This class was great up until the final.
Apparently the final was curved 20 points because of how hard it was.
The midterm was doable, the weekly papers were doable, but the final destroyed my sense of self and lowered my overall grade.
The final was all essay-based and and a lot of information on it didn't seem to have been taught in class... or in the book? Both of which I attended and read religiously.
Other than that, Johns was a fantastic lecturer and I learned a lot.

Professor Johns is very passionate about politics, as can be seen in her lectures. There is a weekly paper (2-3 pages, double spaced), which you eventually get the hang of and is completely graded by your TA. So if you have a generous TA, you will get decent grades on the papers even if you write them the night before. I attended every lecture and took notes, but I did not really read the book. There is one midterm and final, and they are curved. The midterm was pretty easy- all I did was look at my notes, know all the basic definitions, and look at her past midterm. For the final, I did not study as much since I also had a chem final that day. I didn't think I would do that great because I honestly had studied very little and it was right after my chem final so I had felt pretty burnt out. I remember it being pretty difficult and I still don't know the exact grade I got on it but I somehow ended up with an A- in the class so I am guessing the curve was generous. Overall, if you are looking for a class where the workload isn't too much but you still want to learn something, then this is your class.

If you want an A in the class, you're going to have to work hard. She's a fairly good teacher though. This class definitely does not have a traditional poli sci curve distribution.

What to memorize 100 pages of notes? Then take this class. This class is extremely extremely difficult. Johns gives you no guidance at all for the midterm or final which means a lot considering it is A TON of information. She doesn't post slides and her book does not cover lecture so if you miss clas your screwed. To do well in this class you have to go to every single lecture and type with the speed of god because she speaks fast. The TAs are important for clarity but they can't help you for the exams because they don't know what's on it. There are weekly quizzes in section that are difficult sometimes so you have to read. If I could do it over I would avoid this class. International law is really interesting but it's not worth the workload. You will spend the majority of your time on this class. The midterm was pretty straightforward but The final was impossible. She tests you on random terms from her book that she never covered or parts of lecture that were super minuscule. Would not recommend this class unless you have ample time or can read minds.

THE PROFESSOR:
Professor Johns is honestly the worst professor I could have imagined. Every sentence ends with "mkay" or "right?" and she sounds like some average joe UCLA pulled from the street to hold a lecture. She cancels lectures on a whim, and then material we missed shows up on the midterm and final, even though she emailed us saying not to worry about it. Shady, much? Her lectures are incredibly dry and I considered switching my major because of her horrendous class.

THE CLASS:
Please, do yourself a favor and read the textbook. Professor John's lecture slides have anywhere from 3-5 words on them, and that's it. The lectures are sloppy and mixed up. I learned my lesson by not reading the book initially in the class. There are 5 case studies about recent international issues. They range from about 10-20 pages per week, and you just read them. The quizzes on them are given in section, with usually 3 questions for 10 points. The quizzes are relatively easy, but require close reading and note taking. Definitely not something you can do the night before and expect to get 10/10 on the quiz.

MIDTERM:
The midterm absolutely wrecked me. I studied John's slides religiously, and I ended up getting a 68/100. With the curve, I got a 78.7/100. I sent in a regrade memo because of the ridiculous grading, and they only gave me one extra measly point. Professor Johns told us to mainly focus on the lecture slides, which is an outright lie because the book is a much better resource. The test itself is five pages, 10 questions, all short answer. The more you write, the better. I didn't use one term and automatically got 0/3 for that question.

FINAL:
Again, horribly long test. The final was 10 pages with 18 questions. In order to get at least 50% on the final, you need to read the book. I read the entire book the week before the final and I knew almost all of the questions.

OVERALL:
Take this class if you want to hate your life, dread going to every lecture, and possibly even want to never take another politics class again.

This class is broken down into 20% section participation, 20% section quizzes, 25% midterm, and 35% final. The section quiz section is graded very generously, and your worst score is dropped. The midterm is curved in a way that helps everyone, though the lower scores get more help than the top scores. I took notes at all the lectures, skimmed the textbook, and thoroughly read the "cases" from the section quizzes and got a 94 raw score on the midterm.
Prof. Johns is very nice in office hours and she has a super cute dog that you can pet while you're there. I personally found her lectures ok. Nothing was really covered in depth since this in an intro class, but I felt she did say everything we were expected to know for the exams at least once, and not much distracting "fluff" beyond that.

I worried about this the whole quarter, and my concern was unfounded so I'm going to do people like me a huge favor: EVERYTHING ON THE MIDTERM AND FINAL WERE COVERED IN LECTURE OR SECTION, YOU DO NOT NEED TO READ THE BOOK, READING THE BOOK IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

Why this class is easy: No required textbook reading if you go to lecture and short section readings about interesting topics

Why this class is hard: You have to memorize exact definitions in a numerically structured way.

If you want to know how to do well in it read on:

This is an intro class . . . I get it AND so does professor Johns!
That means: it covers material a mile wide and an inch deep.
Therefore I can't blame this class for being based on route memorization.
It's a lot like a bio course because it's based on route memorization.
Therefore, it's super easy to get an A or A+ if you are good at route memorization (I'm not!) or do the following:
1. Read the section readings carefully (as they are short) as 20% of your grade depends on it.
2. Participate in section (participation is graded and isn't automatic points)
2a. Disclaimer: this may've just been my TA: Maryam who (quick shoutout) was great and tried her best to make this class interesting and you should totally try to get her if you can!
3. DO NOT READ THE TEXTBOOK
3a. Take immaculate notes during class as EVERYTHING on the MIDTERM and FINAL are covered in lecture.
3b. Take numerically based notes (she really should instruct the whole class to do this), by that I mean when she says something like "We will go through these topics in turn" number the topics 1, 2, 3, . . . . and then put them under the umbrella of the main topic
3c. Now Why? Because all of the questions on the midterm and final are graded by how many components you route memorized and you need the right amount of components (and be sure not to fuse multiple components into one or one into many components)
4. USE SPACED REPETITION if you're a bad route memorizer because it works well to memorize her exact answers which you'll need to regurgitate on the page
4a. to do so review your notes for 5-10 after class each day and 5-10 minutes randomly every few days

Also, for professor Johns (I would never leave this in your official review because that affects your livelihood BUT here it's appropriate): consider deviating from the textbook and eliminating some chapters in order to go deeper into the material OR NOT as it makes your job easier.

Every subject we covered was extremely interesting and Professor Johns is very clear and summarized complex information really well. The tests were mainly on the lecture slides but the textbooks are very helpful to get a better understanding of the topics since she flys through them a mile a minute in lecture. You must get her textbook and the casebooks since those were always tested. If you have a great memory, you’ll thrive in this class. Take amazing notes and be ready to dedicate a good chunk of time to studying them week by week otherwise you’ll be trying to cram 50+ pages of notes for the midterm. This class is the hardest I have taken but also the most rewarding and useful in framing studies of international relations.

The final exam was significantly harder than the midterm. Some material on the final exam was not covered in class. Towards the end of the quarter, we had covered such a broad range of material that it was difficult to discern what was important to study.

Moral of the story: keep up with the readings. Johns is decently engaging, certainly not the worst lecturer, but not the best. She does her best to make it understandable and is passionate. Homework weekly case studies with quizzes following, questions can deviate from reading but easy. Midterm easily manageable, 10ish straightforward questions. Final slaughtered me, 19 short answer questions of anything and everything. Overall, great material, good professor, boring textbook.