O'Neill is a very nice professor. A lot of the readings were very interesting and I really enjoyed the content of the class. The discussion sections were a COMPLETE waste of time. I really don't understand why they are a part of his class. His tests are also pretty difficult M/C. I did terrible on both tests. There is also a paper. In the end, I think most people got A's. The tests were confusing. There were a lot of questions phrased like "In lecture, I said.." or with A,B,C,and D options that could each be correct. Overall , it was a very confusing class and hard to understand how well you were doing in the course until grades were finalized.

I personally took Pol Sci 30 with professor O'Neill before so I knew exactly what to expect and exactly how to do well in his course. For those who didn't, I'm sure they struggled because while professor O'Neill is without a doubt my favorite professor as a person, he can be a little scatterbrained about his slides (I get scatterbrained too so I get it) and it can be confusing. I recorded notes in lecture like it was a transcript and it honestly helped SO much but it was a lot to digest. I thought the content of the class was really very interesting, having come into it without knowing anything about arms control I feel like I learned a lot. Grading felt pretty lax as long as you met all requirements, but overall I enjoyed the course because I wasn't too worried about my grades!

An absolute legend of a man, Professor O'Neill is kind and engaging. Take him if you need a mildly-challenging poli sci course with a very strong chance of an A. Word of advice though is that the lecture and class structure is very disorganized so always clarify things with him in class or in office hours. He won't hesitate to change things around if students ask, so always ask if you questions.

IMPORTANT: The weekly quizzes are tough so take good notes during lecture and during the book since he asks super specific details.

If you have Arseniy as your TA you're golden cause he gives great feedback and is lenient on due dates. Above all, if you ever feel overwhelmed ask him to change/clarify/reduce the workload and he probably will do it. Don't wait until the last minute for the paper, clear your topic early, and you can find the book on libgen so don't bother buying it.

I really enjoyed taking this class with Professor O'Neil. I found him to be charismatic and funny during lectures. He's also been very accommodating about remote learning. He is also an easy grader. I really believe that he just wants everybody to learn something about the subject. He is loose on deadlines, which I think can be confusing for some students. Overall, I think his lectures are easy to follow and he genuinely cares about the students.

I completely agree with my fellow victims' reviews. This class is a total mess, as if the professor prepared almost nothing for each class. I could never understand how it could take over a month to grade 1-2 pages of assignment with two TAs - that can never be justified! Also I sent him quite a few emails, most of which had not been responded. In terms of contents, it was not really helpful, although it might have sounded a little bit interesting for nuclear nerds. Readings are endless and extremely boring, and the professor does not mention them a lot in class, so keep that in mind. After waiting for over three weeks to get my final grade (stupid!) all I could get was a B+, and all the wasted time for this unorganized course. Overall I regret taking this class and will DEFINITELY NOT recommend other poli sci majoring folks to take this sucking class. Avoid this class if possible. PERIOD.

Avoid this class at all costs. I am the third person just from this past quarter (Spring 2019) to post this but Barry is the definition of disorganized. The entire quarter was frustrating having to deal with such a disorganized and random lecture led by a professor who never really taught anything worthwhile other than speaking of old movies nobody knew about. The final grades have STILL not been released as of 7/5/2019 and it's been frustrating getting a lame excuse as to why. I'm not shocked however since he took over a month with every assignment he gave us, despite having 2 TA's and only 500-700 word assignments. I could go on about how this class was bad, the ignored emails from Barry during the quarter, the constant tardiness, the complete different topics discussed in our discussion sections which were irrelevant to the course.. etc. This class needs to be restructured ASAP.

This class was extremely disorganized and during lecture, he often jumped around the notes, skipping many. Both the midterm and final were extremely detail oriented, meaning you'd need to know specific things from the readings which was difficult seeing as there were hundreds of pages of them. He'd also ask questions from lectures about things he said specifically said. You don't know where you stand in the class until it ends, but even then its currently been 3 weeks since the final and we still do not have our grades. Overall he was a nice professor, but the amount of disorganization was not worth taking it.

Regret taking this class. While Professor O’Neill is nice, his class is very disorganized. You don’t know where you stand grass wise all quarter. He hasn’t even put Spring quarter grades out so my transcript currently says NR. It’s very frustrating.

I literally cannot give a more glowing review of a professor. the class is absolutely ridiculous, so confusing, the tests are really hard honestly because his lectures are all over the place and incredibly boring to the point where i actually don't understand how anyone stayed awake, so you don't know what to study really. and his reading guides suck. however, the writing assignments are all really easy, and even though the tests were super difficult he curves the class at the end so you really don't need to worry about any of this shit. i put in absolutely minimum effort. greatclass

Good professor.

Professor O'Neill is an interesting man, almost like a mad scientist with his wild hair and fashion style. His office clearly looks as if a bomb exploded in it. But he cares about what he teaches and about his students. He will jump over mountains to ensure you learn something. He has an unorthodox teaching style, which I appreciated. Some say he's disorganized but I say he is an organized mess.

Don't be intimated by the first few classes when he discusses mostly science terms because it is only a small percentage of the entire class grade, although, during the first few classes it is 99% science related.

Overall, he has great humor, willing to teach you, and if you read the assigned books and polish your papers then you should get an A.

Final grade: A+