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March 28, 2024, 11:41:51 pm

Author Topic: Your experiences with VCE Philosophy  (Read 5710 times)  Share 

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da_coolest1

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Your experiences with VCE Philosophy
« on: August 25, 2019, 11:50:36 am »
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Just like the title says.
1. Do you enjoy it?
2. What do you like about it?
3. What do you dislike about it?
4. Do you do distance ed for it? If so, how much work do you get done in your allocated periods for it?
5. How much do you study at home/study period a week?
6. What are exams and sacs like?
7. Favourite topic?
8. Worst topic?
9. Tips/Tricks?
10. What are your teachers like?
11. Do you discuss philosophy a lot? Does discussing it help you?
12. Why are you taking philosophy?
13. Are you doing well/Have you done well in it?

Just everything. Lay it on me.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2019, 12:06:42 pm by da_coolest1 »
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quec

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Re: Your experiences with VCE Philosophy
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2019, 05:24:32 pm »
+3
1. I love it.
2. I get challenged with my thinking and I get to think about and consider so many different aspects about reality and the fundamental things that surround me. Overall I really love the thinking aspect.
3. Some of the texts/philosophers are a bit boring. I don't particularly enjoy the ethics unit (Unit 4) but it's not too bad.
4. N/A.
5. I have about 4 hours of Philosophy class per week, and I do about 5-6ish hours at home for homework and study (I used to do more at the start of the year, but I needed to balance it with my other subjects).
6. Exams are really hard for Philosophy. You basically need to learn arguments, examples and implications for 10-11 Philosophers, and you don't know what they are going to ask about in the exam. It's a lot to revise for. In terms of SACs, this will really depend on your school, but mostly they will just be comprehension short answer questions, extended response questions and essays. The first two types test your knowledge, evaluative and comparative skills, whereas the essays test your understanding of the implications of the arguments and your own reasoning abilities.
7. Definitely Minds & Bodies (metaphysics). I really loved all the class debates about consciousness and the mind and I think the texts we had were really great. Epistemology is also great in my opinion.
8. Ethics. Obviously the most practical topic in philosophy but the texts we have this year are pretty boring.
9. Just study a lot. Use the textbook, make sure that you actually understand the arguments you are reading. Some people will make summaries but I think it's actually better to take brief notes and answer some of the comprehension questions from the textbook. Also try and highlight key premises and conclusions in the texts.
10. My teacher is amazing! He is always engaging with everyone in the class and does everything he can to help people understand. He is great at initiating debates (which in my opinion is the most central and important thing for VCE Philosophy). This style helps me understand the content so well.
11. Our class is very focused around debates and discussions and it definitely helps. I just can't see how you could enjoy philosophy if you didn't discuss the topics with your classmates/teacher/family/friends! When you have to explain a philosopher's argument to someone else, you will really be able to tell whether or not you actually understand it because if you are explaining it and it doesn't seem quite right then you probably haven't understood it well enough. Discussing it can also really help in identifying the weaknesses of other's arguments and that definitely helps.
12. I only found out about it at the end of year 10, not knowing at all what philosophy even was, I just thought it sounded pretty cool. Now, in year 12, I absolutely love it and I am taking it to help my reasoning skills and critical thinking skills. It helps in pretty much all of my other subjects as it is so analytical and focused around thinking about a range of different ideas, concepts and questions (ie. what is our mind made of? is there any grounds to believe that we are one person over a period of time? what is right? can morals be objective?).
13. I am doing very well in Philosophy because I love it so much and I feel like I engage with it really well. I could be doing better but my SAC average is still high (95ish). A lot of my good grades have come from just putting in the work and reading the texts, as well as actively participating in class discussions. Without the class discussions, lots of things would still be unclear to me and I would not be doing as well as I am.

