First off, listen to the other reviews and mine on here. DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS UNLESS YOU WANT A LOW GPA. I cannot stress how much you should take this class with another professor like I should have done. There is way too much reading and he gives out weekly quizzes on the reading that is extremely specific so getting a good score is kinda hard. The material isn't hard but the grading is the issue. I barely passed with a C- when I got an A and a B- on my other classes while putting in the most effort in this class. I repeat. DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS.

His concern for his students lacks. Do not take this class if you have a choice.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS UNLESS you want your GPA to go down!

This class is by far the worst I've ever taken. Thies was a disorganized lecturer and it seems like he has never learned how to manage his time. Material in class was almost exactly the same information in the textbook, but presented in a more convoluted way. He was frequently wrong, or uncertain, about historical and current events and I think it is a shame that he is still allowed to teach one of the required classes for pre-polisci majors. The quizzes he believes are so great at testing a student's understanding of the weekly reading are, quite frankly, bullshit. Instead of asking students to respond to short-answer questions, which would force them to actually elaborate on ideas presented in the readings, the quizzes were multiple choice and often asked about inconsequential things, like the title of one of the articles or a country that was mentioned (only once, mind you) in a 30-page reading that focused on other countries.

I was also frustrated by how he divided the midterm grading, because it made it nearly impossible for me to see why I got questions wrong since that would require going into every single TA's office hours individually. Additionally, his grading rubric is ridiculous because the TAs I were able to see told me that even though my answers were technically correct, I needed to cite a particular source in order to get more points even though that source was not mentioned in the prompts.

The material is straight forward and relatively easy to understand, but as soon as you are quizzed or tested on it, you realize that whatever you've been learning in lecture & the textbook isn't what Thies' tests you on. I've taken much harder courses when it comes to how difficult the material is and how much effort it takes to understand it, but I've never been so uncertain about my standing in a class as I am now in PS 50. I'm not sure why Thies thinks he can conduct a class like this since he himself is mediocre at best, but I'm more concerned as to why the Political Science Department/UCLA hasn't noticed the consistently scathing reviews of this class, or if they have, not done anything about it.

I don't think there are any benefits to taking this class and I will try to discourage as many people as possible from enrolling in it.

To start off, before I took this class with this professor, I read his reviews on bruinwalk. I always read reviews on professors and usually when people say don't take them, I feel they exaggerate and take a shot with the instructor anyway. To say the least, I was horribly wrong in this case. The material in the class can actually be rather interesting and it is fairly easy material to understand. What makes this class horrible in my opinion is the crucial grading. You have weekly quizzes that are supposed to test basic knowledge but ask you specific questions you would never remember the answers to with the amount of reading you are required to do. A midterm that is broken up into two parts; in class and take home and the final is given the same way. If you don't put exactly what he puts on his rubric that he gives to the TA's, forget about getting points. The questions are pretty straightforward but you cannot give a straightforward answer. You need EVERY small detail! I consider myself a good student and even got A's in my other two classes this same quarter. I got a C+ in this class when I spent the most time studying for it over my other two UPPER DIVISION classes. Honestly, save your GPA, time, and sanity. Take this class with another professor!

The content is fairly interesting, but the tests and papers are impossible. It's very hard to gather all of the materials you need for the tests because it's all scattered between readings from an online textbook, this other textbook called CCG that he makes PDFs of that can be pretty hard to follow, and his lectures. Honestly I never went to lecture which would've helped some, but the most important component for doing well in this class is to literally write out everything you know about the subject on the tests. They seem like straightforward questions that have simple answers, but you'll get around 2-4 points out of 10 if you do that because his key has things on it that are pretty hard to hit. Also, be careful with definitions you use. If you go to class, make sure you write down his definitions word for word and use those on the test. That's just an easy way to get points. Overall though unless you have to take it, save yourself the hassle and take a different class.

Don't take this class. Especially if you're looking for a good GE. Even though the material is not difficult, the grading is ridiculous. You have quizzes every week that "just test whether or not you did the reading" however the quizzes are five incredibly specific questions on 30-40 pages of material. Next, the midterm and final appear simple enough. They are all short answer questions however even if you answer the question completely with accurate information, if you don't use the exactly information that Thies put on the rubric, you won't get credit. Overall, even though I learned a lot in this class, it killed my GPA. I would avoid it or take it with a different professor.

DONT TAKE POLI SCI 50 WITH THIS PROFESSOR
IMPOSSIBLE CLASS
IMPOSSIBLE
WALK AWAY
DO NOT ENROLL IN THIS CLASS
Im doing you a favor. Save your GPA!
Im not crazy- this class really is way too much work!

To begin with let me emphasis that my story in Poli Sci 50 with Thies was a successful one.I got really low midterms scores around 50% on the first one and really low on the second one, to low to mention on here but the point is that even though Thies's is a hard professor his curve at the end is super generous. I went to office hours every week with my T.A. Kathryn and sometimes this was helpful but for the most part she would not really help. I never went to office hours with Thies because he seemed like a very unapproachable professor. Point being I got thru this class with a C and passed when I expected to fail and or drop it.This class might be one of the hardest classes that I have or will ever take at UCLA but trust me Thies preps you up for the other Professor's in the Poli Sci Dept. and makes their classes seem much easier. I have thought this to be very successful so far and even though I would discourage an incoming Freshman from taking this class with Thies in the Fall I would encourage others in the Poli Sci major to take his class because he really knows a lot and can teach you many things about Comparative Politics.

This may have been the most informative class I've ever taken at UCLA. Thies knows what he's talking about, though his knowledge often comes off as arrogance.

That said, this is a hard class. You have to put the time into study -- A LOT OF TIME. But if you do, you will learn so much!!

FILL OUT THE IDs ON THE STUDY GUIDES AS THOROUGHLY AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN AND MEMORIZE THEM COMPLETELY. If you do this, the tests will be much easier.