PHIL202 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Peter Carruthers PHIL202 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/23/2024	The class content was generally interesting and the professor was pretty understandable, though I found this to be more of a psychology course than a philosophy course. Every week, we would have a discussion board that needed to be done and on Friday we would discuss our posts there. These discussions were used to help us prepare for our essay exams. My one thing to nitpick about this course was that the essay exam criteria was a bit vague. The general requirement was to create some kind of policy or solution to one of the topics lectured on in class. The only problem is that each essay is graded on a bell curve, so people are strictly given grades to match that trend. However, we were not given really concrete advice about how to improve our essays/proposals or how to develop our ideas better. Due to the way things are graded, the professor and TAs found it hard to give said feedback. So, we were kind of left to alter our essays each exam and hope that maybe the grade would get better. Additionally, because of the discussions, we would discuss our ideas first so if there happened to be many essays with the same idea, it would make the idea less novel, which could be reflected in ones grade.
Peter Carruthers PHIL202 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2024	This course is much more like a psychology class, and the material and lectures are very interesting. However, this is not an easy gen ed class. There are in class essays that aren't difficult to write, but require lots of planning due to not being able to use notes or a pre-planned structure. The grading appears to be a bit subjective as the TAs grade on creativity, knowledge, and execution of the essay without much guidance from a structured rubric. The quizzes can be tricky, but usually aren't too hard if you go to lecture and read the required articles. Lecture attendance isn't enforced, but discussion participation is, and not going can quickly damage your grade. I would definitely recommend the course if you are looking to learn some interesting things and are ready to do the work, but I would not take this class looking for an easy A.
Peter Carruthers PHIL202 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/01/2024	Absolutely amazing professor and so much to learn from his classes
Peter Carruthers PHIL202 Expecting a C Anonymous 02/01/2024	The lectures are fine - kind of jumbled and he usually gets off topic pretty easily. The content is easy to understand and quite interesting. But his quizzes are awful. Limited time frame to take them, you get a very short amount of time, and you only get one submission. You have to take a quiz every week, read 2 scientific journals, make a discussion board post, and present at your discussion. Not to mention the 5 essay exams. Don't take this class for an easy gen ed, it's way too high maintenance.
Michael McCourt PHIL202 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/14/2024	In terms of logistics, he is great. The class is straightforward and easy (as long as you properly engage with the material). There's always readings accompanied by quizzes and discussions, with just three projects throughout the semester. His lectures are clear, and he really gets the topics across. His discussions spark conversation between students, and end up giving some valuable insights at the end of the day. I'd take him for most of my classes if I could, but unfortunately I took this course as a gen-ed.
Peter Carruthers PHIL202 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2021	Lectures are extremely interesting, and he grades fairly. You can get an A without going to lecture with a little leg work to understand his sometimes confusing slides. Quizzes weren't bad. Would take him again.
Shen Pan PHIL202 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/19/2021	Shen was a TA for my PHIL202 course online during Spring 2021. He expertly lead discussions in a way that encouraged people to question their understanding and to think critically about everything, but he was not demanding in any way, literally asked for the bare minimum. I will be going out of my way to take his courses in the future.
Peter Carruthers PHIL202 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/08/2021	Prof. Carruthers was an enjoyable lecturer and made the class enjoyable, I also had a great TA so that helps. The course content is fascinating and the amount of work is very manageable and the expectations are very clear. Most of the course decisions are founded on some empirical finding, which is nice and kinda cool. The biggest downside was having to read the PowerPoint lectures, I wish they could have been presented verbally. Overall, this was one of the most interesting courses I've taken at UMD and Prof. Carruthers was a big part of that even with the limited interactions.
Peter Carruthers PHIL202 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2020	PHIL202 is the same as 209, pretty sure. Like everyone was saying, it's a lot more of a psyc class than Phil, but there was still a lot of interesting course material that was really cool to learn. I had this class over zoom and it was done asynchronously. Each week, he posted a 10 minute video of him introducing the topic, and then two slide shows which taught the topics of the week. Fridays we had a discussion section with the TA. Here are my thoughts on that: I really wish he would have posted video lectures instead of slide shows. The 10 minute weekly video was always very nice. It was entertaining and intelligent, and I felt myself engaged. The slide shows, though they were very interesting, were not engaging. I found myself always just doing a whole week's worth of material Thursday night before taking the weekly quiz. I think I would have gained so much more from the class if it were done through video lectures, even asynchronously. Still, overall I found him to be a solid teacher.
William Fenton PHIL202 Expecting an A- Anonymous 09/24/2019	chill dude, very pleasant

