If any Political Science majors, or anyone for that matter, is planning to take PS 6 with Professor Hazlett-- I highly advise against it. I was directed to take this class as to fulfill my statistics requirement for political science as I was told it would be easy and painless; however, upon reading the syllabus of the class I could see that was far from the case. Professor Hazlett is a firm believer in group work and the incorporation of the coding language R to understand and work through material in the class. The presentation of coding seemed daunting, but Professor Hazlett assured in the syllabus that even for the most non-experienced of the bunch, the coding aspect would not be difficult. Nevertheless, this description was ultimately deceitful and flat out incorrect. The immense amount of information that is thrown at you within the first couple days is not customary of an introductory, lower division course; and unfortunately, if you can not find your rhythm in coding with in the first few days you are going to struggle throughout the entirety of the class. The group work that predominates the course also makes the material difficult to learn, despite Professor Hazlett's group philosophy. The largest problem with this class however is not the material, but rather the complete incompetence of both the professor and the TAs. Many assignments were posted late leaving little time to do them, grades are rarely given back in order for students to know what to study, there is little time to complete assignments even when the work is divided within the group, and finally there is a complete lack of competent communication between student and teacher. I acknowledge Professor Hazlett's and the TAs flaws as it was their first time teaching this course in this fashion, but even so I highly advise against this class for anyone looking to fulfill a statistic class requirement, especially if one is not keen on group work or learning how to code.

If you are planning to take Political Science 6 with Chad Hazelett you should be prepared for a bumpy ride. The class is billed as a intro to data analysis for political science majors but the class has elements that incorporate aspects of computer science, and coding. For the class you are required to learn R as that is the main program for which you analyze and transform data. For most north campus majors, learning how to code is like a starting to learn a new langague which you can only learn by practice. However Professor Hazelett only gives you two and a half class days to really get acquainted with R, and most of the learning is done by readings and solo/ group work. Professor Hazelett does not really lecture, believing that it is better for students to learn by active learning and groups. This means that if you are expecting lecture to clear up any questions about the R readings which you need to complete before class you are going to be disappointed. It is very easy to get lost by the second day of class because of how confusing it is to learn R plus the weird format the class is structured. In addition, starting with week two, you are placed in groups, and if you have peers that are lazy or equally lost in the course, you will get a poor grade. Overall Hazelett seems like a nice guy, and the TAs seem to try their best, but the class requires students to basically master R by midway Week 2, is absurd. The later parts of the class are more or less like a statistics class but if you don’t understand R you will not get a good grade. If you are expecting an easy class for your math/ stats requirement you should take Stats 10 , because this class expects you to becoming a competent coding student, even though most of its students are social sciences/ humanities majors.