Professor

Thomas Sherrer

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4.5
Overall Ratings
Based on 44 Users
Easiness 4.3 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 4.3 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 4.4 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 4.4 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (44)

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POL SCI 141E
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 19, 2021
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A+

This is by far the most engaging, interesting, and pertinent political science class I've taken at UCLA. "Professor" Sherrer is exceptionally talented and gives engaging and clear lectures (it's amazing to have a professor that actually speaks like a normal human being and not a robot programmed to spew out overcomplicated academic jargon, as do 90% of the tenured faculty here).

The readings for this class are fairly light and the vast majority of them were actually very interesting. I think there may have been only two or three that were boring (the majority were Washington Post or NYT articles, excerpts from a very recent/engaging book, and super cool voter psychology studies). None of the readings felt like filler or irrelevant to the course (again, credit to Sherrer for planning the class so well).

Grading is fair and is based on a midterm (30% of grade, was super easy), a short writing assignment (20%), an infographic (10%), and a final (40% of grade, very fair but marginally harder than the midterm).

Sherrer is very organized and uses very clear slides. He also recorded lecture and did not require attendance.

I highly, highly recommend this class and Prof. Sherrer in general. I wish UCLA's political science department offered more classes related to this topic.

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4 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
POL SCI 141E
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 21, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: N/A

30% midterm
40% final
15% essay 1
15% essay 2

Sherrer is pretty good he moved around assignments to be accommodating.
Covid-19 so tests were open book
however, he is a super slow grader(3+weeks) and graded stuff after p/np deadline so some people were concerned.
Did not give a ton of feedback on essays
overall he's a good professor to have

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3 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
POL SCI 141E
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Jan. 14, 2022
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: B

TAKE THIS CLASS, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH BEST TEACHER IN UCLA, THIS CALSS WAS SO GOOD I CAME BACK TO MAKE A REVIEW, I HAVE NEVER DONE THIS.

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1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Dec. 23, 2023
Quarter: Fall 2023
Grade: A

This was def my favorite class this quarter!! Professor Sherrer is great at what he does, making this class an easy and educational experience for his students. First off, all exams (midterm and final) are open note so long as everything is handwritten, which honestly helped me retain the information better. Sometimes the questions on the exams were pulled directly from the slides, word for word, so do take good notes. I'd say around 18/20 of the questions were based on the lectures while around 1-2 were pulled from the readings so make sure to skim them over and take note of the central argument. A tip I recommend is to put a Post-it note on each page of your notes and list all of the main topics you wrote about so you can go through them quickly when taking the exam. 

There is no textbook and you don't need to pay for class materials since he provides scantrons. The midterm average was 90% and the final was around 87%!! The topics you can expect to learn about are the movements relating to race, women's rights, environment, gun violence, healthcare, education, immigration, economic inequality, barriers to policymaking like the filibuster, etc. Super interesting lectures plus he's really funny. I highly encourage attending the lectures in person (he does post the slides after) since he sometimes did state a few things that were not in the slides but were present in the exam.

There were only 3 homework assignments that consisted of making slideshows of a social problem of your choice. The first 2 assignments ranged from 250-500 words while the last assignment (a more research-intensive slideshow) was 500+ words. All of them were spaced out pretty well throughout the quarter and you had an entire week to do them. The first two assignments took me about 1 hour each while the last one took 2 hours.

Shoutout to my TA Selena, she's super chill and made my discussion section engaging. All of the discussions extend to the assigned readings and there's really no pressure to participate but if you can, you def should. Attendance is mandatory for these and is included in your grade. Loved this class and will def take another class with him!!

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1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
POL SCI 149
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 19, 2020
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A

Professor Sherrer is such a cool dude and a great teacher. He is engaging and so passionate about American politics. He had great lecture slides and encouraged us to engage in breakout room discussions with our peers every class. This helped us feel a bit more connected to each other during online school. The class was made up of two homework assignments that were full credit if submitted on time, attendance and multiple choice and short answer midterm and final. There was no textbook required and instead, he provided really interesting chapters from books he enjoyed. I would highly recommend taking this class and any class he teaches at UCLA.

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1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
POL SCI 149
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 28, 2020
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: N/A

Do you ever have a professor who you think, "wow, I could probably play a nice game of connect four with this guy"? Well, Thomas is one of those professors (lecturer, he insists on not being called professor). He is super chill and has a great sense of blunt humor which I found hilarious. I would 100% take his class again. Granted, he is new and the material was at times a bit unnecessary and felt like common sense, but I'm sure he will get over that soon. The homework was super easy and was graded based on completion. The tests were a bit odd and felt unrelated to the course at times, but they weren't hard. Definitely my favorite covid-era class.

