This class is supposed to be a seminar class (30 students taught directly by Traeger). But due to a "department error", when I took it (Fall 2021), it was structured as a lecture with circa 100 students and 2 TAs.

Traeger is a fairly run-of-the-mill UCLA Poli Sci Professor. He's clearly brilliant and accomplished, but he imbues the same “I have plenty of important things to do, this class is largely an errand” attitude as 80% of the tenured political-science faculty here do. Readings were heavy and didn't feel particularly well organized. Lecture consisted of him loosely ranting while slides were largely blank (containing of only a few words or unlabeled infographics). If you asked him a question that was related to something remotely logistical, his response was always “just ask your TA”. He also canceled class... twice. He'd make efforts to rile-up enthusiasm (he often posed open-ended questions to the class), but they usually fell flat.

Grading-wise, the syllabus initially consisted of 2 prompt-less short papers (4-5 pages) that correspond to 2-week's readings of your choosing (basically you just discuss the readings or tie them together, not always easy). The final was originally a 12-15 page no-prompt research paper, later shortened to 10 pages by our TAs. This was pretty hellish and unclear. The guidelines were to develop an original international relations theory and devise a statistical test to see if it's legitimate. That approaches graduate-level work and was super difficult. Thankfully the TA's went pretty easy grading wise. I have a feeling that Traeger's grading would've been different.

This class was fine in lecture-format (with TA's as graders), but I have a feeling it would be much harder and more unclear with Trager as it's main instructor. I would avoid this class in general-- especially if it's in a seminar format.

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Interesting class! Challenging but definitely doable!

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Trager is one of the most intelligent professors I have come across in my time here at UCLA. While I did not take his PS courses that are more "traditional" for your typical PS major, he has superior command over mathematical application and formal analysis of political science. Taking 204 with him has made me reconsider a PhD program (instead of law school) due to his teaching.

I have a lot of friends who heavily criticized his PS 20 and PS 129 courses. I assure you, if you have a genuine interest in learning the material he presents, you can take away a lot from his class. When I was in his class he always made time for questions outside of class and was always very enthusiastic in discussing course material with me.

I strongly recommend taking a class with him if you get the opportunity.

I'll start out by saying I came in the second week and didn't get the book until the 4th week. I really liked him and his style of teaching. I only feel asleep during one lecture so all the rest were pretty exciting for me... His lecture is identical to the book so you can really do one or the other. I got an 'A' in this class and I never read the book (shouldn't have even bought it) but I did go to most the lectures...

THIS IS A MUST TAKE CLASS FOR ANY ECON MAJORS GETTING A MINOR IN POLI SCI!!

The second half is all econ and at least for me having a background in econ (and other poli sci courses) made this ridiculously easy cause it was all review. Overall I would say this was an easy class and would recommend taking it. Just dont take it to serious cause its really pretty easy.

He is a nice guy and a fair teacher. Honestly the only problem I had with him was that he was a bit boring and stale, but other than that he was a person who if you attend all the lectures and did all of the readings then you willbe fine

I actually enjoyed this class a lot, and I feel like I got a lot out of it. But this class isn't an easy A and I ended up getting a B+. Granted, I never went to lecture (I stopped going after the midterm) because his lectures are the same thing as the book. Actually, the book is a lot easier to understand anyway because I really disliked his lecturing style. He kind of just talks on and on and goes off sometimes. Don't get me wrong, he's a really knowledgeable and nice professor but I just didn't like the way he taught. Just buy the book, read the chapters and you will understand everything. He's a good guy and even gives you a practice midterm and final.

You will have a policy brief every week except for midterm and final week. They can be a pain in the ass alongside your work for other classes but they're not hard and they help you a lot in the long run. For my essay for the final, I used a lot of material from one of my policy briefs. Even though I got a B+ this is the most I got out of a class and I really enjoyed it. I did mediocre on the midterm (I think like an 82?) and I think I brought it up with the final. I'm a Poli Sci major but the stuff you learn is interesting! Grading depends heavily on your TA. I had Palley as a TA and he was awesome at helping us understand the material.

Nice as he may be on a personal level, he's pretty bad as a teacher. Boring, dry, unclear, overly complicated lectures.