Philosophy 2D03/Religious Studies 2C03 - MacInsiders - Student-run McMaster University Help Forum

ferreinm

Moral Issues was my favourite course. It had several theories that were applied to topics such as euthanasia, abortion and so on. It wasn't a very philosophical or religious course. It was mostly focused on medical ethics. Nevertheless, it was pretty interesting.

The professor I had wasn't necessarily bad. However, he read off of his slides and didn't seem very passionate about what he was teaching. He constantly reminded us that he was kind of forced into teaching it. Also, the class had about 500-600 students which is rather hectic for a PHD student. Students easily sensed that he wasn't really interested in what he taught and eventually many stopped attending lecture.

The topics were interesting. However, I forced myself to enjoy the material. I read notes and made twisted the way I processed the information to make it more enjoyable since my professor dried it out.

The course is easy to understand. It isn't complicated. However, readings need to be kept on top of and I recommend that you talk to your TAs to receive some guidance. The course consisted of graded tutorials, two essays and an exam. The exam was heavily content driven and the questions were supplied. However, we were given about 30 questions and only 3 were on the exam. A lot of studying was done and notes were made.

I fell in love with feminist bioethics in this course. I like doing research about the oppressed and medical ethics. However, if you aren't interested in that sort of thing I don't recommend this course for you.

dacrown4life · 09-06-2008 at 01:20 PM

i took this course in the summer, so we had no tutorial, this course ended up being boring later on. i got bored after learning about all the theorists out there. it is also an easy based course. so if you are not a good easy writter like me, then i dont recommend taking this course!!

overall, its kinda interesting especially if you will be going into the medical field

jhan523 · 06-03-2009 at 07:00 PM

Does the exam also consist of an essay?

gladmam · 06-16-2009 at 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dacrown4life

it is also an easy based course. so if you are not a good easy writter like me, then i dont recommend taking this course!!

was that line a joke??

it was kind of like the old 'I write really good'

jhan523 · 06-16-2009 at 11:26 AM

Could have been typos, double tapped "t". Also the "s" is pretty close to "a". Plus, it's a gazillion times better than what I've seen from some people.

missmatch · 06-24-2009 at 11:05 PM

Would you recommend this course as an elective for a student with a Bio/Psych course-ridden schedule?

feonateresa · 06-28-2009 at 08:28 PM

I was kind of hoping I could avoid essays this year, but this course sounds interesting. I don't hate essays, they're just... time-consuming and annoying especially if the topic is not interesting. Plus it's really subjective when it comes to grading.

Who was the professor, and are they still teaching it? And what did you do in tutorials?

maryam17 · 12-22-2009 at 11:41 PM

honestly, i took this course because i heard it would be pretty easy...and i want to go into medicine...but it was really difficult and very philosophical..if you take it be ready for a lottttt of debating in tutorial and even in class...the topics are pretty interesting but the fact that they were related to various philosophical theories and articles it just bored me! Wish I never took this course, it brought down my average (im not used to writing essays!) But if you write essays well...this would probably be easy for you.

Mahratta · 06-16-2010 at 11:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gladmam

was that line a joke??

it was kind of like the old 'I write really good'

Maybe the 'like me' bit was meant to indicate that they aren't a good essay writer, instead of indicating that they are a good essay writer - something like "if you're like me and aren't a good essay-writer".

This seems more plausible, since the ambiguity in the sentence brings up questions about the poster's mastery of English syntax

Pokey2 · 04-19-2011 at 05:29 PM

Can someone please tell me how this course can be considered a religious studies course?! I selected this course as an elective hoping it was a religion based course for kind of a lighter load, but i was sadly mistaken. Found this class more philosophy based (which I hated) and the numerous theories applied to similar examples bored me to death. The Prof (Rodde) was very good as he was enthusiastic and funny. However, I could simply not enjoy this course for the life of me. I dreaded doing assignments for this class...Had i known what it was like I would definately not have taken this course :(

mannp6 · 09-13-2011 at 11:12 AM

yeah this course seems really easy but i never took it before

bhatoai · 12-18-2011 at 09:16 PM

Does anyone remember the format of the exam, how many options were given for the different sections! THANKS!
CAN YOU PLEASE REPLY TONIGHT.

sarahbenji · 09-10-2012 at 05:57 PM

Out of curiousity, how mandatory were the recommended text books?
Despise those classes where you buy them, and never open them.

bhatoai · 09-11-2012 at 09:42 AM

I used the well and good a lot because the theories were explained in detail. however, the other one I never touched.

sbaker · 01-07-2013 at 09:51 AM

This course was pretty good. Rodde is an excellent lecturer, although he wanted to lower our marks on the case study and essay. Exam is reasonable, as you are given all possible questions well in advance. Tutorials were supposed to be about discussing controversial issues using ethical theories, however mine was just the TA lecturing us. That's probably just my TA though.