This was one of the hardest polsci classes I have taken at UCLA so far. The overall class is based on weekly quizzes and participation in discussion, the midterm, and the final. The overall content was extremely interesting, but be aware there is a lot to cover. You do not have to attend lecture; instead focus on reading all of the chapters in the textbook and take extensive notes. Lecture just consists of verbatim of the textbook mixed with offensive comments from Johns. She also gave 0 clarity on the format of the midterm. We just showed up and found out that it was about 8 short response questions. The average of the midterm was a D, and they curved it significantly. She writes these tests with the intention of her students failing, but being saved by the curve. She told students that if they were sick or had covid, they still needed to come take the midterm because she hated writing makeup exams. At first I did not believe her when she said this, however I had food poisoning the night of the final, and her response to me 30 minutes before the exam started was that I could "sit by an exit and use the bathroom as needed." I did just that. She had 0 sympathy that I had to step out of the exam room to throw up in a trashcan outside of the lecture hall. She is problematic. Do not take this course if you are easily offended or if you are expecting an A. This ruined several of my classmates 4.00. However, if you are interested in international law, this course offered a lot of information. Save your sanity though, and just buy her textbook and read it on your own.

I know that the people who write negative reviews are gonna be real negative about this class but honestly why are we surprised that an upper division class covering an entire field of law is difficult. Yes, there's a lot of information covered. Yes, the tests will sometimes require specific information from the textbook. No, it's not unreasonable or unexpected. (Also, the tests were curved alot. I think I got over 10 points added onto my midterm grade).

Professor Johns is a delight. Both her lectures and her office hours were incredibly engaging and oftentimes fun. I know that another reviewer took issue with her sense of humor, but taking it out of context of what the lecture was discussing is a disservice. I don't defend all her jokes or statements, but it is nowhere near as horrible as this reviewer made it seem. She made a significant effort to create analogies or funny stories which often times were so helpful in remembering an often nebulous concept.

My advice is as follows. If you are in this school to get an easy A, don't take this class. If you are in this school to actually learn something, sign up immediately. Go to every lecture, pay attention in section, actually engage with the readings, go to office hours. You will do fine, is it a guaranteed A/A+, absolutely not, you're going to have to grind for it. But I have never enjoyed or learned as much in another UCLA Poli Sci class.

This was a pretty difficult but also engaging class. The grade is based on participation (15%), section quizzes (15%), midterm (30%), and final (40%). Each week, we had to read a chapter of the textbook and an additional 10ish page court ruling. Professor Johns can be an engaging lecturer, but she also has a tendency to over-explain simple concepts and not make it through entire lectures. I found the class topics to be pretty interesting and applicable to world events; the first half went over the basics of international law (what is it, who makes it, how is it enforced, etc.), and the second half went over specific areas of international law (human rights, use of force, armed conflict, criminal law, environmental law.) Make sure to memorize the facts of each weekly case reading for the section quiz because you'll be tested on some seemingly random info. The tests were definitely difficult and I felt that the TAs/Johns were a bit misleading about what was going to be on the final. But, they were curved which somewhat accounts for that.

Not happy about this class whatsoever. First of all, this professor cannot go one lecture without making some sort of offensive joke. Things along the lines of: "you'd have to be autistic to believe this!", or "the Nuremberg Trials were actually not fair." Also, she would literally preface these statements asking if anyone was recording her. During the second half of the class her jokes centered around genocide. So, if you enjoy hearing offensive jokes about serious class material, go ahead and take this class.

Second of all, she ruined my 4.00. Never have I ever studied so hard for a class just to receive a B. She really expects you to memorize the entire textbook and the regurgitate super specific information onto the tests. She gives you these worksheets to study with - which make it sound easy and straightforward enough, but with the amount of questions on these worksheets it is extremely difficult to memorize all the information she expects from you.

Not happy with this class or my grade. Poli Sci classes should not have a class average of 50% on the midterm.

This class is very straight forward, and the professor is incredibly organized. Everything you need to succeed is there (e.g., the textbook). You don't really need to go to lecture for this class because all of the material thats covered in the midterm + final is in the textbook. If you read the textbook chapters every week and take extensive notes, you should be fine for the midterm + final. You need to designate time every week for this class, it's very doable. Many people complained about this class, but I don't think they read the textbook and just thought the professor would hand them a good grade. All in all, if you are planning to go to Law School, this is a good class to take especially if you are interested in international law.

Leslie Johns may not be every person’s cup of tea, but if there was ever a cup of tea made perfectly for me it would be her. The #1 thing I have to say about this class is that it is extremely high maintenance— you will not be able to do well without doing the readings both from the textbook and the section cases. Honestly, you could get by not going to lecture at all and just taking extensive notes on the readings. So then, what is the advantage to going to lecture? Why did I, a student who consistently finds every reason not to attend lectures, go every week? BECAUSE LESLIE JOHNS IS SO QUIRKY AND FUNNY. This rubs many people the wrong way, but to me she is the epitome of authenticity. Not only is she funny, but she delivers the lectures in such an anecdotal way that you may find yourself remembering her silly comments and examples as you answer exam questions.

