<p>I am currently taking this course now, and I am struggling :( Any tips on how to ace this course? Should I just take it with Pass/Fail? I'm just a freshman.........</p>
<p>If anyone can also comment on Los Angeles and the American Dream, that would be nice. So far there has been a lot of reading on some pretty difficult texts…</p>
<p>I took Phil-137 last semester. How can you be struggling in the first two days? What exactly do you have problems with?</p>
<p>^There seems to be too much reading. Because the professor has been discussing about Plato’s Republic (Book I II III IV etc)these two days (and next week). I really cannot finish reading the books in a short period of time. (I really have no idea what he is talking about in class.)</p>
<p>Have you actually been assigned any reading? Or are you just overreacting? Because I definitely did not do that much reading in that class.</p>
<p>yea I have actually been assigned lots of reading…</p>
<p>Got any specifics?</p>
<p>Plato’s Republic, Aristotle, The Feudal Era, Second Treatise of Government, Treatise of Human Nature, etc…although we aren’t required to read the whole thing, there is still quite a lot of chapters selected in each book by the professor.</p>
<p>Look, it’s a GE class. It’s not designed to be hard for anybody to pass. Just do the assigned work and pay attention in lecture. You probably don’t need to do most of the readings, just make sure you know what they talk about, and perhaps read some of the more important sections. And then review before the tests. That’s it.</p>
<p>So I don’t really have to read most of them? Is Sparknotes good enough? 
There is really no way that I can finish all the reading (I’m really not a fast reader…I’m a slow reader…especially when I have to read something that I don’t usually like to read.)</p>
<p>one of the most important things you’ll learn in college is how to study efficiently. and yes, it does involve cutting some corners sometimes…</p>
<p>to be honest for most of my humanities-based GE requirements i read maybe half of the so-called “required” amount. actually half might be a generous estimate lol. the important things were that i read all the material that was covered on my discussion quizzes, prepped well for my oral presentation in discussion, and read enough to be able to write good in-class essays for my midterms.</p>
<p>Agreed on the studying efficiently part… I read probably less than 10 pages of each of my 6 required books for a GE category 2 class before discussion, but was still able to pick up on what the story was during discussion and contribute (participation was required to get points in discussion). Papers were based on one book each time, so only then would I read the whole text. Tests were based on lectures. My friend actually read the books, spending countless hours reading… and we ended up with the same grade!</p>
<p>Good tips guys, any more?</p>
<p>What grade did you get from your classes? I am actually aiming for at least a B+…
Does it even sound possible? :(</p>
<p>yea just adding my name to the chorus that says you don’t have to ready all the assigned reading. get a sense of the the prof and what they find important and what you will be quizzed/tested on. all told in college in probably did 20% of the assigned reading and that’s probably generous.</p>
<p>From my GE category 2 class, I got a B+. From my GE cat 6 class, I got an A- from only reading the summary snippet before the stories.</p>
<p>i got an A in CLAS-320 (Cat I), B+ in EALC-342 (Cat II), B+ in CHEM-201 (Cat IV), A in ARLT-100 (Cat V) and an A in IR-100 (social issues)</p>
<p>some of these classes i almost never touched the readings lol</p>