POL SCI 50 was the first class I took at UCLA as a freshman. Based off everyone's reviews, I thought it would be a lot worse—with all honesty, if you enjoy the material that is taught then homework assignments and readings all become part of the process of learning. I even liked that we were learning things through different mediums eg. documentaries. I felt that each homework assignment felt purposeful in developing different analytical and communication skills.
Last quarter, I didn't find that the workload was too heavy. In retrospect (having taken more classes at UCLA since) I will say that the whole debate prep, three papers, assignments and blah is relatively Much More time-consuming than a lower div class should be. That said, I had no issues completing any of the papers because the prof is right in saying that following the instructions were enough to get you a 90+ grade—just remember to insert in a lot of the common-sense connections you can make between theory and the facts that you're researching for. However, my TA was helpful during sections but stuck to giving nonspecific feedback on my papers even during office hours.
Tldr; Not as bad as the reviews make it seem. Lots of content, good range of global contexts worked in. Workload is heavy, but content is interesting enough that it's worth it, in my view. NOT an easy GE.

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

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 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.

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.

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

Do not take this class if you care at all about your sanity or your GPA. This professor is neither effective nor helpful. Take any other political science prerequisite that you can. Every week, there are two lectures, of which there are two sets of readings and two sets of quizzes. The readings are excessive, consisting of 100-150 pages for an undergraduate lower- division class. Only the textbook readings are remotely useful. Don’t bother with the articles. One of the weekly lectures is recorded, but mind-numbingly slow to the point of inducing sleep. This is made even worse by his refusal to include a transcript, closed captioning, or slides. You are forced to watch his lectures on double speed, but don’t expect to glean any useful information because he has a propensity for rambling and providing extraneous cases. The reading quizzes are easy, but the lecture quizzes sometimes test on never mentioned concepts or edge cases. Due dates are inconvenient. The sets of quizzes are due two days apart. Quizzes are due at eight am, and assignments are due four pm. The assignments are poorly designed because they rely on students to find inaccessible information. Even with maximum cognitive exertion, expect a poor grade on these assignments, as well as the exams, due to Meghan’s grading. Try your absolute best to get a section with Daniel, who is always accessible for help, grades fairly, and provides the most relevant and succinct exam reviews. Still, avoid this class.

IF YOU WANT A GE AND ARE NOT A POLITICAL SCIENCE MAJOR, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. If you are a political science major, I'd recommend waiting until spring quarter of freshman year or second quarter of sophomore year to take this course.

I hope this list is helpful in separating out the elements of this class.

Professor: Professor Thies is very knowledgable about the topic of comparative politics. However, he used this knowledge to correct and belittle his students, many of which had never taken a political science class before. I don't think he ever told anyone that their answer was right once during the course. To me, he came off as arrogant and someone who believed his class was the most important on our schedule.

Quizzes: There are four quizzes a week. Two lecture and two reading. Thies really wants to make sure that you are doing what he asks because testing us is not enough. These are short (no more than 7 questions) and he drops one of each kind before and after the midterm.

Lecture: Thies used a flipped classroom model, but also held a mandatory in person lecture on Wednesdays. His online lectures usually went over the actual time he was allotted and could total 3+ hours of content at times. The content was him elaborating for no reason on a slide for 5-10 minutes until he did it again on the next slide. Thies' in person lectures were useful in the sense that students can ask questions but not useful in the sense that he would never post the slides from those lectures but would ask test questions based on their content.

Readings: They were super long. I didn't do them. You can get away with this if you know someone in the class who did the readings or you watch the lectures first and skim the reading as you take the quiz. I don't think they were that necessary.

Essays: I don't know if Thies knows what a paper is, but the essay assignments we had were just us answering 30+ questions about a topic. The first paper was just interpreting graphs. You'll be fine if you've taken a stats class before. The second paper was about obscure government structure in Bulgaria and Malaysia. The key to that one is taking the information from Wikipedia and then pretending you got it from another source because there literally are none. Both are doable and it's easy to get an A on them, but you just have to start a couple days before the deadline as they get tedious.

Tests: This is the reason why I wouldn't suggest a freshman takes this course. If you are not used to longform essay finals, you will not do well on the midterm and final for this class. Most of the class did not finish the midterm and many used the entire time block for the final (final was the same length as the midterm). You can get good grades on these exams if you study rigorously, but my other classes suffered because there is just so much content you have to look over in this course. The midterm average was a 60 and the final was a 59. Thies does curve grades.

TA's: I had Daniel as a TA and he was great. All you have to do is talk a couple times in discussion and your participation grade will be fine. He made a lot of the concepts more understandable. Go Daniel.

Overall: Even though the material was really interesting, I would not recommend this course to anyone, honestly. If you need one more course to declare, take it. If you can do literally anything else, save yourself.

This class was so hard for no reason. 70+ pages of reading per week, an async model that meant we had to attend three lectures a week instead of the scheduled two, and exams that had a failing average are not a reasonable expectation of a lower division course. Prof. Thies was unsupportive of wrong answers in the discussion sections, exacting about tardiness, and insisted on giving ridiculously hard exams and not curving anything.
As a sophomore, I did fine, but many of the freshmen I took the class with did not. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS AS A FIRST YEAR. The other reviews are right. It's possible to do well in this class, but so hard that taking this class is not worth it unless you truly have no other option.