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.

I received an A+ in this class. I am selling my 130 pages typed-up notes for this class (all lectures + discussions) for only $15. They can be shared right away. Email me at ************* if interested.

Professor Min is one of if not the best professor that I have had during my time at UCLA. His lectures were extremely clear. He provided detailed breakdowns for concepts and theories—allowing us to contextualise each of them with a relevant real-life application of them—and even blanked out certain key terms and sentences from the powerpoint PDF for lectures that he made available prior to classes to allow us to fill in the blanks as we went along. The concepts we learned were genuinely interesting and I’ve already found myself applying some of the topics related to bargaining and negotiation in daily life. We were assigned weekly, open-book quizzes once a week which very well-designed and easy. Discussions were enjoyable and gave us further opportunities to apply what we learned to real-life situations. The ‘final’ for this class is a 5-6 page long analysis paper on a significant world issue related to the concepts we studied. Last year, it was a paper on the Iranian nuclear issue and this year it was about the most effective ways for the U.S. to handle North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. The paper was not a cake-walk by any means, but if you have passable research skills and understood content well enough, you will do very well. I haven’t heard of anyone who got below a B+ on it. Grade breakdown: Quizzes 45%, Paper 40%, Participation in section 15%. Overall amazing G.E that I would recommend to anyone regardless of major.

The key to an A in this class is to 1) do well on the paper 2) collect good notes/memorize the content from the posted slides and bring this knowledge to the midterm and final. You do NOT need to read the textbook in order to do well (though some may find it helpful. In my opinion, though, it was way too much reading to do [~100 pages per week] and I was fine without it).

Professor Min is a great lecturer and I will miss being in his class! I'm a poli sci major but I would recommend this class to anyone interested in learning how states interact with each other and applying theories to trends we see in the world today - super interesting stuff!

I loved this class and I highly recommend it. Min was very clear during lecture and very helpful before and after class as well as during office hours. Reading the textbook is not necessary, as it basically just regurgitates his lecture, but it was helpful in my opinion. The assessments are multiple choice and easy enough if you study. The discussions and practice midterms and finals were also very helpful. This class gave me an appreciation for and interest in world politics and more awareness about politics in the world outside the US.

---Lecture: Min is the one of the best lecturers I have had so far. He makes the lectures extremely engaging and tries his best to incorporate entertaining elements. The information is presented very clearly, and his slides are a sufficient replacement for the textbook.
---Discussion: Sections do not provide much new information, but they do clarify certain concepts and provide examples of situations that are useful to bring up during exams.
---Paper: Min gave an interesting topic for the paper, and I had fun researching for it. The deadlines are reasonable, and the TAs offer good advice throughout the process.
---Exams: The midterm and final were both pretty difficult, but they were reasonable. You do have to do quite well on both exams and the paper to get an A in the class.
---Tips: Min provides sufficient information through his lectures. The slides are useful but are not a stand alone. You don't need the textbook if you use the recourses Min gives.

Prof. Min has such good reviews for a reason! He's an amazing lecturer, super engaging, and an overall super funny/nice guy. His slides were very clear and he seems to actually care about his students learning. Overall, I think he is super fair and a great teacher.

That being said, I did not enjoy my TA's section at all. The atmosphere in the room was tense and kind of just sad. My TA was kind of harsh I feel in terms of grading and was not very helpful with the paper. The instructions were kind of vague and my TA did not leave any feedback at all. I talked to my friends and they all seemed to have easier/more helpful graders than me, so it might just be luck of the draw. I ended up getting only one question wrong on the final out of 90 questions, so I know it wasn't just me being a bad student, my TA was just very harsh!

You don't need the textbook. Prof. Min's slides tell you everything you need to know. Just review his slides before the final/midterm and try to memorize the key terms.

While I do think it was more difficult than some of my other introductory classes, I still really liked it. Take this class its amazing!

Professor Min is a great professor and lecturer. It was a great overview of international institutions and processes. Midterm and final were fair, and though the final paper was daunting, it was a very good experience and I am very glad I had to write it. This class is very useful and you should take it!

I genuinely really enjoyed this class! I took it as a G.E. and as someone who enjoyed taking AP Government, I think this class is similar to (just at a different scale). The lectures are interesting and Professor Min is a super sweet, approachable, and quirky guy! You can tell that he really cares about his students and overall, the class structure is good as well. Your grade is based on a midterm, analysis paper, final, paper proposal, and discussion section attendance/participation. For some people, the analysis paper may be a lot to manage but as long as you pace yourself properly, it should be fine. The TAs and professor also help you with this by setting deadlines for peer reviews and whatnot in sections. The midterm and final are also pretty straightforward. You need to make sure that you go through the slides, memorize/understand the vocab and general concepts, and have an understanding of the history (you don't need to know dates, but just know the overall order (it's pretty easy) and basic idea of what happened for significant events). In sections, attendance is required and you should participate as well as your grade is based on that largely. You might be able to find another G.E. that involves even less work, but I don't think this was bad at all. I took this class as a freshman my first quarter along with a math class, economics class, and another G.E. so I think it is very manageable! Good luck!

Eric Min is the best. He’s funny, engaging, and his class is really interesting. You don’t really need to read the textbook as he covers everything it says in class and tests from the slides but I used it as a refresher after class to cement the knowledge. I’d say the paper and test difficulty depends on your TA, I had a really picky TA (shoutout AP) so it made it slightly harder but nothing unmanageable if you study and care about the class. The one thing I’d say is that this is NOT an easy, skip-lecture GE, I had so many non-polisci major friends drop because this is an intensive class. BUT DEF RECOMMEND!!