Peter Carruthers
PHIL202

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/23/2024

The class content was generally interesting and the professor was pretty understandable, though I found this to be more of a psychology course than a philosophy course. Every week, we would have a discussion board that needed to be done and on Friday we would discuss our posts there. These discussions were used to help us prepare for our essay exams. My one thing to nitpick about this course was that the essay exam criteria was a bit vague. The general requirement was to create some kind of policy or solution to one of the topics lectured on in class. The only problem is that each essay is graded on a bell curve, so people are strictly given grades to match that trend. However, we were not given really concrete advice about how to improve our essays/proposals or how to develop our ideas better. Due to the way things are graded, the professor and TAs found it hard to give said feedback. So, we were kind of left to alter our essays each exam and hope that maybe the grade would get better. Additionally, because of the discussions, we would discuss our ideas first so if there happened to be many essays with the same idea, it would make the idea less novel, which could be reflected in ones grade.

Peter Carruthers
PHIL202

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/18/2024

This course is much more like a psychology class, and the material and lectures are very interesting. However, this is not an easy gen ed class. There are in class essays that aren't difficult to write, but require lots of planning due to not being able to use notes or a pre-planned structure. The grading appears to be a bit subjective as the TAs grade on creativity, knowledge, and execution of the essay without much guidance from a structured rubric. The quizzes can be tricky, but usually aren't too hard if you go to lecture and read the required articles. Lecture attendance isn't enforced, but discussion participation is, and not going can quickly damage your grade. I would definitely recommend the course if you are looking to learn some interesting things and are ready to do the work, but I would not take this class looking for an easy A.

Peter Carruthers
PHIL202

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/01/2024

Absolutely amazing professor and so much to learn from his classes

Peter Carruthers
PHIL202

Expecting a C
Anonymous
02/01/2024

The lectures are fine - kind of jumbled and he usually gets off topic pretty easily. The content is easy to understand and quite interesting. But his quizzes are awful. Limited time frame to take them, you get a very short amount of time, and you only get one submission. You have to take a quiz every week, read 2 scientific journals, make a discussion board post, and present at your discussion. Not to mention the 5 essay exams. Don't take this class for an easy gen ed, it's way too high maintenance.

Michael McCourt
PHIL202

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/14/2024

In terms of logistics, he is great. The class is straightforward and easy (as long as you properly engage with the material). There's always readings accompanied by quizzes and discussions, with just three projects throughout the semester. His lectures are clear, and he really gets the topics across. His discussions spark conversation between students, and end up giving some valuable insights at the end of the day. I'd take him for most of my classes if I could, but unfortunately I took this course as a gen-ed.

Peter Carruthers
PHIL202

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/16/2021

Lectures are extremely interesting, and he grades fairly. You can get an A without going to lecture with a little leg work to understand his sometimes confusing slides. Quizzes weren't bad. Would take him again.

Shen Pan
PHIL202

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/19/2021

Shen was a TA for my PHIL202 course online during Spring 2021. He expertly lead discussions in a way that encouraged people to question their understanding and to think critically about everything, but he was not demanding in any way, literally asked for the bare minimum. I will be going out of my way to take his courses in the future.

Peter Carruthers
PHIL202

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/08/2021

Prof. Carruthers was an enjoyable lecturer and made the class enjoyable, I also had a great TA so that helps. The course content is fascinating and the amount of work is very manageable and the expectations are very clear. Most of the course decisions are founded on some empirical finding, which is nice and kinda cool. The biggest downside was having to read the PowerPoint lectures, I wish they could have been presented verbally. Overall, this was one of the most interesting courses I've taken at UMD and Prof. Carruthers was a big part of that even with the limited interactions.

Peter Carruthers
PHIL202

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/18/2020

PHIL202 is the same as 209, pretty sure. Like everyone was saying, it's a lot more of a psyc class than Phil, but there was still a lot of interesting course material that was really cool to learn. I had this class over zoom and it was done asynchronously. Each week, he posted a 10 minute video of him introducing the topic, and then two slide shows which taught the topics of the week. Fridays we had a discussion section with the TA. Here are my thoughts on that: I really wish he would have posted video lectures instead of slide shows. The 10 minute weekly video was always very nice. It was entertaining and intelligent, and I felt myself engaged. The slide shows, though they were very interesting, were not engaging. I found myself always just doing a whole week's worth of material Thursday night before taking the weekly quiz. I think I would have gained so much more from the class if it were done through video lectures, even asynchronously. Still, overall I found him to be a solid teacher.

William Fenton
PHIL202

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
09/24/2019

chill dude, very pleasant

Reviews for PHIL202