POL SCI 20
World Politics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Required of all students concentrating in Field II. Introduction to problems of world politics. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
This class is really interesting and generally easy. I hardly read the book with the exception of the definitions outlined in the margins and did well on both the midterms and the final. You will write two papers for this class. The first one, where we picked a book out of YRL, read it, and wrote a report on it which addressed many of the topics discussed in class. I did well on this paper because I sort of planned it out as I was reading. The most daunting part of it, actually, was the 2500 word minimum requirement. The second paper was a lot more difficult because the prompt was so broad and unclear that I--and many other students, from what I could tell from the massive amounts of email that Anderson sent out--struggled to even start the paper, let alone fill up 8 pages. Professor Anderson is good at presenting sides of an argument that you may not have considered in order to force you to think. His exams are very fair, testing mainly broad concepts, but the wording tends to be the hard part. If you can access past exams somehow, do so!
This class is really interesting and generally easy. I hardly read the book with the exception of the definitions outlined in the margins and did well on both the midterms and the final. You will write two papers for this class. The first one, where we picked a book out of YRL, read it, and wrote a report on it which addressed many of the topics discussed in class. I did well on this paper because I sort of planned it out as I was reading. The most daunting part of it, actually, was the 2500 word minimum requirement. The second paper was a lot more difficult because the prompt was so broad and unclear that I--and many other students, from what I could tell from the massive amounts of email that Anderson sent out--struggled to even start the paper, let alone fill up 8 pages. Professor Anderson is good at presenting sides of an argument that you may not have considered in order to force you to think. His exams are very fair, testing mainly broad concepts, but the wording tends to be the hard part. If you can access past exams somehow, do so!
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Most Helpful Review
n addition to Poli Sci 20, I also took Global Studies 1 with Burgos in spring quarter. He is very clear about what is going to be on the final, to the point where he stamps his feet at critical points in the lecture and highlights important phrases on his powerpoint slides in red. However, it's your job to take his hints and study them.
n addition to Poli Sci 20, I also took Global Studies 1 with Burgos in spring quarter. He is very clear about what is going to be on the final, to the point where he stamps his feet at critical points in the lecture and highlights important phrases on his powerpoint slides in red. However, it's your job to take his hints and study them.
Most Helpful Review
This is the worst professor I have ever had. First of all, he is extremely conservative, and his entire class is based around the fact that he is conservative. The first thing he will tell you is that he is a "Republican, which means real American." And if he finds out that you are not conservative, he will give you lower grades because of it. Second of all, he has about 50 slides each class filled with text that he just reads off of during lecture. Thirdly, he lies about the facts in order to make Republican presidents, like Bush and Reagan, look better. Lastly, he is extremely rude to any students who ask him questions or visit him in his office hours. If you have any option at all, do not take this class.
This is the worst professor I have ever had. First of all, he is extremely conservative, and his entire class is based around the fact that he is conservative. The first thing he will tell you is that he is a "Republican, which means real American." And if he finds out that you are not conservative, he will give you lower grades because of it. Second of all, he has about 50 slides each class filled with text that he just reads off of during lecture. Thirdly, he lies about the facts in order to make Republican presidents, like Bush and Reagan, look better. Lastly, he is extremely rude to any students who ask him questions or visit him in his office hours. If you have any option at all, do not take this class.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2016 - Really, really, really strong accent that takes a long time to get used to. Not a standard Israeli accent, like, a strong one and he also yells in this high voice and sounds like a muppet. But actually not a super complex class, pay attention to slides (not super helpful to go to lecture) and you can get by.
Spring 2016 - Really, really, really strong accent that takes a long time to get used to. Not a standard Israeli accent, like, a strong one and he also yells in this high voice and sounds like a muppet. But actually not a super complex class, pay attention to slides (not super helpful to go to lecture) and you can get by.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - Professor Min is easily the best professor I have taken at UCLA. He was extremely clear in his lectures, which were accompanied by a slideshow, which he gave to the class with some of the terms and definitions blanked out to help us follow along. Most weeks (8 of 10) we had to do a CCLE-based quiz of about 15 questions covering the topics that we covered in class, with the quiz comprising 30% of our grade. There was no final, rather we had to submit a six-page essay on an important foreign policy issue, in Fall 2021 the essay examined where the US went wrong in Afghanistan. This essay was broken into a proposal due week 3 (5% of grade), a draft due week 8, and the actual essay (45% of grade) due on the Monday of week 9, which meant that there we had nothing to do during Finals week for this class. Participation in discussion sections counted for 20% of the grade. I had Merabi as my TA and he was very knowledgable on all of the subjects and very open to helping out if I had any questions or problems. Overall, if I could take this course again, I would not hesitate to and I would recommend taking it as a GE credit as you do not need to understand any complexities of political science that Professor Min does not cover.
Fall 2021 - Professor Min is easily the best professor I have taken at UCLA. He was extremely clear in his lectures, which were accompanied by a slideshow, which he gave to the class with some of the terms and definitions blanked out to help us follow along. Most weeks (8 of 10) we had to do a CCLE-based quiz of about 15 questions covering the topics that we covered in class, with the quiz comprising 30% of our grade. There was no final, rather we had to submit a six-page essay on an important foreign policy issue, in Fall 2021 the essay examined where the US went wrong in Afghanistan. This essay was broken into a proposal due week 3 (5% of grade), a draft due week 8, and the actual essay (45% of grade) due on the Monday of week 9, which meant that there we had nothing to do during Finals week for this class. Participation in discussion sections counted for 20% of the grade. I had Merabi as my TA and he was very knowledgable on all of the subjects and very open to helping out if I had any questions or problems. Overall, if I could take this course again, I would not hesitate to and I would recommend taking it as a GE credit as you do not need to understand any complexities of political science that Professor Min does not cover.
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