If I had the choice of taking this class again, watching the 2016 nba finals as a warriors fan, or loosing a finger, I would give you a high 4 for never having to take a class from Natasha Piano ever again. I have never seen a professor so eager to exert her authority over a group of students. While I would admit, she is definitely passionate about the Introduction to Political Theory, I am leaving this class with a strong desire to never take Political Theory again. The one saving trait about this class are the TA’s, Spencer was awesome and was a far better educator than Piano was. Our class started at 2. If someone walked in at 2:01 she would tell them “better luck next week when you’re on my time.” During lecture, she would make a statement, and a kid would correctly correct her, then she would say something like “you’re right I was just testing you” and she rarely answers people’s questions. This is to say, do not go to lecture. I can’t reiterate enough, don’t take this class with piano unless you like hypocrisy, contradiction and a power tripping novice who verbally attacks her students and TA’s.
PS. For the few reviews that may praise her, it is likely one of the five people who were is scared of her that they would raise their hands just to fulfill themselves and glaze her so that Piano would know their names and use them in her twisted examples!

Though Piano is very passionate about political theory and her lectures are interesting, her approach in speaking to students at times is harsh. She is very particular over certain things like no technology(she doesn't like the typing noise the computers make), or no walking in late and taking it as far as kicking people out and embarrassing them in front of everyone. She also is not the most encouraging as she told us multiple times how horrible our midterms were and our discussion posts. That being said her class is not super difficult there is a lottttt of readings required in total we had to buy 5 books and she wanted us to have the physical copies as she doesn't let us have electronics out. The actual material of the readings is interesting and while it can be a lot it does help with understanding the main themes of the course. Piano did get a little less intimidating as the quarter went on and would often joke with us, she was sweet just snappy at times.

Prof. Piano obviously has a strong knowledge of the course content, but during lecture would end up taking just a bunch of questions from students and wouldn't get through all her lecture slides (which were sometimes incomplete and not very organized). There were no online Slides and lecture recordings for this class on the bruinlearn site unfortunately. As a professor, she is quite strict and is at times discouraging. Survival in this class seems very contingent on having a kind and helpful TA (Michael Mirer was great). In the first week of classes, she kicked out around 15 students for showing up a minute or two late. She also told us repeatedly throughout the quarter that our work sucked and if it wasn't for the TAs, our grades would be bad. This class frankly wasn't very enjoyable under Prof. Piano, who often times made us feel discouraged/stressed. But getting a good grade is feasible under a good TA. Best of luck to those of you who take on the course.

Dr. Piano is extremely knowledgable and passionate about her work. However, as a professor she does not translate this properly to students. I know that she wants us to understand the material like her, but she doesn't make class discussions feel very welcoming to students. Most of the time, her responses to us are very condescending and she is always telling us that "we suck" or "we did very poorly on our papers, and if she were grading them that she would fail us all -- and the reason we have 'ok' grades is because of our too-nice TAs". She would say a lot of out of pocket things that made us very uncomfortable and make us question whether we are doing well in the course or not. I had a particularly bad interaction with her the first day of class. I had walked in at 2:00 when the class started, and she put her hand in my face and kicked me out of class, telling me to "come back when you're ready to be on time". I had never felt more disrespected by a teacher at UCLA. Considering I pay for these classes, I should not be already having to catch up on work week 1. Week 1 was stressful enough trying to get off of waitlists and join classes I wasn't in, so when she kicked me out of class this made me very anxious and unwilling to want to come back to class. This was how I, and most people in the class, felt most of the time during lecture. Although she is very smart, and I learned a lot from her, her presence as a professor is daunting and unwelcoming. To this day, I never went to her office hours because I was afraid she would lash out at me or make condescending remarks. I am usually the type of student who regularly goes to office hours and engages in class lecture discussions, but I did not in this class. Her tone in class made me feel unwelcome to participate and I think this hindered my learning. My thoughts about this class, however, is completely different. The course was very manageable, the readings were thought provoking and interesting, and I knowledge about political philosophy skyrocketed during this course. However, my feelings towards Dr. Piano are mixed. Although I can tell she wants us to know the material very well, her tone as a professor prevents us from wanting to engage in lecture and feel very unwelcome in class. Additionally, she would tell us that she would make her slides for class the morning of, and the slides would be minimal, straight up unhelpful, with lots of typos. This made it extremely difficult to write down the material. Because of this, she made most of the class was discussion based, but it made it more difficult to jot down the information. This, as well as Dr. Piano's presence as a professor, are the biggest weaknesses about the class that I think if worked on, could make the class much more enjoyable.

