Professor has slow lectures. Thankfully you can watch them at 1.5x speed. Grading was harsh, and it was difficult to get an A. LOTS of reading, weekly quizzes on both reading and lectures. Participation during discussion sections was also graded harshly and hurt my grade incredibly. Not a fan of this class, and I would not recommend it unless you absolutely have to.

I took this class despite many of the bad reviews for this professor, and to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't really blame anyone for it. It's a tough class not because the material is difficult, but because the grading is extremely rigorous and specific. On the whole, I actually enjoyed it because I had a good TA who was very helpful, but this is one of those classes that you really have to stay on top of and go to office hours as often as possible.

Worst ge i have ever taken

Although I ended up doing well in the class, this guy was not very nice. His one redeeming quality was that he was an interesting lecturer at times, but that may have been a result of the interesting topic. My TA was pretty nice, but I can't speak for everyone else's experience. But back to what I was saying about how he wasn't the nicest. One time I was in about the 5th row and needed to use the restroom or take a walk because I was about to fall asleep. Either way you slice it, it is a bodily need to give me a break, either mentally or physically. I inched out of the tight tight rows in Rolfe, going slowly so I didn't bump into seated classmates. It probably took 15 seconds at most. Then this guy stopped lecturing and glared at me. I went up to him to apologize afterwards and I thought we buried the hatchet. Then, the next day he sent out an email saying "The decorum in lecture has deteriorated". First off, stop using these high and mighty words. This isn't ancient Rome. Secondly, people gotta go to the bathroom. Sorry we don't want to bump all into people as we walk, it's called respecting personal space. But he was sometimes engaging. Essay scoring was confusing, wasn't clear what they were looking for whatsoever. The prompts are deceptively simple. I lucked out, that's it. Maybe try another poli sci class, your call.

I had a genuine interest in the topic of this class before taking it, but I got less interested as the weeks passed. The assignments were stupid, but there were no tests so no memorization of all the information (there was a lot of information). You kind of have to do the readings, and there were a lot of them. Participation is important in discussion and you need to show that you know your stuff. I went to Thies' office hours and he seemed like a nice guy, he has a sarcastic humor which I like, but he also definitely thinks he's the shit.
Overall, if you are super interested in this class, an A is possible and you will learn a lot. If not then don't take it!!

This class sucked the soul right out of my body. I took this class during my first quarter at UCLA, and boy oh boy was that a mistake, because I was convinced that I was too dumb to be here and that I would really have to struggle to get my degree. It honestly makes me sad thinking about this class and how much time I wasted over working on brutally tough assignments, doing readings that were irrationally long, and trying to reason with professor who made me feel dumber than a person who says Taylor Swift doesn't write her own songs. You can and should take other Political Science classes at UCLA, but stay away from this class like it's 3 week old spoiled milk. Professor Thies mocked me a lot when I asked him for help during office hours, and when I didn't know the answer to a question he asked me in the process of me seeking help, he would bitterly respond to the question himself and act all cold and reclusive, as if I had seriously disappointed him. I wanted to tell him to get off his high horse, but I just bit my tongue and got through it. He was actually really nice to me in the first couple of weeks, but when I started showing signs of struggling he flipped. What kind of professor bases how they treat students on how that student is able to grasp the course material? Please, for the sake of your soul, don't take this class.

Thies was the worst intro to UCLA I could get as an incoming freshman in Fall 2020. He was condescending, rude and made lectures miserable. His office hours were jumbled and unclear, and he gave us tons of work to stress over while purposefully being vague and unhelpful. It is a shame, because I really was engaged by some of the material, but his inconsistent grading and brutal workload made me want it over with. I will be avoiding this man for my remaining 11 semesters.

Thies clearly deeply understood many complex political science concepts, and did a good job designing the class to allow the students to process and understand those concepts. I thought the readings and reading quizzes were very relevant to course material and incredibly helpful in learning the concepts discussed in class.
I did find this course difficult, but I thought that the work was helpful in teaching students and not overly tedious. I liked the assignments we were given, and I saw the purpose of them in the scope of the class. I will say that the papers took me considerably longer than Thies estimated, maybe because I am less skilled in political science than he is. Paper 2 definitely took me at least 10 hours of research, writing, and revising.
This course involves a lot of writing and a difficult final, as well as a lot of reading and weekly assignments, so only take it if you are willing to deal with all the work...
Also: they have a very strange grading policy where the average on the final and most papers was a D or F and most people did very poorly. Then the grades were curved for a better distribution

This class is probably the worst ever, not the class itself but THIES specifically. The assignments are stupid, he's mean AF, and the workload is ridiculous. There was a kid from the previous class who forgot his backpack, so he interrupted our lecture to get it back. Embarrassing right? Forgetting your backpack and then having to interrupt a whole ass lecture. WELL IF THAT ISN'T EMBARRASSING ENOUGH, Thies had the audacity to not only mock the student, but literally stop the entire lecture as the kid nervously retrieved his backpack. This happened at the beginning of the quarter, and ever since then it became blatantly obvious that Thies thinks he's above everything and everyone. Don't take this class :)

He redesigned the class for this quarter so he eliminated the impossible tests that everyone else had written about. His assignments during my quarter were ridiculously hard, as everyone else has described, and he gave very little guidance for what he was looking for. The way the class worked was that most of your grade (something like 80%) was based on 4 assignments due every 2-3 weeks and these assignments were huge papers that required very thorough research.
However, I have taken multiple classes with him and I must say that he is very responsive to feedback so I think it is fair to assume that there is a good chance that he has adjusted his course to provide more guidance/flexibility for his assignments for upcoming quarters.