PHIL 1000

I more or less cover everything in the syllabus with a few personal tips.

I was a 3rd year engineer taking this as one of my few unrestricted electives because I've always been generally interested in philosophy. Overall, I'm glad I took it. 95%+ students are 1st years fulfilling some credit. This doesn't really matter, but I found the grading to be quite generous - I think that's why.

General Overview:
The whole semester you are reading and discussing The Republic by Plato, mostly dissecting and analyzing the arguments made. There are 3 in class essays (50%), 2 take-home papers (40%), and weekly reading journals (10%).
100-97 (A+), 96-94 (A), 93-90 (A-), 89-87 (B+), etc. on down to 59 (F). Your 3rd in class essay and 2nd philosophical paper are both 25% of your overall grade and due in the last few weeks of class.

Content/Readings:
Before every Mon and Wed there is a reading from The Republic you are expected to have covered, sometimes it's accompanied by a supplemental reading which was either an excerpt from a philosophical book, essay, or paper. They can range from inextricably related to The Republic to something that you can tell Ian just thinks is interesting and worth sharing. I'm totally fine with that, some of the interesting ones were refreshing, but in truth, I cut corners with reading the supplementals in full (I'm almost confident most others were similar bc they were pretty damn long). You can get away with a chat summary of that content bc they'll only ever ask about the main points. When my other class coursework began piling up mid semester I would often not do the readings, but would have to either do it later or sacrifice a deeper understanding for a quick summary which annoyed me, but worked in terms of getting the grade. I'd rec staying up to date with The Republic readings as best as possible, the supplementals are less important, but useful and interesting.

Reading Journal:
Rip out a sheet of paper and do the following:
Question: Ask a brief question about Monday’s lecture that could spark a 10-15 minute discussion (skip this if no Monday lecture). *Basically just prove that you went to Mon. lecture; nobody knows what you write besides your TA, dont worry about the 'sparking a discussion' thing.
Passage: Handwrite a passage from the assigned reading (max two paragraphs, with possible elisions). Exceptions to handwriting are allowed only for documented medical reasons. *I thought this would be a pain, but I ended up enjoying it.
Reflection: In 1-2 sentences or a short paragraph, explain why the passage is interesting.
Submission: Due each Wednesday before lecture begins; hand it to your instructor before sitting down. Late submissions are not accepted. *In practice, many students hand it to their TA at the end of lecture.
Return: Returned the following Friday in section.
*The TA keeps track of everyone's journals in a spreadsheet and in the last Friday discussion they call ppl up one by one to privately discuss the number of journals they have logged under your name. My TA gave everyone the benefit of the doubt if they claimed to have submitted them. I submitted every week, sometimes hours or a day late via my TA's mailbox in Cocke Hall. Most people that didn't submit every week didn't get full credit, so I wouldn't test it.

Monday: Ian lectures. Take notes knowing you'll have to talk abt something in your journal.
Wednesday: Ian lectures. Turn in your journal.
Friday: Discussion of abt 20 students lead by your TA. My TA was pretty shy, and didn't do a great job of getting students to discuss with one another. The typical high tensions and nervousness that are typically torn down by some kind of first day ice breaker just kinda carried on throughout the most of the semester. But, he covered all the necessary material very well.

Ian's Lectures:
I would best describe a typical lecture as a 50 minute 'organized' monologue/rant/diatribe. Before class, he writes a few main topics he plans to cover on the chalk board. Then he proceeds to follow his "pedagogical whims" wherever they take him. I enjoyed the lectures, but others weren't a huge fan of his longwinded tangents and consistent failure to cover all of the topics he had planned on. He's witty, snarky, and unafraid to dive into uncomfortable topics. I loved it! Such a breath of fresh air compared to my engineering professors. I especially enjoyed his rich vocabulary: almost every day I'd leave lecture with a few new words I had written in the margins of my notes.

Class Materials:
"The only textbook is Hackett’s second edition of Grube’s translation (re-vised by Reeve). Get it at the bookstore; mark it up as you read; use only this exact edition. Supplemental readings will be posted on Canvas." - From syllabus
I would recommend having a few index cards, as you're permitted one for in class essays as a 'cheat sheet'. I just wrote in my book to serve that purpose when I ran out of index cards.