As far as logistics, the grade is based on 15% participation in section, 15% section quizzes, 30% midterm, and 40% final. Participation is pretty much a given as long as you attend section, and the section quizzes are designed to be super easy as long as you read the case. I would normally find additional section reading annoying and unnecessary, but the cases really helped reinforce topics from the chapter and understand how what we were learning applied to the real world. I was pretty nervous before the midterm as she doesn’t provide a study guide/any sort of direction of what to study, but my word of advice here is anything with a list— study it! Acronyms can help remember all of the lists. Despite my best efforts to prepare, there were a few things I did not know, but she curves so much that I was still able to get an A. Both exams were difficult, but in my opinion fair.
Additionally, since she wrote the book herself she provides worksheets that go along with the textbook perfectly and I found a lot of the exam questions coming from content on the worksheets. This made the class feel extremely cohesive and linear!

Overall, I highly recommend this class if you are taking it during a quarter when you can devote a lot of time and effort to it. It is incredibly rewarding when you put in the time, and I walked away wanting to completely pivot my career plans to the foreign service field.

This class can be as amazing or as awful as you make it. It is most useful for those who are interested in international relations and/or going into law. She can be a great resource/ mentor as well as provide rec letters.
The grade break down is 15% participation in section 15% section quizzes (over a case study that applies to the weeks topics), 30% midterm and 40% final. Each week there is a 40-60 page textbook reading from the book the professor wrote.
To succeed in this class you need to do the readings and take detailed notes, I suggest using the worksheets on the publishers website to guide note taking. Each bolded term and LIST is important. Case studies talked about in the book and then also in class will be important.
The midterm was scary because we did not know what to expect. The format was short answer. There were questions with a list of vocab words we needed to define, explain how concepts relate, or list points of a definition. It is entirely memory based, acronyms saved the day for me. In addition, they are in person and you CANNOT miss them.
Class is pretty useless, she just goes over parts of the book. I would suggest going just to reaffirm and ask any questions, but it is not a big deal if you miss some. She does NOT record lectures.
To end, I will say she is quirky and can come off as insensitive or weird to some, but I enjoyed her personality. She is clearly incredibly knowledgeable and a treat to learn from.

I'm a pretty much straight a student with an occasional a- or b+ every now and then and tbh this class was interesting content-wise, but SO hard. I will be fair and say I never attended lecture, like not even once, I just read her textbook. however, I actually did a lot better than the friends I had that went to lecture so I don't really think the lecture was big. she based her lecture off her book (required textbook), and the notes from class were a just less detailed overview of each chapter, so I had no incentive to go to class. She does not record or post slides btw. An A in her class is 93.3% & she does not round, even if you are at a 93.2. The class itself is so interesting which is why it sucks she kinda ruined it for so many ppl. I highly recommend anyone thinking about this class to take global studies 103: globalization and global governance with MIN. it counts to ur pol sci major and covers what this class does but in a way with fair grading!

Content we went over: making international law, upholding it, treaties, human rights, environmental law, armed conflict, use of force (a lot for one class, midterm was 3 chapters, final is cummalitive 3+5 new chapters)

40% final 30% midterm: same format- like 8 pages of short answer questions using:
a. term definitions (define these terms, refer to her website and memorize the chapter glossary)
b. case related questions: these cases will come from the textbook or section. memorize each chapte's main case study
c. worksheet questions: go to her website (link in her syllabus) and do the worksheets for each chapter. About 60% of the questions come directly (and sometimes word for word) from those... lots of people didn't realize this, but MEMORIZE that shit it will help u sm
d. some stupid questions that no one will get (name of a judge from a specific case?? like who would remember that...)
e. (only for final) she experimented with multiple choice but it was horrid. oddly specific questions with trippy and similar answer choices.
THE CURVE IS WILD IN THIS CLASS. I got a 55 on the midterm and it curved to 85. You might think I can get over 55 easily.... lol I was above the class avg. after the midterm everyone learned how her tests work so the final curve was no where near as big, maybe like 10%, idk what my final grade was bc she doesn't use canvas, but I got an A- in the class and I had a 85 on the midterm and 100 in quizzes and participation, so to be in the a- range I needed minimum 88 but up to 95 (I think I got like a 93)
15% section participation/attendance (you need to ACC participate, the TAs grade you out of 10 each time- ask/answer like 2 times for full credit worked for me)
15% weekly quiz based on 10-20 pages of case study reading (questions will be like: who are involved, what was the name of the treaty, etc.) rlly basic and easy, but you need to do the reading for it (I always read the case study walking to section and got 100 each time

I think the only reason why reviews are so high for this class is because they were during COVID. The tests for this class are TERRIBLE and Professor Johns will not tell you what to study. You would have to memorize each sentence of the textbook (we read like 9 chapters - at least 500 pages) to get a good grade because she will test on any of it, including things that she does not go over in class. She will test on very specific examples, and even though I definitely put in much more studying time than my classmates, I still felt like I did not know half of the final. Furthermore, she is just weird. She makes jokes while talking about genocide and war crimes and doesn't let students use the bathroom during tests. She also made people with COVID take the midterm in her own office because she "doesn't care if she gets COVID" which is blatantly against UCLA policy. Don't take this class if you don't have to.

I actually enjoyed the format of doing the lectures on your own pace, because it let me focus on other classes more during midterms. However, it was easy to get behind and I also felt that there was no leeway on the grading with the unit assessments. The GroupMe for the class was immediately shut down and because there were no live sessions, finding help was more tricky. The content was definitely interesting, but I don't think I would take a class like this again.