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Jan. 6, 2025
Quarter: Fall 2024
Grade: A-

I will say I liked this class, but I barely went to lecture (my fault). A little frustrating because even if you 100% understand the content of the class, there's a good chance that you still might get an A- because of the sole reason that the grade is composed of the midterm and final, and the exam questions are extremely niche (sometimes a multiple choice about a statistic mentioned once the entire quarter). Sherrer is a great professor overall though, while the class content is basic American politics you probably learned in high school or on the news.

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Dec. 23, 2024
Quarter: Fall 2024
Grade: A

Pub Aff 10 with Professor Sherrer was a great introduction to the public affairs major. Sherrer is an eloquent and engaging political scientist and speaker who genuinely cares about the subjects at hand. I went into the class thinking that I was simply going to learn about the same old civil rights, women, and LGBTQ+ movements I had already studied about in high school, but I actually left the class with a new perspective on these movements and the US government in general. Professor Sherrer's love for the class content was contagious, his class is definitely going to be one I will miss having in my schedule.

2 Tips
1. Keep up with the readings their contents will show up on the multiple-choice section of his exams. He only assigns about two readings/videos before each lecture, and they are not very long, the course load was so light

2. To best prepare for exams is to not simply rely on the posted slide decks, but by attending lectures. A good deal of exam content is on information the professor says in class

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0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Aug. 13, 2024
Quarter: Summer 2024
Grade: A+

Course Title: PS 149 - Careers in Political Science

This was easily the most laid-back class I’ve taken at UCLA. Nothing about this class was stressful, and it was overall a super easy class. All this class is about is preparing you for jobs and internships and finding a career path that interests you. There’s a guest lecture once a week from people who graduated from UCLA (whether a recent graduate or someone who graduated 20 years ago), many of whom are in law school or current lawyers. Professor Sherrer is simply amazing. He is so chill, kind, helpful, and insightful. It’s obvious that he wants all his students to succeed and even cracks a joke or two during lectures. I have nothing negative to say about him. I plan on taking a class with him again in the future!
Here’s a grading breakdown:
ATTENDANCE/PARTICIPATION: 20% of your grade. Professor Sherrer usually has two check-ins per class, one at the beginning and one at the end. The answer for the check-in question at the beginning of class was given to us, and the second check-in question was usually something like “What did you learn today?” Sometimes, Sherrer had one check-in or none. The check-in points were usually just one or two, so if you miss a few, it won’t affect your grade too badly, but it does stack up over time. So make sure you attend class and pay attention!
CAREER JOURNEY JOURNAL: 30% of your grade. There are three journals, so each is worth 10% of your grade. This assignment is super easy, as there’s no wrong answer to the questions asked since it’s YOUR journey. 
RESUME AND COVER LETTER: 20% of your grade. For this assignment, Professor Sherrer asked us to find a job or internship posting that interests us and tailor our resume and cover letter to that position.
CREATE/UPDATE LINKEDIN, HANDSHAKE, AND UCLAONE PROFILES: 10% of your grade. This is pretty self-explanatory.
CAREER RESEARCH PAPER: 20% of your grade. This isn’t actually a paper; it’s a Google Slides presentation. That being said, we don’t actually present our slides; we just turn them in. For this assignment, we research a career path that interests us. We have to answer six questions, and there’s a 700-900 word limit for our answers. We have to interview one person with this career path and ask them a few questions, and we must include some part of the interview in our assignment. 
We had one assignment per week, which is so nice, especially during a summer class! There were no tests or quizzes, just quick assignments that took less than an hour to complete. Additionally, we are allowed one absence as long as we notify him ahead of time, and the participation points for that day you miss won't be counted against you.
Overall, I highly recommend this class. I was never stressed or worried about this class, and as long as you do the assignments and show up to class, you are guaranteed to get an A. Plus, it's nice that this class is trying to set you up for the future! The point is, there's no downside to this course. Take it!!!

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June 23, 2024
Quarter: Spring 2024
Grade: A

Dr. Sherrer is great. Midterm was very easy exam, final was a bit more difficult but with the research presentation it is very easy to get an A! Good class.

