Before I took this class, I always thought I wanted to go to law school. After learning about the science of politics and political analysis, I now want to do exactly what Vavreck does.

Disclaimer: I am a polisci major who is incredibly politically engaged, so I am the exact student who would love this course. Regardless, I find it so engaging and interesting, and Vavreck is obviously the perfect person to teach about a subject she knows personally.

I got lucky by being a polisci major during an election cycle, and this enhanced the lectures a lot by using current examples of campaigns, techniques, etc. Vavreck does an honestly amazing job of remaining unbiased (which I suppose is something she's practiced a lot as a political analyst) for example, I went to her office hours and asked her opinion of the presidential debates, and she was incredibly insightful without needing to mention who she favored. I admire her integrity and knowledge so much.

If you are apathetic about politics, this might not be the class for you. There's no final, just two tests and a paper, and they're not too bad. I really hope people who don't care about politics still take this class and learn about our political systems!

Vavreck is a pretty good teacher and made class entertaining enough for me to attend, despite this being just a GE and unrelated to my major.

The class had a 5-7 page paper (relatively easy), midterm (hard compared to the other stuff), final (easy) and discussion points (easy 100%).

While the course was good, you should know that the grading is subjective i.e. based on your TA. Do NOT get a bad TA for this class or what should've been an A will easily become a B or worse. Apparently Travis was the best TA, so if you can take him, do it.

Professor Vavreck is a fantastic teacher! She makes American Politics interesting, and really opened my eyes to how our government works. The workload is completely manageable. It's only 1 5-7 page paper, two midterms, and the final. She's very reasonable with her tests, and makes sure the TAs grade accordingly. I highly recommend this class to political science junkies and nonmajor students!

She's always very enthusiastic- where does she get all that energy two times a week, teaching the same huge lecture hall over and over? It's great! I always recommend her to all my Poly Scy friends.
Even though it is easy and basic, I've been exposed to many important concepts that I find myself applying on a day-to-day basis.

I loved this class! I found the material to be very interesting & I loved Professor Vavreck! Not only does she make the material extremely easy to comprehend, she also makes it fun & enjoyable. She's very passionate about the subject, especially political campaign advertisements, which I found to be the most interesting part of the class. She keeps you interested by using showing actual ads in class too & school house rock. The class is really easy. I had covered most of the material in my AP gov. class in high school. I'm a Political Science major & although the class was pretty easy and straightforward, I'd still say it's definitely worth taking! Especially as a prerequisite for the major. The midterm is easy as long as you look over the lecture slides (I thought the readings were interesting so I read them anyways) & the papers are really straightforward. I had a great TA, too. If Brian Law is a TA, TAKE HIM!! He's so laid back and made section fun & worth going to. Overall, I'd totally recommend it as a prereq & as a GE. I'm most definitely going to miss this class!

I cant learn anything in this class...totally waste of time
and it is not as easy as the other people say...it really depends on which TA you got

If you're a Freshman looking for an easy transition between High School and College, this is the class for you. It doesn't differ much from what I learned in my AP American Gov. class. Though my friend, a non poli-sci major, found the class relatively difficult, if you already have a general sense of American Politics (low tournout, bipartisanship, etc.) you'll do fine. Had I not gone to lecture, I'm pretty sure I would have pulled off an A in class anyway.

Aside from that, Professor Vavreck is very animated which helps for morning classes.

As for readings, I'd recommend only to do the readings for discussion and the final. Don't buy the big white book, you could probably borrow that from a friend and a quick scan at the chapters will be good enough for the midterm. There is no final, only a paper which is not so difficult to write (all the evidence is given to you).

While this class may be easy as you do not have to attend class, it is a complete waste of time. The material is very interesting, which was my biggest disappointment, because in no way did this class or the professor reach its full potential. The midterm is basically word for word off the slides and if you don't restate them word for word you will do quite poorly, as some of my friends did. After the midterm there is basically no point to do any of the readings because the last two grades are papers which are based on evidence which she gives you. Professor Vavreck has the potential to be a great professor because she is so knowledgeable about campaigns and the United States political climate, but her teaching method of reading off the slides basically does not accomplish anything. I guess if you want to take a class where an easy A is possible, but you don't learn anything, then I guess take it. But I would definitely not recommend taking PS40 with Vavreck.