PHIL220 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Samuel Kerstein PHIL220 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/17/2023	DO NOT TAKE if its not a required class. Took as a gen ed cause it look interesting but it took up way more time outside of class than i expected and grades harder than most other gen eds. He's not a bad professor and the class is still interesting, but if you are just looking for a class that will fill gen ed requirements i wouldn't take this one.
Christopher Masciari PHIL220 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2023	Overall pretty good. I think the lectures were interesting and the material was presented well. I wish the logistics of the course were a bit smoother, since there was a long wait to get back grades on weekly quizzes and some of the short papers.
Samuel Kerstein PHIL220 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2022	Dr. Kerstein is a nice guy and takes this class relatively seriously. The readings could be a bore sometimes, but I felt like they were mostly fair considering we met only twice a week for 50 min each time. Weekly readings along with two quizzes (one's in class so no skipping lectures), two papers, and a group paper/presentation (randomly assigned group). I found lecture to be a waste of time generally, but if you have trouble understanding the readings, Dr. Kerstein does post online lectures on them. Exams were easy and very fair. He would release four open answer exam questions at least five days before the exam then two of those questions would be the exam. Three exams total including the final. My only complaint is that discussion was genuinely never helpful and the TA could take a while to give feedback/grades on papers. Honestly, it's almost the end of the semester and I still don't have a grade on the paper and group paper that I turned in over a month ago. Overall, I enjoyed the class but it is a decent amount of work if this is a gen ed for you.
Samuel Kerstein PHIL220 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/31/2022	Dr. Kerstein is an interesting guy. Very smart, speaks quite slowly so it's easy to understand concepts, looks oddly like Will Ferrell which threw me off the first several days of class. Reasonable amounts of reading each week, one in class quiz and one out of class, two papers and a group project. I wish there was more peer-to-peer discussion but am also enjoying learning about the different issues on my own. I found the class to be super applicable to a lot of health professions and am enjoying it so far.
Christopher Masciari PHIL220 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/28/2022	Great class! Super approachable and easy to talk to, and he helped even when I asked seemingly dumb questions. He always tried to break down the material so it was easy to understand and tried to make class fun by using examples from real life. For a newer professor, he is great!
Christopher Masciari PHIL220 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/30/2022	He was a great professor. He tried to make lectures interesting and engaging and would often have detailed explanations for more complicated topics. The only gripe I have with him was with grading. The TA graded EVERYTHING. Weekly quizzes, papers, and the group project was all graded by the TA. This usually wouldn't be an issue, however, our TA did not give any feedback on anything unless you specifically asked for it, making it very difficult to improve or know what he wanted. There also weren't any rubrics so we wouldn't know what we got points off for. This made assignments really stressful because I didn't know what the TA was going to be grading for. Barely scraped by with an A in this class. I wouldn't recommend this class for a first time philosophy class (speaking from experience), but if you're experienced with philosophy and want to take a gamble with possibly having a bad TA, I liked the content of this class.
Christopher Masciari PHIL220 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/08/2022	Professor Masciari held informative and engaging lectures. He cares about his students and was very fair. He felt very approachable and kind, which made it much easier to do the work for class.

Samuel Kerstein
PHIL220

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/17/2023

DO NOT TAKE if its not a required class. Took as a gen ed cause it look interesting but it took up way more time outside of class than i expected and grades harder than most other gen eds. He's not a bad professor and the class is still interesting, but if you are just looking for a class that will fill gen ed requirements i wouldn't take this one.

Christopher Masciari
PHIL220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/21/2023

Overall pretty good. I think the lectures were interesting and the material was presented well. I wish the logistics of the course were a bit smoother, since there was a long wait to get back grades on weekly quizzes and some of the short papers.

Samuel Kerstein
PHIL220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/13/2022

Dr. Kerstein is a nice guy and takes this class relatively seriously. The readings could be a bore sometimes, but I felt like they were mostly fair considering we met only twice a week for 50 min each time. Weekly readings along with two quizzes (one's in class so no skipping lectures), two papers, and a group paper/presentation (randomly assigned group). I found lecture to be a waste of time generally, but if you have trouble understanding the readings, Dr. Kerstein does post online lectures on them. Exams were easy and very fair. He would release four open answer exam questions at least five days before the exam then two of those questions would be the exam. Three exams total including the final. My only complaint is that discussion was genuinely never helpful and the TA could take a while to give feedback/grades on papers. Honestly, it's almost the end of the semester and I still don't have a grade on the paper and group paper that I turned in over a month ago. Overall, I enjoyed the class but it is a decent amount of work if this is a gen ed for you.

Samuel Kerstein
PHIL220

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
10/31/2022

Dr. Kerstein is an interesting guy. Very smart, speaks quite slowly so it's easy to understand concepts, looks oddly like Will Ferrell which threw me off the first several days of class. Reasonable amounts of reading each week, one in class quiz and one out of class, two papers and a group project. I wish there was more peer-to-peer discussion but am also enjoying learning about the different issues on my own. I found the class to be super applicable to a lot of health professions and am enjoying it so far.

Christopher Masciari
PHIL220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
07/28/2022

Great class! Super approachable and easy to talk to, and he helped even when I asked seemingly dumb questions. He always tried to break down the material so it was easy to understand and tried to make class fun by using examples from real life. For a newer professor, he is great!

Christopher Masciari
PHIL220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/30/2022

He was a great professor. He tried to make lectures interesting and engaging and would often have detailed explanations for more complicated topics. The only gripe I have with him was with grading. The TA graded EVERYTHING. Weekly quizzes, papers, and the group project was all graded by the TA. This usually wouldn't be an issue, however, our TA did not give any feedback on anything unless you specifically asked for it, making it very difficult to improve or know what he wanted. There also weren't any rubrics so we wouldn't know what we got points off for. This made assignments really stressful because I didn't know what the TA was going to be grading for. Barely scraped by with an A in this class. I wouldn't recommend this class for a first time philosophy class (speaking from experience), but if you're experienced with philosophy and want to take a gamble with possibly having a bad TA, I liked the content of this class.

Christopher Masciari
PHIL220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/08/2022

Professor Masciari held informative and engaging lectures. He cares about his students and was very fair. He felt very approachable and kind, which made it much easier to do the work for class.

Reviews for PHIL220