Professor Branstetter is probably one of my favorite professors I have had at UCLA so far. He genuinely cares about his students and stresses the fact that placing such a high importance on grades can create a stressful culture in college, and that he cares more about making sure we engage with the course content and share our honest ideas. If you have the chance to take a class with him, do it! You will not regret it. The class grade was entirely structured around 2 papers (4-5 pages single spaced) on interesting and mostly open ended topics. By submitting your papers you automatically receive a B+, and by making substantial revisions on your papers you receive an A. Also, we got to watch the Barbie movie in class and discuss. Would recommend to anyone!

I took professor Branstetter's Pre-Modern Asian political theory class and although the material itself was engaging, and he was a really awesome lecturer, the exams were not it. There was two exams that he only graded on so you had to make sure to ace them or else your grade was doomed. The readings were also extremely long and challenging, like I kid you not I read most of them and it took me weeks to actually finish them in their entirety. I do like the exams were open note and unlimited tries, but he and his graders take forever to grade them, leaving you with minimal time to actually be able to rewrite them. I somehow got a good grade in the class by simply doing the readings and reviewing the lectures and powerpoint slides, but god the readings made me 1000% stressed.

Overall, 119 with Branstetter was an easy and very manageable class. Lectures were recorded and honestly you didn't need to watch them every day. The grade structure was simple: 50% was your midterm and 50% was your final. However, both were take home short answer exams that you could answer by rewatching lectures and using your notes. We were also allowed to (in theory) retake them as many times as we wanted until we got the grade we wanted. While this sounds nice, the grader took so long to grade that the most resubmissions I knew of anyone being able to do was just two per exam. I believe in the end most people did get an A, but there was a bit of stress in the uncertainty.

Branstetter is extremely knowledgeable in his field and is a super engaging lecturer. You can tell he truly cares about student understanding and our success, and he is super kind. The only issue I had with the class was the grading resubmissions, but I would still take this class again in a heartbeat.

You do not need to go to class. Grade is based off of 1 midterm and final. You can redo the midterm and final to get the score you want. I recommend you do show up though, he is a nice guy who likes the company. Make sure to watch his slides/lecture videos that he records for the midterm and lecture. 9/10 (he lost 2 point bc I was mad core stressing about whether my edits on the exam was right, but he gains a point back bc he was willing to walk me through what I needed help with).

I took Pre-modern before with Professor Branstetter and now I am taking his modern class. He is easily one of the best professors in the poly sci department. He engages the students in the content and explains the concepts cohesively. I was very interested in pre-modern so taking the modern class is like a refresher of. the content but with newer thinkers. I think everyone should go take this class w/ Branstetter.

This is one of my favorite classes I have taken at UCLA. John is such a nice person and genuinely cares so much about his students. The classes are engaging, and the workload is super manageable. There are also no tests which is a huge bonus.

I absolutely loved this class! It is really unique and gives us such an important insight into political theory through a non-Western lens.
Professor Branstetter is truly the most understanding and accommodating professor, it is a real joy to learn with him!