Virgo, INTJ.

I view MBTI as a little more legit than astrology but generally in the same ballpark. Still, it's fun and does seem to offer some insight into people's cognitive styles and behaviour.

Just noticed how old this thread is... sorry.

It really varies a lot depending on the class and the professor. In first and second year you do the readings and the prof talks a lot, because they're trying to introduce you to weighty topics that you haven't encountered before and it can be slow going. You learn through instruction, trial, and error how to write a proper philosophy paper and you probably learn the basics of formal logic.

In upper division courses the class size shrinks and there is a lot more discussion. Usually the prof does a bit of lecturing but most of the information you ingest comes from the assigned readings, and the prof just supplements in class, answers questions, or directs a discussion among the students.

Lots and lots of reading, lots of paper writing, and most classes will have a midterm or final exam as well. These can involve short answer questions or take the form of multiple in-class essays. Usually you get a lot of wiggle room on essay topics, and many professors will let you write your own topic if it is relevant and approved before submission.

In my experience, philosophy professors love what they do and it is not uncommon at all for the discussion to migrate from the classroom to the pub down the street. I learned more over pints of ale at the bar than I did in most of my lectures during second year.

Blade Runner and Contact come immediately to mind. Also Slaughterhouse Five, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Gods Must Be Crazy. Most of these are based off of books, I just noticed.

Philosophy is not a science, though science arguably falls under the general scope/umbrella of philosophy. Science is a tool, so to speak, which may be utilized towards broader philosophical ends and which operates within certain epistemological and metaphysical frameworks.

There aren't really any "rules" in philosophy per se. I am tempted to say that the laws of logic and rationality are what guide philosophy, but this is admittedly a somewhat eurocentric interpretation as western philosophy has a different position on this than eastern philosophy. Eastern philosophers are much less concerned about contradicting themselves than the analytic philosophers so many people are familiar with. Yet I would not exclude them from the realm of philosophy or the history of philosophic thought.

That doesn't mean philosophy is a free-for-all though. I think what is important is that individual schools of thought are internally consistent and contain some kind of cogent position on metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, etc. Otherwise I am not sure what their purpose would be.