You don't need to spend the $140+ on the textbook for the class as long as you go to the lectures, since all of the content for the midterm and final are in the lecture slides (which are also posted to CCLE). Professor Min emphasizes what you definitely need to know for the tests, and he gives real-world examples that clarify the theoretical concepts being covered in lecture.

There is one research paper due towards the end of the quarter, but they really break it down over the course of the quarter and have you peer review each other's work throughout the process. You may want to go to office hours or email Professor Min or your TA to have a full understanding of what they're looking for (some of the instructions and the rubric can be a bit ambiguous), but otherwise it's a straightforward assignment.

Speaking of TAs, Yana Otlan is a helpful TA who genuinely cares about the subject and the students she's in charge of, and she seems to have the clearest understanding of diplomacy and war, so I highly recommend signing up for her discussion section.

Professor Min is one of the best professors I have ever had at UCLA. He is funny, engaging, and knows the material very well. He often makes jokes in class, making his lectures very enjoyable. I went to his office hours once after the midterm, and he was extremely helpful. He spent at least twenty minutes going over every single question I got wrong, and I learned a lot.

Overall, PS 20 with Professor Min was a pretty great class. The workload wasn't too bad, since the readings aren't really required. There was one midterm, one paper, and the final. Professor Min posts his slides on CCLE and they basically cover everything in the reading, so study those and you'll be fine. Word of advice: start the paper early, you'll have a much easier time if you do so.

Professor Min was an awesome professor and I'd definitely recommend taking his class!

Good lecturer; keeps class interesting with jokes and pop culture references. Class covers easy concepts and professor does an adequate job of explaining. He's chill and patient during office hours and seems to genuinely love teaching. There is one research paper, and that is the only assignment for the entire class.

Don't purchase the textbook, it's genuinely useless. Exams are based solely on slides, and they're thorough enough to go off of. Lecture attendance isn't mandatory, and concepts are easy enough to understand on your own. However, if you're having trouble, lecture is genuinely useful and sometimes fun to attend.

Eric Min is a great professor and a funny, kind, interesting person. He puts real effort into making the class fun (including jokes and pop culture references). The class content itself is also pretty interesting. Your grade comes down to 3 things: the midterm, a 5-6 page analysis paper, and the final. The midterm is easy if you study his lecture slides (which he very plainly tells you to do). This makes the textbook completely unnecessary and not worth buying in my opinion. The analysis paper is done over the course of the first 8 weeks and peer-reviewed several times, meaning you should not stress over it. I don't consider myself a very good writer or very knowledgable in current events and the paper was still very doable. The final is the same format as the midterm (multiple choice and a few short answer) and again, if you study his lecture slides and listen when he tells you to pay extra attention to something, you'll be fine. Overall, this class was a great GE and easy enough in my opinion. Professor Min is truly a gem of a human being and I looked forward to his lectures. I would 100% take this class again & I would very highly recommend it.

Min is one of the best professors I've had at UCLA. His lectures are engaging and easy to follow, and the material itself is pretty straightforward. You don't need the textbook, although it is good at explaining concepts you may not understand right away. The tests were not hard at all as long as you studied the slides. I went into this class not really being interested in international relations and came out of it with a lot more interest in the topic!

Really really really enjoyed this class. The grade is the midterm, final, an analysis paper, and section participation. I literally got like a 97 on the paper and I'm pretty sure most people got a high grade like that on the paper. Really great professor, very interesting lectures, it was my favorite class. You definitely do not need the book I didn't even open it and I passed with a B. The tests are not EASY, I'd get a B/C with hours of studying. The vocabulary in this class is very important so for tests really study the vocab words.

****THIS IS FOR GS103*********
Professor Min is so nice and helpful! His lectures are always very structured and clear and his slides are very detailed. I can tell the attendance definitely went down over the quarter because it was easy to understand everything just from reading the slides, but he is a great lecturer who is very funny and witty. I enjoyed his lectures a lot. He is very encouraging to his students and was ready to help whenever possible. The class consists of 20% participation, midterm and final and a group project white paper. Participation was just showing up, the white paper was pretty easy too. I recommend bringing you a draft to the TA before turning it in and taking his advice will definitely secure you a high grade. The exams were pretty hard, the average was an 82% because it was very dense and reading-based. However, if you go to the lecture, you can definitely tell which concepts are more important and likely to be on the test and which are just unnecessary details. The readings were very dense and heavy and that's the only downside of this class. Professor Min is very helpful during his office hours too, he is very approachable and sincere. All in all, if you go to lecture, study the materials (make a quizlet), browse through the readings, you will get a good grade.

First things first, DO NOT LET ANYONE SCAM YOU INTO BUYING A PDF OF THE TEXTBOOK FROM THEM. The textbook's not really necessary for the class, it's really more of a supplement with extra details.

Now onto the class itself, the grading is pretty straightforward, 15% participation (going to section is mandatory, lecture isn't), 20% midterm, 5% 1-page paper proposal, 25% 5 to 6-page paper, 35% final. It's definitely important to do well on the paper (going to office hours is super helpful!!!). The midterm and final do cover a lot of concepts that take a lot of memorization. I found that the hard part was more the amount of content that had to be memorized, not the difficulty of the concepts themselves, they were pretty straightforward. You do get practice midterms/finals in discussion, but keep in mind the actual exams were a bit harder than the practice ones. Professor Min does hold a review session for the final that's pretty helpful in consolidating all the information you should know for the exam.

Professor Min's an awesome lecturer, he's super clear, engaging, funny. Definitely pay attention in lecture, he drops LOTS of hints on what's going to be on the exam, like quite literally he constantly repeats, "KNOW THIS FOR THE EXAM." So even though lecture isn't mandatory, I'd recommend going because he explains stuff super clearly and makes concepts easy to digest. He also uses a lot of modern examples to explain certain concepts. I guess you could say he's "hip with the kids." He also posts the slides on CCLE with certain sections blanked out to motivate you to go to lecture, but if you want to refer them afterwards, just highlight the blanks and copy and paste it and the blocked out words should show up.

Overall, great class, 10/10 would recommend.

I do not exaggerate when I say this man is everything you want in a professor and his class includes everything you want in a class. I could write an essay on all the benefits of this class but I think the ratings speak for themselves. Oh, and I would recommend going to office hours if you want to get to know him better - he encourages it and is very friendly.

Eric Min is an AMAZING professor. He has very well prepared slides and posts them online along with youtube videos of his lecture. He is engaging, entertaining, and funny. His material is really interesting and he is great at explaining. The class is super easy with a quiz every week, 15 questions, 30 mins open book open notes. Everyone gets atleast a B+. I highly recommend this class!!! also Julien is a great TA, and his office hours are pretty fun