PHIL 2500

super simple class (on Aesthetics this sem), all you're asked to do are the readings, and they aren't very complex.
two papers and a final are all you need in this class and once you figure out how to write for Bagley, all the papers (and the finals tbh) are easy A-/A

I took Bagley's class on Aesthetics. Classes began by covering the assigned reading and then generally moving into a discussion.

Pros: Bagley is a fun professor with a bit of an eccentric personality. Readings weren't too difficult and if you have a concept you don't understand Bagley is happy to go over it in class and really make sure you get it. Subject matter was really interesting, I came out of every class with a lot to think about.

Cons: Bagley was a little scattered when it came to grading and uploading readings. If you're the type of person who needs a rigidly structured class this might not be for you.

You kind of get the sense that Professor Bagley is an imposter, pretending to be a Professor to hide his true identity until someone realizes. I've never had a professor who was more—for lack of a better word—lazy. He did not show up to class on time once when we were still in-person; when we went online he literally CANCELLED the class and switched to an "office-hours" style course where we would meet with him one-on-one to discuss a final project, but he mostly failed to reply to emails to schedule these meetings; he took two whole months to grade about 20 5-page papers, and then was able to somehow submit our final grades just 3 days after 40 of us submitted 10-15 page papers. This leads me to believe he almost certainly did not grade the final paper, or if he did, he only skimmed it. I've read in other reviews of him that many people just end up with whatever grade they get on the first paper; this was true for me as well. It's a pretty easy A though, just as long as you don't mind a professor who is completely unengaged with the course.

Professor Bagley is a funny and nice guy, but he's hard to communicate with and sometimes unavailable or unresponsive if you're looking for help. The class I took with him was "aesthetics" and it took him like a month or so to finally post the readings on his Collab page; before that, he would just email us readings the day before class, so you couldn't really work ahead. It takes him a while to post grades as well, but his grading is lenient. When I took the course, we had the option of either writing two medium (5-6pg) papers or one long (10-15pg) paper and taking a final exam. You develop your own prompts for the papers. This format was switched when we moved online and we never took the final so I can't speak to how difficult it may or may not be. The course material was pretty interesting though, and the classes, albeit sometimes boring, can be super interesting. Professor Bagley is especially good at spelling out difficult philosophical concepts.