Hope this was helpful, if you have any other questions then just message me and I'd be happy to try and answer them!

da_coolest1

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Re: Your experiences with VCE Philosophy
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2019, 10:55:09 pm »
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1. I love it.
2. I get challenged with my thinking and I get to think about and consider so many different aspects about reality and the fundamental things that surround me. Overall I really love the thinking aspect.
3. Some of the texts/philosophers are a bit boring. I don't particularly enjoy the ethics unit (Unit 4) but it's not too bad.
4. N/A.
5. I have about 4 hours of Philosophy class per week, and I do about 5-6ish hours at home for homework and study (I used to do more at the start of the year, but I needed to balance it with my other subjects).
6. Exams are really hard for Philosophy. You basically need to learn arguments, examples and implications for 10-11 Philosophers, and you don't know what they are going to ask about in the exam. It's a lot to revise for. In terms of SACs, this will really depend on your school, but mostly they will just be comprehension short answer questions, extended response questions and essays. The first two types test your knowledge, evaluative and comparative skills, whereas the essays test your understanding of the implications of the arguments and your own reasoning abilities.
7. Definitely Minds & Bodies (metaphysics). I really loved all the class debates about consciousness and the mind and I think the texts we had were really great. Epistemology is also great in my opinion.
8. Ethics. Obviously the most practical topic in philosophy but the texts we have this year are pretty boring.
9. Just study a lot. Use the textbook, make sure that you actually understand the arguments you are reading. Some people will make summaries but I think it's actually better to take brief notes and answer some of the comprehension questions from the textbook. Also try and highlight key premises and conclusions in the texts.
10. My teacher is amazing! He is always engaging with everyone in the class and does everything he can to help people understand. He is great at initiating debates (which in my opinion is the most central and important thing for VCE Philosophy). This style helps me understand the content so well.
11. Our class is very focused around debates and discussions and it definitely helps. I just can't see how you could enjoy philosophy if you didn't discuss the topics with your classmates/teacher/family/friends! When you have to explain a philosopher's argument to someone else, you will really be able to tell whether or not you actually understand it because if you are explaining it and it doesn't seem quite right then you probably haven't understood it well enough. Discussing it can also really help in identifying the weaknesses of other's arguments and that definitely helps.
12. I only found out about it at the end of year 10, not knowing at all what philosophy even was, I just thought it sounded pretty cool. Now, in year 12, I absolutely love it and I am taking it to help my reasoning skills and critical thinking skills. It helps in pretty much all of my other subjects as it is so analytical and focused around thinking about a range of different ideas, concepts and questions (ie. what is our mind made of? is there any grounds to believe that we are one person over a period of time? what is right? can morals be objective?).
13. I am doing very well in Philosophy because I love it so much and I feel like I engage with it really well. I could be doing better but my SAC average is still high (95ish). A lot of my good grades have come from just putting in the work and reading the texts, as well as actively participating in class discussions. Without the class discussions, lots of things would still be unclear to me and I would not be doing as well as I am.

Hope this was helpful, if you have any other questions then just message me and I'd be happy to try and answer them!

Thanks for replying. At the time of posting, I wanted to do VSV Philosophy but my careers counselor talked me out of it and I picked Legal instead. Now, I have a clash between Legal and Bio so Philosophy is still an option. I'm a little unsure about since there don't seem to be many people taking it but it sounds soooo interesting.
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2021: Chemistry | Biology | Indonesian SL | English | Australian/Global Politics

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quec

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Re: Your experiences with VCE Philosophy
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2019, 10:34:16 pm »
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Thanks for replying. At the time of posting, I wanted to do VSV Philosophy but my careers counselor talked me out of it and I picked Legal instead. Now, I have a clash between Legal and Bio so Philosophy is still an option. I'm a little unsure about since there don't seem to be many people taking it but it sounds soooo interesting.

Are you thinking of picking philosophy up as a 3/4? Because if so then I would probably advise against it. It is an amazing subject, don't get me wrong, but it is a LOT of work if you haven't done 1/2 or are not used to the style of thinking and analysing in philosophy. If you know what it entails (lots of reading, basically, as there are 10 different texts you will have to study throughout the year, as well as lots of thinking) then you should try it. However, a lot of VCE philosophy is most effectively learned through in person discussions and debates, so if you do it through VSV it could be tricky, especially if you haven't done 1/2. If you have your heart set on it, then by all means do it but try and find a group of philosophy students to discuss things with because a lot of the ideas that you study will be quite abstract and potentially hard to comprehend compared to content in other subjects. If you haven't done 1/2 though, and you haven't done any philosophy prior, then it might be a really hard subject to jump straight into.