Professor
Michael Thies
1 of 3
AD
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - After taking this class, I genuinely hate this man. Even though I got a good grade in the end, he was the most disagreeable person to learn from. He would get unnecessarily heated if someone walked in late to class and talked about life in the most grumpy fashion. Yes, he covered a lot during his lectures and I did learn a lot. However, he often rambled on about a topic or a single example for 20-25 minutes and that information ended up being useless. His graders were INTENSE and it was nearly impossible to do well on his essays. Another thing on those essays, the instructions are weirdly vague yet graded harshly. If I didn't love poli sci, this class would have made me hate it. I read the bruinwalk reviews before I took the class and decided to take a chance. DONT IGNORE THE REVIEWS ITS SO HARD TO DO WELL IN THIS CLASS.
Winter 2020 - After taking this class, I genuinely hate this man. Even though I got a good grade in the end, he was the most disagreeable person to learn from. He would get unnecessarily heated if someone walked in late to class and talked about life in the most grumpy fashion. Yes, he covered a lot during his lectures and I did learn a lot. However, he often rambled on about a topic or a single example for 20-25 minutes and that information ended up being useless. His graders were INTENSE and it was nearly impossible to do well on his essays. Another thing on those essays, the instructions are weirdly vague yet graded harshly. If I didn't love poli sci, this class would have made me hate it. I read the bruinwalk reviews before I took the class and decided to take a chance. DONT IGNORE THE REVIEWS ITS SO HARD TO DO WELL IN THIS CLASS.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Well, Thies thinks he's way more important than he actually is. Who gives a crap about Japanese government and politics? His arrogant attitude is not justified by his useless knowledge about all of Japan's prime ministers. He grades like a complete jerk with the class average for the midterm being 47% and final 63%. While he teaches the information well and you will learn a lot, this will not be reflected in your grade unless you study your butt off and read like crazy...and even then you'll get an F. That being said, he grades on a curve, but overall, the class is a very unrewarding experience. He also thinks its funny to give pop quizzes with extremely hard questions that no one can answer about trivial details in the readings. Everony hated this class and agreed it is the worst class they have taken at UCLA.
Well, Thies thinks he's way more important than he actually is. Who gives a crap about Japanese government and politics? His arrogant attitude is not justified by his useless knowledge about all of Japan's prime ministers. He grades like a complete jerk with the class average for the midterm being 47% and final 63%. While he teaches the information well and you will learn a lot, this will not be reflected in your grade unless you study your butt off and read like crazy...and even then you'll get an F. That being said, he grades on a curve, but overall, the class is a very unrewarding experience. He also thinks its funny to give pop quizzes with extremely hard questions that no one can answer about trivial details in the readings. Everony hated this class and agreed it is the worst class they have taken at UCLA.
AD
1 of 3
