As many other reviews have said, Piano was not the best professor. She was pretentious and seemed to look down on UCLA and the students, comparing it to her alma mater. She made very harsh comments about our work, which contributed to the poor learning environment she was creating. While I would not exactly recommend this class, this class was very interesting and challenged me the most compared to other Polisci prerequisites.

From my experience with her teaching style, I found her need to be clearer in teaching the material, slurring her words or mumbling, but overall, hard to follow. She was, at times, engaging, passionate, and knowledgeable about the material. I wouldn't say she is the most approachable person, especially after the first impression where she told students who barely arrived late (the first weeks of class) to leave very rudely. This happened after she said something about not wanting to treat us as children, which gave the opposite impression. For the lectures, she could have helped to answer questions. If anything, it would always confuse me. For example, she would say, “That answer would suffice for now,” or “We can spend a whole quarter just answering that question.” This was weird since the lecture style was like a “Socratic seminar,” but only a few people would participate. She would never fully talk about what she intended to discuss for the lecture, contributing to her unorganized lecturing style.

Throughout the rest of the quarter, I think she tried to make up for the unapproachable vibe she was giving many of us by discussing pop-culture references; however, for me, it didn't take away from the fact that she was still not a good professor, and would belittle her students.

As for the TAs, mine was very helpful; however, mine did grade harshly for the participation despite lacking clear expectations for participation on the course or section syllabus.

Course Material:
In the first week or two of class, I remember her saying that we needed to have the exact physical texts of the books and that we had a student read out of them a few times. She also cold-called on a student to read. After this, I didn't find it super necessary, and some of the text could be found online, e.g., the Leviathan is on Sparknotes for free with lots of helpful summary/analysis. She also doesn't post lecture slides; however, I didn't find them helpful, and sometimes she would have blank or inaccurate slides. Sparknotes would probably do the same if not a better job, as it is more organized and helpful than her lectures.

Grading rubric:
Weekly Reading Assignment 25%: 250 words, use ~ 2 quotes in own words preferred; not graded very strict
Midterm Paper 25%: 1200 - 1300 words, some were comparative prompts
Final Exam 30%: SAQ, Critical Reading Excerpt, and Evaluative Essay; 500 words each
Attendance and Participation 20%: ask TA for expectations on participation/go to OH, as some may grade more strictly than others

TLDR:
- although passionate and sometimes engaging, not the best lecturer and speaks negatively about students' work without advice or guidance on how to do better or well
- use sparknotes and course hero for readings, especially if you miss a lecture or don't want to go
- lecture is not required; discussion is
- if you're in AAP, take advantage of PLF!! Emma was amazing
- attend TA office hours for any help and to help with your participation grade
- also, I think she said something about changing how she will be doing exams next time for this class, so use this info for the grading rubric as a guide, but it can be very different than what it actually will be
- this class will also help you build some foundation in political theory, especially if you plan on concentrating on it or taking any political theory courses!! I would recommend it for these students in particular, and hopefully, Piano's teaching methods will improve for future courses :)

Dr Piano is the professor all hs teachers warn you about. Yes, she was very intimidating, a bit scattered, and liked to talk down to her students. If you don't take any of that personally, the class can be interesting. Honestly, I learned so much about these philosophers' ideas and have reevaluated how I think about the world countless times because of it. I never spoke with Piano and smiled at her when I walked in late. About half of what she said during lecture was useless to write because she is not good at explaining ideas ina cohesive straight thought. I just tried to keep track of vocab/big ideas. I didn't buy any of the books she "required" and didn't read more than 2 pages MAYBE of the reading. Instead, I would watch summary/analysis/lecture videos of the readings/philosophers, and I would find a pdf version of the reading to skim the parts I wanted to read for myself (or to find useful quotes, which I used for the midterm-- that's the only time u need to reference the readings). Read over your classmates' discussion posts!! Somebody will know what they're talkin ab. Spencer was the most helpful most understanding most knowledgeable TA I've had so far. The TAs actually gaf about you and your understanding. The actual assignments were few and fairly easy. Most challenging part of the class was getting over how pretentious the professor was. I respect how much she knows, but it's a shame she does not know how to communicate effectively. Also, the irony of people using philosophers' thoughts to shade Piano proves you do learn something from the class, regardless of how frustrating she is as a person (LMFAO). I'd be more than willing to share the pdfs/videos I used (dm me @2nahalfstrokes)

