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Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Applied Mathematics and Physics, Dolgoprudny, 2008-2018
I came across philosophy three times at the university. The first was an elective humanities course in the first semester, where I chose a Nietzsche course (you can choose a non-philosophy course). This is a six-month course of one pair per week, each week one key idea from Nietzsche's philosophy was analyzed + analysis of Nietzsche's biography, some excursion into classical philosophy, important for understanding Nietzsche, and Russian philosophy of the early 20th century in its reliance on Nietzsche. She was taught by a Doctor of Science, a part-time student from RSUH, a specialist in the history of Russian philosophy. She was lively and interesting. Since then, I have become intensely interested in philosophy.
For the second time, philosophy was taught to us for three semesters in 4-5 courses. Here everything depended on the faculty, each had its own teacher. Someone got a very respected, but very ideologized researcher, someone is a lively and interesting self-taught person, someone is just a serious teacher, and we got a candidate of cultural studies, from whom we learned a lot of interesting stories from the lives of certain philosophers, a presentation of their philosophy in its understanding (to which I had questions almost every lesson) and a lot of emphasis on what we need when passing the philosophy exam for admission to graduate school. I wanted something more serious, so I wasn't particularly happy, but many people liked this teacher, and people got some clear pictures of philosophers.
The third time I was taught philosophy was in graduate school, it was a one-year course in the history and philosophy of science. There were separate lectures with a lecturer to choose from, separate seminars with a seminarian, whichever one came across. Among the lecturers there is a large selection of serious philosophers of science, doctors of science, many of whom came out of science themselves, plus one lecturer with an emphasis on the sociology of science and one “academic” who graduated from the Moscow State University of Philosophy. I chose someone with a focus on sociology, and I learned a lot of interesting things from him. Our seminars were taught by a Soviet-trained teacher, who, in my opinion, was more foggy, so that the minds of young scientists would be a little shell-shocked, although for my taste there was little actual philosophy and a lot of imaginary difficulties associated with incorrect presentation.
The third time with a dash was a short period of time when I tried to resemble an experimental philosophy course in English taught by an American Marxist. Heh.
As a result, quite a large number of MIPT graduates relate to philosophy, if not with understanding, then with respect.
Tver State University, 2000s, Department of Psychology. I was read by a nice woman and understood the concepts, but I was not very interested, because I was familiar with most of the concepts, and they were clear to me. Once, at a lecture on solipsism, she gave a literary fragment, and I mentioned “oh, this is from Iyon the Quiet”, she asked in amazement “Do you read Lem??”I said yes, this is one of my favorite writers. And that's all, since then I was on a special account, I was not particularly asked, and the exam was held in a very light format.
Actually, the course was well read, but for the most part I was already familiar with everything and not interested. Indeed, it turned out that Pan Stanislav introduced me to most of the concepts in my youth, and the Strugatsky brothers added them in the social and moral format.
Moscow, time of study 91-96. Specialty-computer systems, complexes and networks. State Technical University. Philosophy now I don't remember was in the first two or three courses. It was read by a variety of constantly changing people, from a reserve political instructor to a bruised liberal from Soviet-era dissidents. With rare exceptions, we read with the understanding that it is not necessary for students or teachers. All credits were awarded automatically. All exams consist of a few formal questions. Regardless of the answers to them, the maximum score was given from those that were already in the test for this session. Something like this 🙂
At first, philosophy was in the 2nd year (I graduated from the Faculty of Philology, Dnepropetrovsk National University), since then my interest in this science has not faded. Although it's a shame that the seminars didn't often have discussions, but this is certainly the fault of the students, since not everyone is interested, and it's much easier to read the text printed from Wikipedia than to use your brain. A young graduate student who led seminars sometimes threw up questions for reflection, but the women's team did not have enough flexibility of mind not to lower the answers to the level of pseudo-philosophical publics. Last year (4th year) I attended lectures by Sergey Viktorovich Shevtsov as a free listener, and I want to say that if such teachers taught a course of philosophy at everyone, the opinion about this discipline as something abstract, bookish and tedious would change. Professor Shevtsov has the charisma, the necessary amount of acting skills, knowledge and interest in his subject to turn 90 minutes of lectures into a performance. The guys from our university were shooting his lectures, but unfortunately they haven't reached the network yet.
Jurisprudence, Vladivostok. At the lectures, the teacher used slide presentations, from which we copied information, and she commented on it in parallel, but the lectures were streamed, it was noisy and most of them were clearly not up to it, so almost nothing was heard (although she tried to attract attention and convey something, but still not particularly visible). In general, the presentations were quite detailed and interesting, with a sufficient number of references to the main works of philosophers, with graphic material and some explanations.�
As for seminars, we received a list of topics/questions to discuss for each philosopher we studied, or we were sent an article or an excerpt from the author's work, which we would comment on, for example, “Kant's categorical imperative” or Merab Mamardashvili “HOW I UNDERSTAND PHILOSOPHY”, but no one practically prepared, it all came down to asking a question, looking for an answer from a lecture or article, reading it out and just starting to pour water, many people generally said the exact opposite of what was written, starting almost to give their thoughts about everything, instead of analyzing by the author, the teacher at the same time seemed to be in the clouds, or just nodded approvingly, listening to such completely standard things from everyone like “a person strives to know himself and his being, we must be kind, we must develop”, in general, for many philosophy never became a science and a serious subject, but remained at the level of a philistine conversation in the kitchen about the eternal.�
No discussions, no heated discussions, no fresh and new thoughts, everything is within the framework of the usual and empty chatter-in general, nothing.
Kyiv National Linguistic University, Faculty of German Philology.
Philosophy, as a subject, was, but in fact – only zilch. This subject was taught by an absolutely incompetent Ms. N, associate professor, for a moment, and her favorite saying was “Being is everything” (from the Ukrainian “Butty-tse is everything”).
The seminars were conducted by her. It was terribly boring, it was quite normal to answer on Wikipedia, and I didn't expect anything more from you. Accordingly, the development of critical thinking is zero.
Yes, there was little time for non-core subjects, and perhaps even less desire, since, in fact, if I started spilling out all my thoughts about the philosophy of Kant or Hegel, no one would care. But to the question ” What is being?” you need to answer it, because it is number 3 in the seminar plan. And we already know how to respond.
In addition, I would like to note that the lectures, as well as the seminars, were conducted in a language completely incomprehensible to the untrained student. The associate professor lavished on the terms “transcendental”, “extrapolation” , etc., without explaining them in a way that made it clear. Accordingly, a parade of parrots triumphed at the seminars, which echoed all the same concepts, without understanding them absolutely.
In general, the philosophy course at the university did not give anything, alas.
Historical and Archival Studies, Minsk. There were several groups at the lectures, but the teacher always knew how to calm everyone down. There were no presentations or any other auxiliary tools. For the most part, the teacher did not interact with the audience in any way, although sometimes he tried to squeeze at least something out of the students. He presented the material dryly, on some topics in general it seemed that he himself was not interested in the subject, on others he diverged so that “hold me seven”. I was not able to interest you, if before the lectures there was also some desire to start studying philosophy, then after that, the desire passed. Seminars were turned away altogether. And, unfortunately, I'm not the only one.
Seminars. It's a different story. There is no technical equipment. We were given questions to prepare, and usually we distributed them among the people in the group. The list of references was not included.
I listened to the answer in silence, rarely when the teacher commented on it (if they were already completely delusional), I just gave a grade. The times when she was angry, they always wrote tests on a given topic.
And, well, yes, we also listened to lectures on the topic “what incompetents you all are, but in my time..”