PHIL 2060

This class was so enjoyable. Simmons has a wonderful sense of humor. A handful of lectures were dry, but the overwhelmingly majority were thought-provoking and stimulating. Midterm and final are not terribly difficult and the papers are very manageable. Really makes you think and question why the law is the way it is! Interesting. Manageable, Definitely recommend.

Honestly, this class did not live up to my expectations. I found lecture dry and hard to keep myself paying attention. Because I'm interested in law, I found the material interesting, but if you're not that interested in law this class would be really boring. Prof. Simmons is nice and funny but sometimes his talking in lecture is dry. I really liked my TA Tony, he made the class much better. Overall, a good class but not fantastic. Not too hard, but they are very picky about the midterm and final.

It was really difficult to understand Professor Simmons because he spoke way too softly. Also, your grade depends wholly on your TA so it does not matter if the professor is good or not. Moral of the story: do not take this class

Seriously just don't take this class. My TA was horrific in that she actually didn't have a grasp on the english language and the professor was incredibly unclear in making the distinction between his opinions and the philosophers he was talking about. If I could go back in time, I would never take this class in a million years. Do yourself a favor and just wait until law school.

I would recommend this course. Simmons is kind of a crazy old grandpa, but he's also completely brilliant. He's very dry and presents the material in a way that is VERY easy to understand. An interest in law is definitely required. I'd say the course is about 70% theoretically legal principles and 30% philsophy. I liked that, but if you're a philosophy major, you might not.
Simmons is very socially liberal (from a liberatarian viewpoint, though -- i.e. govt shouldn't regulate anything) and to an extent, this is seen in how he designed the course. For example, during the unit on pornography, I felt as though Simmons spent minimal time on arguments against pornography and instead majorly promoted it and reviewed it as an issue of privacy and government censorship. I am somewhat liberal myself on social issues, but felt as though Simmons sometimes indoctrinated us with his own views a little too much (he essentially suggested hat statuory rape should not be criminalized, promoting pornography, etc). However, this is a minor critique in the grand scheme of the course, and I would recommend it unless you are extremely socially conservative.
GET JEFF CARROLL AS YOUR TA. He is such a genuinely great person. Funny, authentic, cusses like a sailor, extremely helpful in office hours, and honestly made my Friday morning discussions worth it, just because I got to listen to him. I cannot rate Jeff highly enough.

I've talked to a lot of people who loved this course, but I was not one of them. Lecture was frustratingly hard to follow. Simmons was horrifically unclear in his lectures, and it was difficult to try to separate his sometimes-problematic opinion from the philosophers who we actually needed to learn. There was no structure in his lectures at all. He used PowerPoint, but there is minimal information on the slides and he will flip back and forth between them throughout the lecture. There were on 60 slides for the entire semester........ needless to say, you'll need to go to lecture and take great notes in order to pass this class. I really enjoyed my TA, Andrew Morgan (I think he was the best TA available); the class is really made by your TA as you'll actually have discussions with them and they're the ones grading the two all-free-response exams and your two papers (yes, just these 4 assignments make up your grade). The papers were the only part of the course I enjoyed, and I wish their had been more. If you enjoy the extremely abstract and think you can deal with this professor, go for it. Otherwise, stay away from it even if it has "law" in the title. You can get these concepts in other undergrad law classes.

As a potentially pre-law student, I absolutely loved the topics and questions this class brought up. Professor Simmons is very devoted to his students and the curriculum, and teaches with humor and interest. Choose your TA wisely, though, because they have a huge impact on your grade (I had Kira, who was a pretty harsh grader, held a pretty uninteresting discussion section, and didn't seem to know much about the curriculum. Lectures are invaluable, filled with tons of information so definitely go, but it's pretty easy to do well without the readings, since you'll only be tested on material covered in class. Make sure to study your lecture notes extensively for exams because they go into a lot of detail.

I personally wouldn't recommend this course unless you're pre-law or philosophy. Simmons is an engaging lecturer and storyteller, but I come from a family involved in the law in one way or another, so I came into the course with some familiarity and interest with that field. The exams are difficult to study for because it isn't clear when Simmons goes on a tangent versus when he's lecturing on important material. Killed my GPA for the semester, despite my interest. Good material, good professor, but difficult lectures. Discussion sections also didn't seem to matter that much, which may also have an impact on experience.

Don't take this class if you're not interested in law. That said, if you are, this is a content goldmine.

Each lecture is somewhat dry and very dense, but it is also interesting and rewarding if you like the subject matter. You go over basic concepts (what law should do, how punishment should be structured, what constitutes cause) and consider all the angles. The lectures are dry, as I said, but Professor Simmons has a deadpan humor that always gets a class laugh two or three times per lecture.

The reading is sometimes dense, but I'd recommend doing it. The tests are doable based only on lecture content, but the reading can inform your answers, and it comes into play on the essays.

The essays are 4-6 pages and you have to do two of them. If you do the reading and pick a stance, you'll do fine.

Everything is graded by a TA, but Simmons does apply a bit of a curve to erase TA subjectivity. If you have a hard TA, he'll acknowledge that and bump your grade to meet the average TA's standards.

Hilarious professor and amazing class! Really good to just dip your toe in the philosophy pool. If you can memorize you can do well in this class!