PHIL 2820

Fun class! The material and readings were interesting, especially if you care about health/healthcare. Sometimes the grading for the papers can be a little rough, but you'll get better at writing them with practice. 8 AM is always tough, but you don't need to go to every single class, just try to make it to most of them.

#tCFF23

This was a really interesting class to take. As a Pre-Health student I thought this class gave a really good well rounded perspective on a lot of the softer issues of healthcare that exist but are often overlooked. Barnes is a very charismatic professor and makes the 8 am seem a little mess tedious. Grades are all 1 midterm and then papers all semester long. The grading on the papers is very subjective by the TA but I need up finishing with an A- after getting a 75 on my first paper so as long as you go to office hours and ask for edits and feedback you can get a good grade. You will learn a LOT in this class and it'll be far less stressful due to the lack of exams. I highly recommend this class to anyone who is interested in healthcare policy and wants to be well rounded in it.

Pretty easy course. Lectures were really simple and not really necessary for the most part. Necessary information for the papers are all in reading, which aren't dense and aren't really necessary either outside of the ones relevant to the papers. Grade is made up of discussion posts (participation) and papers. Last semester she instituted a grade freeze - so as long as you didn't literally fail the final paper, it wouldn't hurt your final grade. Professor is kind of weird but nice.

I loved this class! Although I am not a philosophy major or a pre-med student, I found this class engaging and fun enough to justify going to the 8 am lectures. The professor is an incredible lecturer, and she deeply cares about her students. After the events in November, she put a grade freeze so that the final writing assignment would not hurt your grade so long as it is of passing standard. When school resumed, she gave out bagels to the people who came to class that day.
As for the writing assignments, as long as you made sure your arguments made sense logically and that you covered all your bases, you'd get at least a B. Definitely cannot BS your essays as other classes, but the instructor and TAs were kind enough to go over what was required to get a good grade on the writing assignments.
Overall, I would definitely take this class for your second writing requirement!

#tCFfall22

Honestly, one of the easiest classes I've taken at UVA, but still enjoyable and thought-provoking. Professor Barnes is very eccentric and tries to be a comedian which can be a tad obnoxious at times, but she is wildly knowledgeable, kind, and a pleasure to have as a professor. Day in and day out there is very little work if you don't count the readings--I never did them unless it was important for a paper. There were three papers throughout the semester and they were all graded very leniently with averages of an A-. Discussions were more so reiterations of what was discussed in class so there was no prep required for that either. Participation is 25% of your grade so you should probably show up and talk a little if you can, but it's not a requirement for an A. If you are looking for a very low-stress PHIL course, this is for you! #tCFfall22