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.

Professor Thies is, to his core, a bad professor. He cares more about making his class difficult than he does educating his students. The professor is unprepared and would tell us that he was writing assignments a week before they were due without determining whether or not it was even possible to complete them. No rubrics are provided for assignments or essays, the professor refuses to help when students attend his office hours and he is known by his students for being condescending, unhelpful and rude. If the professor were to read this review, he would likely enjoy hearing that the class is difficult. I hope he does not confuse my critique of his work as a compliment of his ability to challenge his students. I will be clear: the professor is not challenging or thoughtprovoking, he is unorganized and quite thoughtless. This class will hurt your GPA (he designed it this way; he even admitted to us that his final exam was intended to hurt our grade) and you will have gained little knowledge.

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.

while my grade ended up being okay, this class was so unnecessarily stressful. the final was 3 parts long, with one full essay, 5 short response questions, and an analysis of graphs where you have to answer a few more questions and create tables. it all seemed like busy work
- he's a horrible lecturer, his slides were so bland and he often went on tangents and wasted a bunch of time
- readings were like 60-80 pages long each week and they were all so unbelievably boring and repetitive
- the timed lecture/reading quizzes seemed like a good idea at first since it does keep u on track but the limited amount of time (3-8 minutes long depending on number of questions) made them kinda nerve-racking. each was 1% of ur grade but if u do bad on a lot of them then it'll hurt your grade. the questions were also worded weirdly, which was annoying
- he was never clear about how he would calculate final grades. many students didn't know that the assignments were going to be curved. he also made different TA's grade different parts of the essays rather than each TA grading all of their students' essays, and made us talk to different TA's about each section they graded. it was hard to get into contact with them about our grade, which made it hard to see where you can improve on for future essays
- the essays were harshly graded and we were never given a rubric
- 60-80 pages of reading each week which is okay I guess for a PS class but I wouldn't recommend that for a GE class lol
- class average for the final was 50%
he was more accommodating and helpful than I thought, but I still don't recommend this class for anyone. if ur thinking about majoring in political science, take any other political science class first. tldr stay away from this class lol

Unquestionably the worst class I've ever taken. I had already seen all of the bad reviews before enrolling, but it was the last lower division political science class I needed to declare my major, so I figured it was worth taking. Absolutely not. Please read the reviews. Unless you plan on majoring in the Comparitive Politics concentration, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS!

The workload is ridiculous. Thies made us do ~30 pages of readings before every lecture and we'd have to take a short quiz to show that we'd done the readings. THEN, we'd have to watch the lectures and take a short quiz based on the lecture. This, multiplied by the fact that there were 2 lectures a week, meant we were taking 4 QUIZZES PER WEEK. At the very least, they were short (usually around ~5 questions) but it is still way too many for any class. In addition, throughout the quarter we had to do 2 short responses to full-length documentaries, as well as 3 different papers. The papers weren't just normal essays, and were often vague and required a ridiculous amount of research. I spent over 12 hours of total time working on the second paper, and the third paper takes even longer. The third paper is assigned during finals week, and this is in addition to a 50-question multiple choice final. The final is the most brutal thing I've ever experienced in my time at UCLA. It is absurdly difficult for no reason, one of the questions on my final asked what country he used as an example in an optional zoom session that was not recorded. I literally had no way of knowing that question, and the rest of the questions weren't much better. Our class mean was a 50%. The curve was very generous but the final shouldn't have been that difficult to begin with.

As a professor, Thies is pretty bad too. He is so boring. I am grateful that I was able to put the lectures on 2x speed, otherwise I would have fallen asleep listening to him speak. The lectures themselves aren't engaging, and add very little to the actual readings. The only reason you need to watch them is because of the required lecture quizzes, and because most of the questions on the final ask you to recall the most mundane tidbits that he mentioned during the lectures. I absolutely despise this man, and I've heard he's even worse in person.

The only saving grace for this class, for me, was my TA. I really liked him and I thought he did his best to challenge us with the material and think of its applications in greater political thought. I actually think the content in this class is pretty interesting, but it's a shame that the actual course is so horrible.

This is an introductory course and yet you will do more work than you can possibly fit into your schedule. The amount of stress this class has caused me is not worth it. So, in short, to say it again: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS!!!