I did not like him at first. Overly eager to posit facts about the prestige of his education (where he went to school, who he knew, things not being "worth his PhD", post-doc, us being "lucky" that he was teaching an intro class, this sort of thing). One time he referred to himself as a "robust specimen" when all he was trying to convey is that he exercises. I thought he liked the smell of his own you know what too much for the first month or so. However, he grew a lot more earnest as the semester went on, and by the end of the class, I grew to like him. His lectures are good not great; I think he would benefit from a more systematic approach to ensure he hits on what he needs to hit on because he tends to wander. Also has a tendency to overcomplicate simple things and explain them really convolutedly. Grading scale is kind of awkward: essays 1 and 2 are worth 25% of your grade, but if you get at least a B- on both, the higher of the two will comprise the entire 25% instead of 1 and 2 both making up 12.5%. I don't understand this. I got a 75 on essay one and a 95 on essay two, so 170/200 in total, so I got an 85% for this fragment of the final grade. If I were to get an 80 and a 90, I would have gotten a 90% on this fragment of the final grade for the same net performance. As both got at least a B-, the lower one would be ignored. 90% on 25% of the final grade is 22.5 points, 85% is 21.25 points, again, for the same net performance. 1.25% can easily make the difference between an A and A-, B and B+, etc. I know it's probably designed to help students, but it sort of has the inverse effect. You are punished for having a bad day, even if you have a phenomenal day that balances the scales. This is especially important when the entire grade of the class is made up of only 3 short essays and 2 papers. TLDR- Thought he loved himself a little too much at first, became better throughout. Good lecturer, not great, strays from the topic too often and doesn't always effectively use his time. Doesn't always make time for students to ask questions too, which to me is important. Grading scale is slightly arbitrary. Not super hard to get at least a B+, I got an A- while not talking to Ian one time. I just relied on TA office hours.

To preface this: I intend on majoring in Philosophy or a Philosophy related field, and had previously taken a Dual Enrolled Philosophy course; meaning that I understand and enjoy Philosophy as a subject. The coursework for this class, specifically beneath Professor McCready-Flora is not bad at all. We: read 1/2 to a whole chapter of Plato's Republic per lecture, wrote a short reflection on Monday's lecture that was no more than a page long (in the format of Question/Comment about something specific that Professor McCready-Flora said in lecture, excerpt from the chapter we read for Monday, and an analysis of said chapter) that was due on Wednesdays, had 3 "In-Discussion Essays" that were writing simple 1-1 1/2 page philosophy essays on potential prompts provided to us beforehand (Essay 1 is by itself, but essays 2-3 were averaged together), and 2 out-of-class Philosophy Essays (you picked 1 of 3 prompts and did it). The workload was not the issue, but rather Professor McCready-Flora's lectures were. He is an absolute gentleman when you go one-on-one in office hours, but in lectures he would go on tangents about unrelated and sometimes inappropriate subjects that only confused me more. (Ex: We were on the chapter discussing The Noble Lie and he spent 20ish minutes discussing the significance of naked wrestling in Ancient Greece.) Additionally, he can sometimes act antagonistic towards students, stopping lecture asking where a student is going (my friend simply wanted to use the bathroom) or calling individual students (who were in fact on task or using their SDAC accommodated technology aids) out for being off-task. McCready-Flora's specialty is in the history of philosophy, so I am certain in those courses he excels at staying on topic, but in an introductory course, he was not. His explanations also reflect that he typically instructs 3000 level courses compared to intro, because they were difficult to understand at times. On a different note, McCready-Flora (in this specific course) doesn't do the grading. Overall, the content was good minus the lack of diversity outside of Plato's Republic and the occasional article, and Professor McCready-Flora's off-topic lecture tangents. Do not be discouraged from taking this class with him, because if I can get an A+ in it, so can you! Just be weary of who you would like to be listening to for 50 minutes straight twice a week.