<p>I'm in my first philosophy class. Since I wanted a challenge, I jumped right into an intermediate course, skipping intro. The layout of the class is like this. Everything is primary sources in the form of books and articles. There's a lot of material. Probably 100 pages of reading a week, and we're talking dense stuff without commentary. The assignments are 3 short papers (6 pages) plus 1 long paper at the end (12 pages).</p>
<p>The problem is I feel we cover material too fast. We're halfway through the course's second major theme, and we just got back our first paper. By appearances we're all done with this one philosopher I particularly like, but I feel like I've just gotten started. We were responsible for nearly 200 pages of reading by him (his work was seminal in this field), but to be honest, I only got to maybe 20 pages. I don't just mean I only read that much. I mean I only covered that much material, only comprehended those 20 pages of ideas. I ended up disconnecting from the class in terms of where I was in the coursework. I let everyone else go ahead, while I slowly finished the equivalent of one measly article by the time we had to write our first papers. </p>
<p>It turns out, I had more material than I needed to write a stellar paper. I ended up writing an 8-pager on literally 3 pages of text by this important philosopher. My professor loved it.</p>
<p>Now where am I? Completely lost in the course. I have no idea what the lectures are about, and I'm in such a mess with regards the readings that I don't even know where to pick up. It's almost a farce, going to class. Thankfully the class isn't very discussion-based. Yet I'm still devoting time every day to reading some philosophy, usually the most basic and fundamental material for each of the big topics we cover. I read them slowly, and I continue to fall behind. But I'm not worried anymore. For future papers, I know I can continue to do what I did for my last one.</p>
<p>Does anyone else have an experience like mine? I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, except losing sight of the big picture, but I genuinely like picking at issues in detail. And I think my mind would rebel if I were forced to go at a pace unnatural to it. I wonder what my professor would think if he knew that I attempt barely 90% of the material, but compensate by giving the other 10% the in-depth treatment that he appears to like. Thoughts?</p>