did. To be honest, at first, I hated the class. I thought the professor didn't want to answer our questions and I thought that she thought we were too dumb. She would respond in ways that would make me assume that she didn't think we were capable of higher thinking about philosophy. However, as the course progressed, I realized that she didn't answer those questions directly because she wanted us to start thinking philosophically. Also, she wanted to make sure that the class focused on specific arguments, not our own tangents of discussion. Once I realized this, I appreciated the class a lot more. She is very good at making sense of the dense readings that are assigned. She outlines some of the arguments beautifully on the board and she always encourages discussion or comments. However, she makes sure that we don't get too off topic [although sometimes it will digress]. She's also a very nice person in general and she has a very relaxed way of teaching. It doesn't feel like work to go to class because she is so friendly and loves to teach what she is teaching. However, if you don't do the reading due for the day, you will definitely be lost. She doesn't review much of the reading. Instead, she will delve into the details and outline the argument. So, you better do t…

I'll give Professor Beardman this, she was certainly quirky. What she wasn't was articulate. She tended to get so wrapped up in just how much she knew about philosophy that she went on extreme tangents mid-sentence that would proceed to preoccupy the next 15 minutes of class. It also made her assume that as wee little intro course takers we must be idiots incapable of expressing coherent thoughts. Yeah, sure, we were the confusing ones. She often contradicted herself and made no sense whatsoever. None of the material was as complex as she made it sound. For example, she once said, "If determinism true, and every event has a cause, and every action has a cause going back to before born, from beginning of everything, the conditions of universe, and laws of nature, if a being knew the state of the universe at any time, and knew all of the laws of nature, and the universe is purely deterministic, you could predict any event in the future," except keep in mind that in real life, she would stop mid-sentence to plop in a random phrase without explaining what it had to do with the rest of everything, or randomly repeat a phrase she had already said. In other words, she rarely used full sentences and pretty much spoke in stream-of-consciousness. It was also hard to know what to write on the papers with someone so vague and with so few other assignments.

Stephanie Beardman really means well. But, frankly, when it comes to sitting through a professor's lectures for a semester, intention easily falls to the wayside. I felt that most of the time, the class was confused as to what this woman was even saying about the material. It seemed that she often contradicted herself. She was not clear about topics, concepts, etc. The only saving grace of this class was that it was small, and that she did (thankfully) allow for discussion and debate.

Not too much reading. At least 5 papers (about 3 pages in length) and some rewrites. In addition, each student is expected to lead class discussion at least 2 times.

IÂ’m sure this would have been a good course if 1) I were interested in Ethics or Psychology, or 2) I were just starting out in philosophy. As it was, I found the course to be broad not deep. I was vaguely hoping that it wouldnÂ’t be a survey course (since Moral Philosophy is already one), but it was, with all the Kantian and Utilitarian and Virtue Ethical baggage that comes with such a course. Professor Beardman provided lovely little summaries of the readings but little else. Her obsession with short papers also hindered real thought development (though IÂ’m sure it prevented many a mental train-wreck as well). Really, if this course proves anything, itÂ’s that the philosophy department should ditch its systemic ethics requirement. I mean, we all have to take CC anyway, so why put us through another semester of hopeless and boring ethical theory (honestly, symbolic logic was more interesting).