POL SCI 179
Special Topics in Methods and Models
Description: Lecture, three or four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Requisite: course 30. Designed for juniors/seniors. Intensive examination of one or more special problems related to methods and models in political science. Sections offered on regular basis, with topics announced in preceding term. May be repeated for credit with topic change. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - I took a pilot class like this in 2021 for POL SCI 50 that was basically the same as this one. Lots of R coding and R Markdown and statistics. Good class to introduce these topics but if you don't know R already like I did you're going to have a tough time learning it. The sections are useful for trying to learn more but you really can't rely on just them you'll need to self-study.
Spring 2022 - I took a pilot class like this in 2021 for POL SCI 50 that was basically the same as this one. Lots of R coding and R Markdown and statistics. Good class to introduce these topics but if you don't know R already like I did you're going to have a tough time learning it. The sections are useful for trying to learn more but you really can't rely on just them you'll need to self-study.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - I really enjoyed this course and it was really great first-hand experience on conducting group research. In the first half of the course, you're working with your group to write a research proposal. Once the class votes on which proposal to use for their papers, the professor sends it to the IRB and they find people to take the survey. During the second half of the course, once the survey results come in, the professor and TAs taught everyone how to use R Studio (which can be difficult, but don't worry, the TAs are really helpful and smart!) so we could use that data for our group paper. Applying the data to our paper was really fun and we were able to draw a ton of conclusions from it since there was so much! Like any group project, there's a risk of being put into a bad group and having to do more work than others, but you get to grade your other group members at the end of the course and your feedback is factored into their grades so just make sure the assignments are done well and you'll do fine. Overall, I enjoyed this course and I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in research on racial and ethnic politics.
Fall 2019 - I really enjoyed this course and it was really great first-hand experience on conducting group research. In the first half of the course, you're working with your group to write a research proposal. Once the class votes on which proposal to use for their papers, the professor sends it to the IRB and they find people to take the survey. During the second half of the course, once the survey results come in, the professor and TAs taught everyone how to use R Studio (which can be difficult, but don't worry, the TAs are really helpful and smart!) so we could use that data for our group paper. Applying the data to our paper was really fun and we were able to draw a ton of conclusions from it since there was so much! Like any group project, there's a risk of being put into a bad group and having to do more work than others, but you get to grade your other group members at the end of the course and your feedback is factored into their grades so just make sure the assignments are done well and you'll do fine. Overall, I enjoyed this course and I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in research on racial and ethnic politics.
Most Helpful Review
I took M180A with him and I loved it. The readings were really interesting and lectures were always interesting. Sawyer pushes boundaries when he talks about touchy topics, but in a good way. He says things I think most people would be too afraid to admit and his honestly and bluntness is great. Lectures weren't completely necessary to do well in the class. As long as you did the readings and engaged in discussion, you should do fine. The whole class is only based on a multiple choice midterm, final paper, and discussion. The midterm was soooo easy because he provided a short study guide on a couple key terms he would test us on. He also provided 3 extra credit questions as well. You had to be really stupid to have gotten anything less than a B on it. The final paper is only 10 pages and you get to analyze any website of your choice from the list he provides and relate it to the course topics. It was really fun to write a paper on whichever topic you please and whichever topic intrigued you. I did mine on Black Feminism because it was something I was really interested in. Discussion was what you made of it. I had Arash and he gave us some interesting discussion questions a couple days before discussion. That way, you prepared well and knew exactly what we were going to talk about and I think discussion flowed a lot smoother because of it. People had more time to think about what they were going to say. Overall, I highly recommend this class for someone who wants something both interesting and a little slower paced.
I took M180A with him and I loved it. The readings were really interesting and lectures were always interesting. Sawyer pushes boundaries when he talks about touchy topics, but in a good way. He says things I think most people would be too afraid to admit and his honestly and bluntness is great. Lectures weren't completely necessary to do well in the class. As long as you did the readings and engaged in discussion, you should do fine. The whole class is only based on a multiple choice midterm, final paper, and discussion. The midterm was soooo easy because he provided a short study guide on a couple key terms he would test us on. He also provided 3 extra credit questions as well. You had to be really stupid to have gotten anything less than a B on it. The final paper is only 10 pages and you get to analyze any website of your choice from the list he provides and relate it to the course topics. It was really fun to write a paper on whichever topic you please and whichever topic intrigued you. I did mine on Black Feminism because it was something I was really interested in. Discussion was what you made of it. I had Arash and he gave us some interesting discussion questions a couple days before discussion. That way, you prepared well and knew exactly what we were going to talk about and I think discussion flowed a lot smoother because of it. People had more time to think about what they were going to say. Overall, I highly recommend this class for someone who wants something both interesting and a little slower paced.
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