I've never written a bruinwalk review before but I honestly felt compelled after this quarter. All the above reviews are accurate in how she was about students' tardiness, technology usage, and comments made about our writing. She took an entire class telling us that our assignments were incorrect and we were the problem, but never fully explained the why. The thing that stood out the most to me, however, was how little it seemed that she actually cared about student learning. Life happens sometimes, so sometimes we'll be a minute or two late, and students shouldn't be pushed out of the classroom without hopes of a recording of the lecture for that. We asked her once to record the lecture, and she laughed at the group and said, "Good try." Her slides weren't organized or really prepared very far in advance (she actually admitted that to us at the start of the quarter!) so her lecture was her talking about the opinions she had on the text while also calling on the few people that dared to participate. Without a recording, it made understanding so much more difficult because we would be racing to take down everything she said with the hopes that it was important, key points of which got lost amongst the rambling. The midterm and final were both fairly straightforward so long as you did the reading, but the reading itself was so time-consuming that it took up most of my free time. Since I took this class out of necessity for my major, I would take it again simply because it was just a lot of busy work and not extraordinarily difficult, but it did make me realize that I would not concentrate in political theory. If I got anything out of this class, it was that.

Dr. Piano has changed my life forever. Unfortunately, it is for the worst. I have never seen a teacher or professor in my life get genuine enjoyment out of scaring her class like I did with Piano. From day one, she instilled a culture of fear into the class, and only a select few "glazers" would dare speak up to her to engage in discussion. As for the rest of us, she demanded that we buy hard copies of books and that we take hand-written notes, yet would never help out us students by refusing to record the lectures and post the slides. She expected us to understand the topics she was discussing like we had been studying them for a hundred years, and when people asked genuine questions she would laugh at them for their stupidity. Dr. Piano proved to be even more evil when she would complain about tardiness. Early on in the quarter, she would kick out students for arriving minutes to even seconds after the class was supposed to start. Meanwhile, she would start arriving late towards the end of the quarter, and then was furious when she did not finish covering the material and students would start packing up. The graded workload itself was not horrific: a weekly discussion post that was a minimum of 250 words, and then a few close readings to prepare for the final. However, she would assign hours worth of reading to complete for these discussion posts, and would get insulted when not every single person understood the content. Piano swamped and overwhelmed us, as after every lecture people would get up and mutually complain about their confusion. Her class took such a toll on me that my friends would sarcastically ask me "How was Piano?", and then I would rant about the insane lectures that became a common occurrence. From spewing the most random garbage to debating with the same five glazers every lecture, Dr. Piano had no control over her class whatsoever. This class was the death of me, and Piano was the grim reaper.
As Thomas Hobbes said, humans ARE naturally evil.

This class made me rethink my decision to major in Political Science every single day. The one day that lecture was canceled, I truly felt a huge amount of overwhelming happiness and that made me realize just how awful of a class this was and how awful of a prof piano was. I will never ever forget the names of the five individuals she called on every lecture because I truly will never understand how one can cry while reading political theory.