Dr. Piano is extremely knowledgable and passionate about her work. However, as a professor she does not translate this properly to students. I know that she wants us to understand the material like her, but she doesn't make class discussions feel very welcoming to students. Most of the time, her responses to us are very condescending and she is always telling us that "we suck" or "we did very poorly on our papers, and if she were grading them that she would fail us all -- and the reason we have 'ok' grades is because of our too-nice TAs". She would say a lot of out of pocket things that made us very uncomfortable and make us question whether we are doing well in the course or not. I had a particularly bad interaction with her the first day of class. I had walked in at 2:00 when the class started, and she put her hand in my face and kicked me out of class, telling me to "come back when you're ready to be on time". I had never felt more disrespected by a teacher at UCLA. Considering I pay for these classes, I should not be already having to catch up on work week 1. Week 1 was stressful enough trying to get off of waitlists and join classes I wasn't in, so when she kicked me out of class this made me very anxious and unwilling to want to come back to class. This was how I, and most people in the class, felt most of the time during lecture. Although she is very smart, and I learned a lot from her, her presence as a professor is daunting and unwelcoming. To this day, I never went to her office hours because I was afraid she would lash out at me or make condescending remarks. I am usually the type of student who regularly goes to office hours and engages in class lecture discussions, but I did not in this class. Her tone in class made me feel unwelcome to participate and I think this hindered my learning. My thoughts about this class, however, is completely different. The course was very manageable, the readings were thought provoking and interesting, and I knowledge about political philosophy skyrocketed during this course. However, my feelings towards Dr. Piano are mixed. Although I can tell she wants us to know the material very well, her tone as a professor prevents us from wanting to engage in lecture and feel very unwelcome in class. Additionally, she would tell us that she would make her slides for class the morning of, and the slides would be minimal, straight up unhelpful, with lots of typos. This made it extremely difficult to write down the material. Because of this, she made most of the class was discussion based, but it made it more difficult to jot down the information. This, as well as Dr. Piano's presence as a professor, are the biggest weaknesses about the class that I think if worked on, could make the class much more enjoyable.

don't arrive more than 1 second after class starts or she'll tell you to leave in front of the whole class. felt so bad for everyone today. also so disorganized. i love political science but this is one of the worst classes I've taken at UCLA. my ta was chill tho

I lowkey thought this was going to be a hard class but I really enjoyed it. The class is very informational heavy and reading-heavy but it was very intriguing to me. She tries to make it very interactive. She does talk pretty fast. The essay is pretty easy and the TA is very nice to have as far as it goes to understanding the class. I thought I was going to do so badly and have no interest in the class but I really loved it.

I took this course seeing another professor (Branstetter) teaching this course and having a high rating on Bruinwalk. I assumed that that meant this class would be a rather easy lower div Poli Sci class. I also had a fair amount of interest in political theory and philosophy, so I decided to take this class to wrap up the four required lower division Poli Sci courses. I was wrong. This class was arguably one of the most confusing and difficult courses I have taken in my short time at UCLA. It's safe to assume that this will remain my least favorite class of all time throughout my entire time at UCLA, maybe even my entire time in school. She carries the attitude of someone who believes is superior to her students, she emphasizes that this course is meant to be difficult yet belittles the class for falling short of her extremely high standards. This is supposed to be an introductory class, yet she expects to write and understand political theory at an extremely high scholarly level. The assigned readings may not seem like much at first, but they catch on quickly and get overwhelmingly fast. Her lectures seemed to be organized at first, but after the first two weeks, I realized that her class was the opposite of organized. No recorded lectures, no slides on Canvas (her slides don't contain any useful info anyway just artwork she says she likes), and her lecturing method is quite confusing as she tries to incorporate student discussion which often leads to a tangent that is confusing for the rest of the students and extremely difficult to follow and take notes about. Because her slides didn't contain any useful info you needed to pay close attention to her speaking, but that itself was difficult due to her fast-talking speed, her tendency to go on tangents, and the mic cutting out/crackling at the worst moments. No recordings meant missing lectures would set you back immensely and I doubt that fellow classmates would even have useful notes that you could follow and learn the material from. This class and professor require you to focus 100% every minute which is just impossible for almost if not all students. She called the class stupid and tried to backtrack her statement and turn it into something less rude and direct, but the message was already received by all the students present. She is not a good teacher or a good speaker. If you're thinking of taking this class with her, JUST DON'T DO IT, IT IS NOT WORTH BELITTLEMENT, CONFUSION, AND STRESS! To Professor Piano, Thank you for reminding to do my course eval, as I was actually able to put some effort into it just for you :)

Professor Piano seems super passionate about the topic, but the lectures can be really confusing. She often goes off on tangents and moves through new concepts really quickly. There is a lot of dense reading for this class, and all of it is old philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, etc.). Your grade consists of answering discussion prompts once a week, a midterm paper, and a take-home final. It is definitely doable to get an A, but it is SO dependent on your TA. If you can take a different Poli sci lower div or take ps10 with a different prof, I would.

Natasha Piano's class is truly exceptional! Her engaging teaching style and deep knowledge of the subject make every lecture interesting and insightful. She encourages critical thinking and open discussions, making complex political concepts easy to understand. Her dedication to her students' success is evident in her willingness to provide extra help and feedback. She's also incredibly nice and approachable, always ready to listen to students' concerns and offer support. Overall, it's one of the best classes you can take! Also people are doing to much with the reviews she is not like that