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

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.

Professor Posner is one of the more disorganized professors within the PS department at UCLA. His lectures were all over the place, with no direction or direct focus on a subject, and me and other students would often be lost in his lectures. His tests were also extremely, tough, and both him and the TAs were no help whatsoever. He only passed me because he felt bad for failing my two exams, which I thought I actually did well in. Definitely do not recommend at ALL

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.

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

i've taken posner twice, and he is a very standard social science professor. pretty inaccessible and but gives very straightforward lectures, the readings are all case studies pertaining to the week's content. posner takes a pretty neoliberal stance in his approach to development and never really questions it, which I don't appreciate. exams are simple in my opinion, except the take home midterm which was a 6-8 page paper that we only had 48 hours to do!!! not a difficult class in general tho