I took this class because it was a my last lower division course. I had been postponing taking my last class because I had been avaoiding taking Pol Sci 50 like the plague. When I saw that this class had spots, I was so happy because I had been wanting to take it. On the first day she was VERY adamant on tardiness. Class started at 2 pm and right on the dot she told students to leave her class and come back next time on time. She did this for about 3 weeks, as she paused her lecture and told students to leave in front of the entire lecture hall. Though I work well under a stricter hand, this felt too much and though she did not want to treat us like kids, it had the exact opposite effect. She definitely has a stern teaching method, and she is very passionate of the work she does. Her lecture styles are a socratic style open class participation, where students have a full conversation of the readings and share questions they may have. This is not for everyone. I will say it put me out of my comfort zone, but at times it was intresting to listen in on the multiple perspectives my other peers had. I wasn't someone who shared, in fact I probably shared liked twice in the span of these 10 weeks in lectures, but sometimes not having a guided converstaion made the lectures feel rushed and a bit confusing. She also has a strict no technology rule, and had us buy phsyical copies of the readings. Though it is not the most accessible in terms of purchasing books, I didn't mind hand writing my notes since I already do that. The final format isn't all that clear either, but I'm hoping for the best. If you go to discusison your TA will help you out if you feel like you have any questions. Overall, I both feared and respected her. I think it just felt belittling when she would treat us like highschool kids. I know this is an introductory course, but I'm a third year student, and even I felt discouraged. I just think that the fear took over this time and I stopped showing up to lecture because I just didn't feel welcome. However, the content in this course that she assigned was very intresting and has me considering concentrating in Political Theory. I will say the readings will catch up to you though, for an introductory course. I don't think I would take this class again, but I would say give it a shot, you might be surprised. I think I'll pass the class, and if you work well under HER standards then no biggie.

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!

I feel such intense hatred for this class I feel compelled to write a review before even completing the course. Needless to say, I had the displeasure of taking Introduction to Political Theory with Professor Piano. Dr. Piano represents a story as old as time: a young professor, newly minted in the world of academia, struggles intensely to teach students for the first time, and therefore adopts an overbearing and thoughtless teaching style. She was just the worst. Taking the class included 4 hours + of reading each week, lectures with useless slides that were not posted, no recordings, purposeless discussion sections, and completely nonsensical tangents and explanations that revealed nothing about the content of the reading. In most lectures, she would just ask questions and make students answer them without providing much clarity, or even teaching anything. The same five people who do all the talking (glazing), and everyone else would sit there thinking, "I have absolutely no idea what is going on in this class.". She just would not explain anything, and when she did, it was done in the most needlessly convoluted way. Do not listen to other reviews that wax poetic about how smart and knowledgeable Dr. Piano is. Part of teaching any subject is knowing how to distill complex topics into something someone without experience in that subject can understand. Dr. Piano was incapable of doing this. Also, she just was mean. Every lecture she would grumble about some grievance or tell us what terrible students we were compared to her University of Chicago undergrads. And of course, she told students late on the first day of class to "come back when you can respect my time" before closing the door on them. What kind of teacher, let alone person behaves like this? This was the worst class and worst professor. Dr. Piano lives Machiavelli's famous adage, "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.".

Dear Prof. Piano,

After too many Tuesdays spent dreading your lectures, too many nights spent chained to the reading, and many Thursday afternoons spent counting down the minutes until the end of class, I’ve made a decision. I think it's time we go our separate ways. This is not see you soon, it's goodbye for good. I won't be taking another class of yours.

Although your knowledge of political theory kept me in awe, our communication styles were never compatible. Instead of saying we were "bad writers," constructive criticism might have been better received. An alternative to telling the class, "we all had an F in life," could have been a more thorough explanation of your instructions for assignments. When students showed up late, a warning would have been the kind thing to do. No one likes being publicly embarrassed in front of 200 of their peers. But, I guess we never discussed our boundaries.

I knew this was a toxic situation from the beginning, but the allure of this being my final pre-rec kept me from doing what I know would have been right for both of us. The stress of your rudeness, your lack of encouragement, and your unapproachable nature was something of a red flag, that I wish I didn’t ignore. Would I do this all over again if I could? Nope. It's not me, it's you.

As Aristotle argued, happiness cannot be achieved until the end of one's life, however, I achieved it through the end of this class.

Won’t be resigning this social contract.
xoxo

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.