I would agree with the other review that Posner is a pretty standard professor for the social sciences, but I wouldn't say that is a bad thing. His lectures are clear and organized. My advice would be to definitely take notes on what he is saying as his slides are mostly just supplementary. The workload was not overwhelming. I would make an effort to stay on top of the readings as that makes the essay work much easier. Definitely take this class! I learned a lot.

I felt like professor posner was really engaging with his lectures but my only qualm with this class is the variability in TA harshness. If you have a lenient TA who is willing to hear your arguments out and actually allows participation, you will likely do well. If that is not the case, you might be unfairly penalized and not get a grade that reflects your understanding of the material.

tldr: the TA matters A LOT

Dont take this class if you are looking for an easy polsci class. The only plus about this class is that there are no homework assignments but honestly they would have been helpful to manage your grade. Posner writes nothing on his slides and assigns too many readings. If you do not pay attention to every detail of the lecture, you won't have any way of learning it because he doesn't post recordings either. Both him and the TAs grade exams way too hard and expect you to be an expert and on point about everything that is taught. If you have Meghan Cox as Ta, she will grade way too harshly. The content was interesting but there was little leeway to improve anything in this class.

If you want to do good in this class you need to go to the lectures, because that stuff is all over the tests and essays that he wants from you.

Professor spews the most neoliberal, pro-capitalist, pro-colonial approach to international development that I have ever heard. TA Daniel Carnahan was really self absorbed and graded way harder than the other TAs- if you have him switch out.

Posner lectures really well and his explanations make even the more complex readings very digestible (highly recommend going to lecture first before doing the readings for this reason). There were no required textbooks which was really nice. All readings are posted and there's a decent amount some weeks, but it's never unmanageable.

I thought that the exams were really fair. The midterm was a take-home essay answering a prompt which asks you to draw on material from throughout the course. The other portion was just answering a few ID terms in class, and all potential ID terms are given ahead of time. The final was similar, except it was all in class and there was an additional portion of FRQs.

I was a little concerned going into this class because I had Jacques as my TA and saw the negative reviews about him from previous quarters, but Jacques was a great TA this quarter! He had us work together during discussions to identify key points of readings, help each other with ID terms before exams, and he'd give us exam pointers as well as detailed explanations about more difficult concepts.

Overall highly recommend this class - workload and exams are reasonable and the material itself is super interesting.

I wasn't initially sure I would like the class because I was not the most interested in the subject, but Posner does a great job of breaking extremely complex subject matters down to make them understandable. The grade consisted of a midterm (half of it was term ID's, the other half was a take-home essay, it was worth 1/2 of the final grade), a final (35% of grade, all in person), and discussion participation (15%). The tests were intimidating initially but as long as you study the terms he gives you ahead of time, they should be a breeze.

This class was okay at best. Prof. Posner caught COVID and the class was administered on ZOOM. As my fellow peers have stated, the TA you end up with matters, as they are the ones who will grade your midterm and final exam. My advice for you: Avoid TA Jacques Courbe at all costs. He graded us quite harshly in comparison to other TAs. On top of that, he was clearly unprepared for much of the discussion sections. It is ironic that he expected us, the students, to be on top of the weekly readings, yet he himself clearly wasn't. He literally BS'd the summary of many readings during sections -- so much for quality education. Jacques, if you are reading this, DO BETTER. We the students can sense whenever you BS, too, just sayin'.

Course is broken down into 2 midterms (1. written 2. take home essay). The written midterm requires the ability to recite course material on demand. Final for this quarter was a take home essay- due to covid. Overall, very manageable as long as you give yourself the time to memorize the content.

Posner is an extremely passionate professors who often refers to his own projects when speaking about the subject matter of the course. I learned so much in this course and found the content to be very valuable. Content includes: structures of governance in development, function of diff financial institutions, sociological barriers to development, implications of foreign aid, etc.

Loved the class, I would recommend to any IR major who is interested in international development. Posner got a little choked up on the last day of lecture while telling us that he hopes we change the world. 5 out 5 in my book

Two midterms - exam & take home paper (25% each), final exam - but due to Covid it was a take home final (35%). and discussion (15%). My TA did not assign any class work, but graded based on attendance & participation. Professor Posner is an engaging lecturer and the material is easy to digest, he does include a lot of graphs and data in his slides. Posner does hand out study guides prior to each midterm and final. Originally, he did not record lectures, just posted slides, but once he got Covid himself and Covid cases increased, he finally made that decision to record and post it on Bruin Learn. Overall, if you put the work into studying for the exams and attend discussion, it's easy to get a good grade.