With full transparency, I hate writing negative reviews because I always put myself in the professor's shoes. Although, this man is certainly an exception. Considering that this was first quarter at UCLA, this class was brutal. I urge you, DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO AVOID TAKING HIM. While he has the average workload of about 30-100 pages of reading, he also assigns lecture videos that are due Monday and Wednesday of every week. He blabs for most of them as everything he said could have easily been put into five minutes rather than fifteen. In regards to his in-person lectures, he tends to go off topic at times and simply is not good at explaining. In addition to this, he did assign two papers throughout the quarter: one that consisted of interpreting graphs and the other that consisted of interpreting governmental systems such as Bulgaria's. His papers were a literal nightmare as the only resource that we had for the second paper was Wikipedia...it is as if he wants to make your life impossible. For a lower division class, what he is asking for is ridiculous. He puts his class and himself on a pedestal. Unfortunately, I made the decision to actually interact with this man and attend his office hours to ask to have my grade calculated[his grades on bruin learn are disabled]. Take into mind, the first day of class, I asked this man if there would be any way to have our grades calculated and he said he would completely do that for us during office hours. When I approached him about it in his office hours, he simply laughed at me and my request. I had heard various stories of him being egoistical and this simply sealed the deal for me. Frankly, he is quite pompous considering the lack of skill that he has in his profession. Overall, I would not recommend taking his class as you can quickly tell that he is simply not good at his job. In regards to the TAs this quarter, they were lovely people and a great aid! Megan and Daniel were incredible! I can confirm that there were times where they would apologize for the vagueness of the papers that he assigned. At the end of this quarter, when evaluations were due, my TA reminded us that what professor Thies assigned was out of their hands and to please separate that from them...Please just find another professor for this course because this man is nothing be entitled and rude...If Professor Michael Thies sees this by some miracle, I want to urge you to please find your passion for teaching again or simply just find a new career sir... do us all a favor.

Do not take this class. Unclear and competitive grading. Pretty much a nightmare. Harder than all my upper-division classes, and grading was so harsh. The class average on most assignments was 56%. Not great and not worth the stress.

LOOK AT ME I'M TYPING IN CAPS LIKE ALL THE OTHER REVIEWERS BOO HOO DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS MY GPA EWW SOB

Ok, seriously. The way others described this class made it seem like THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. THING. but it wasn't. Poli Sci 50 was a thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking experience.

Lots of reading? Yes, but you're in college. Suck it up. You ALWAYS have to read. Difficult midterm/finals/quizzes? Again, college. Grades aren't going to be served to you on a silver spoon. I loved this class for what everyone should eventually take a class for: knowledge. I really miss having this class! I took it as a GE in my first quarter at UCLA (my major is in Engineering) and it really got me interested in Political Science. If I wasn't already set on Engineering, I would have switched over to Poli Sci, or something related.

It's true: the weekly quizzes are a weekly pain, but you learn to get used to them after a while. I thought the grading scheme overall was just. True, some grades may have been disconcerting, but the curve at the end accounts for these unwanted results. I ended up with an A, even when I didn't think I was as well-versed as my peers, who probably majored in PoliSci-related fields, were NOT freshmen, or contributed the most in discussions.

As for Thies himself, I thought he was a humorous and knowledgeable guy. I appreciated his humor and his thinly-concealed political views, and he managed to lecture for a good two hours at a time; I have to commend him on that! I never went to Office Hours (mostly because they didn't fit with my schedule) but, even hearing others describe their sometimes ill experience, I think you just have to see through and adapt to his personality to understand him. If I WAS a PoliSci major, I would have definitely looked more into his research and whatnot.

TL;DR: Relax. The class is cool, and so is the professor. Good educational value. Take the class and see for yourself.

The professor is energetic and really cares about Poli sci 50. That said, his lectures really aren’t mandatory at all if push comes to shove; you could probably get away with skipping a few. However, the discussions and the book are 100% mandatory, and participation is important.
The reading quizzes, personally speaking, are rather fool proof, along with the little assignments here and there. There are quite a lot of readings though, and they can be unnecessarily long.
The professor has apparently changed PS 50 this year. There are no tests, but instead they’re replaced with papers. They’re not graded easily, but fairly. The deadlines are pretty reasonable, but the papers can be unnecessary long. Just remember to answer every. Single. Question

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.