Professor
Anthony Pagden
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Most Helpful Review
He is a extremely nice professor and seems like he really cares. This quarter the class met twice a week scheduled for 2 hours however he only keeps us for the first 50 minutes and the rest of the time is to ask questions if you need to. he has changed his style and it's not papers anymore but an in class midterm and final. he has slides which he puts his quotes on and he lectures for 50 minutes on the readings. The test was 5 passages (all quotes he went over in lecture and thats all you have to memorize are the quotes from lecture) we had to identify the writer and the name of the work and write a coherent paragraph or two about the passage and its relevance. He is a very nice and all around great professor i would recommend him to a friend for sure. Theres technically quite a bit of reading, however i didnt read the majority but paid attention and recorded his lectures and got an A on the midterm with a few hours of review.
He is a extremely nice professor and seems like he really cares. This quarter the class met twice a week scheduled for 2 hours however he only keeps us for the first 50 minutes and the rest of the time is to ask questions if you need to. he has changed his style and it's not papers anymore but an in class midterm and final. he has slides which he puts his quotes on and he lectures for 50 minutes on the readings. The test was 5 passages (all quotes he went over in lecture and thats all you have to memorize are the quotes from lecture) we had to identify the writer and the name of the work and write a coherent paragraph or two about the passage and its relevance. He is a very nice and all around great professor i would recommend him to a friend for sure. Theres technically quite a bit of reading, however i didnt read the majority but paid attention and recorded his lectures and got an A on the midterm with a few hours of review.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - Your grade in this class depends on your TA since they're the ones who grade your papers, and you get all your participation points from their discussions (which are mandatory). Professor Pagden is nice and he explains his slides well. There are two assignments - a midterm and a final essay, and their formats are pretty much the same. There is no textbook and the reading materials are given as PDFs.
Spring 2022 - Your grade in this class depends on your TA since they're the ones who grade your papers, and you get all your participation points from their discussions (which are mandatory). Professor Pagden is nice and he explains his slides well. There are two assignments - a midterm and a final essay, and their formats are pretty much the same. There is no textbook and the reading materials are given as PDFs.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2016 - I really liked this class. It was more of a political theory class than an international relations class, so if you hate philosophy, I wouldn’t recommend this class. Professor Pagden is a great lecturer and is really awesome to talk with in office hours (especially about Vitoria and all of his crazy ideas). He’s pretty cool and definitely happy to chat with you. I recommend downloading the slides he puts on the class website and then typing what he says at the bottom where it says, “notes,” because you won’t have enough time to type (let alone write) everything that is on the slides because he usually includes long quotes. Even though he uploads the slides, you do really need to go to class because he expands on the concepts a lot and sometimes the theorists' ideas. I thought the professor did an excellent job at explaining the material and helping students to differentiate between the theorists' views. He pretty much gives you the info to write on the exams. In addition, I felt the exams actually tested how well we understood the material and challenged our critical thinking skills; they were not tests of mere memorization (but a little).
Fall 2016 - I really liked this class. It was more of a political theory class than an international relations class, so if you hate philosophy, I wouldn’t recommend this class. Professor Pagden is a great lecturer and is really awesome to talk with in office hours (especially about Vitoria and all of his crazy ideas). He’s pretty cool and definitely happy to chat with you. I recommend downloading the slides he puts on the class website and then typing what he says at the bottom where it says, “notes,” because you won’t have enough time to type (let alone write) everything that is on the slides because he usually includes long quotes. Even though he uploads the slides, you do really need to go to class because he expands on the concepts a lot and sometimes the theorists' ideas. I thought the professor did an excellent job at explaining the material and helping students to differentiate between the theorists' views. He pretty much gives you the info to write on the exams. In addition, I felt the exams actually tested how well we understood the material and challenged our critical thinking skills; they were not tests of mere memorization (but a little).
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Most Helpful Review
Professor Pagden is absolutely brilliant! I had initial qualms about taking this class, and sitting through the first lecture did not really help at all because he is so smart and talks a little too fast sometimes, that it just seems like his mind is all over the place! But I'm glad that I decided to stick with this class-it was very interesting. The class is graded according to 2 papers- and he gives you several prompts for each paper topic that it's just very hard not to get an A in this class. Just pick one that suits you best! I think that one of the ngatives of this course was the reading-it was a little difficult to understand. However, Professor Pagden does go through the important points during lecture, so I would recommend going to lecture so you know what to write your paper on... he also doesn't post the lecture slides online either, so bring a laptop to class and take good notes!! But overall, wonderful professor. Now that I graduated from UCLA with a polisci degree, I can look back and say that he is one of the most knowledgeble and best professors I had here in my four years.
Professor Pagden is absolutely brilliant! I had initial qualms about taking this class, and sitting through the first lecture did not really help at all because he is so smart and talks a little too fast sometimes, that it just seems like his mind is all over the place! But I'm glad that I decided to stick with this class-it was very interesting. The class is graded according to 2 papers- and he gives you several prompts for each paper topic that it's just very hard not to get an A in this class. Just pick one that suits you best! I think that one of the ngatives of this course was the reading-it was a little difficult to understand. However, Professor Pagden does go through the important points during lecture, so I would recommend going to lecture so you know what to write your paper on... he also doesn't post the lecture slides online either, so bring a laptop to class and take good notes!! But overall, wonderful professor. Now that I graduated from UCLA with a polisci degree, I can look back and say that he is one of the most knowledgeble and best professors I had here in my four years.
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