PHIL 2500

I took Environmental Ethics with Tal, and while he is very knowledgeable about the subject and kind of a funny guy, his lectures always went over my head and often put me to sleep. He assigns WAYYYY too much reading, especially for a course that doesn't expect you to have any knowledge of philosophy going into it. The only thing that got me through this class was my passion for the environment, and the fact that I would try to write down some snippet of what Tal or Stephen said that week and what reading it correlated to, and then use that as a catalyst when I wrote my essays. The TA Stephen Marrone was a godsend, because he would explain the readings (that I didn't do) every week in discussion and walk us through it, and didn't comment when it was clear some of us had no idea what we were talking about. Utilizing his office hours for the essays was what allowed me to do well, and for the final, which was literally all about the readings and philosophers I didn't do, I just read like snippets of their work and looked up on Wikipedia what their philosophies were on the environment, and made a quizlet from that. I also need the internet to write my essays, because even though I did the readings when I had to write about them, they made no sense and I had to look up like a million different interpretations of what the writers were saying. I got out with an A and honestly I have no idea how. Overall, I would not take a class with Tal again, and I would suggest you don't either unless you LOVE philosophy.
#tcf2020