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POL SCI 141E
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A+
Dec. 19, 2021

This is by far the most engaging, interesting, and pertinent political science class I've taken at UCLA. "Professor" Sherrer is exceptionally talented and gives engaging and clear lectures (it's amazing to have a professor that actually speaks like a normal human being and not a robot programmed to spew out overcomplicated academic jargon, as do 90% of the tenured faculty here).

The readings for this class are fairly light and the vast majority of them were actually very interesting. I think there may have been only two or three that were boring (the majority were Washington Post or NYT articles, excerpts from a very recent/engaging book, and super cool voter psychology studies). None of the readings felt like filler or irrelevant to the course (again, credit to Sherrer for planning the class so well).

Grading is fair and is based on a midterm (30% of grade, was super easy), a short writing assignment (20%), an infographic (10%), and a final (40% of grade, very fair but marginally harder than the midterm).

Sherrer is very organized and uses very clear slides. He also recorded lecture and did not require attendance.

I highly, highly recommend this class and Prof. Sherrer in general. I wish UCLA's political science department offered more classes related to this topic.

Helpful?

4 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
POL SCI 141E
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: N/A
March 21, 2021

30% midterm
40% final
15% essay 1
15% essay 2

Sherrer is pretty good he moved around assignments to be accommodating.
Covid-19 so tests were open book
however, he is a super slow grader(3+weeks) and graded stuff after p/np deadline so some people were concerned.
Did not give a ton of feedback on essays
overall he's a good professor to have

Helpful?

3 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
POL SCI 141E
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: B
Jan. 14, 2022

TAKE THIS CLASS, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH BEST TEACHER IN UCLA, THIS CALSS WAS SO GOOD I CAME BACK TO MAKE A REVIEW, I HAVE NEVER DONE THIS.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PUB AFF 10
Quarter: Fall 2023
Grade: A
Dec. 23, 2023

This was def my favorite class this quarter!! Professor Sherrer is great at what he does, making this class an easy and educational experience for his students. First off, all exams (midterm and final) are open note so long as everything is handwritten, which honestly helped me retain the information better. Sometimes the questions on the exams were pulled directly from the slides, word for word, so do take good notes. I'd say around 18/20 of the questions were based on the lectures while around 1-2 were pulled from the readings so make sure to skim them over and take note of the central argument. A tip I recommend is to put a Post-it note on each page of your notes and list all of the main topics you wrote about so you can go through them quickly when taking the exam. 

There is no textbook and you don't need to pay for class materials since he provides scantrons. The midterm average was 90% and the final was around 87%!! The topics you can expect to learn about are the movements relating to race, women's rights, environment, gun violence, healthcare, education, immigration, economic inequality, barriers to policymaking like the filibuster, etc. Super interesting lectures plus he's really funny. I highly encourage attending the lectures in person (he does post the slides after) since he sometimes did state a few things that were not in the slides but were present in the exam.

There were only 3 homework assignments that consisted of making slideshows of a social problem of your choice. The first 2 assignments ranged from 250-500 words while the last assignment (a more research-intensive slideshow) was 500+ words. All of them were spaced out pretty well throughout the quarter and you had an entire week to do them. The first two assignments took me about 1 hour each while the last one took 2 hours.

Shoutout to my TA Selena, she's super chill and made my discussion section engaging. All of the discussions extend to the assigned readings and there's really no pressure to participate but if you can, you def should. Attendance is mandatory for these and is included in your grade. Loved this class and will def take another class with him!!

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
POL SCI 149
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
Dec. 19, 2020

Professor Sherrer is such a cool dude and a great teacher. He is engaging and so passionate about American politics. He had great lecture slides and encouraged us to engage in breakout room discussions with our peers every class. This helped us feel a bit more connected to each other during online school. The class was made up of two homework assignments that were full credit if submitted on time, attendance and multiple choice and short answer midterm and final. There was no textbook required and instead, he provided really interesting chapters from books he enjoyed. I would highly recommend taking this class and any class he teaches at UCLA.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
POL SCI 149
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: N/A
Dec. 28, 2020

Do you ever have a professor who you think, "wow, I could probably play a nice game of connect four with this guy"? Well, Thomas is one of those professors (lecturer, he insists on not being called professor). He is super chill and has a great sense of blunt humor which I found hilarious. I would 100% take his class again. Granted, he is new and the material was at times a bit unnecessary and felt like common sense, but I'm sure he will get over that soon. The homework was super easy and was graded based on completion. The tests were a bit odd and felt unrelated to the course at times, but they weren't hard. Definitely my favorite covid-era class.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PUB AFF 10
Quarter: Fall 2024
Grade: A-
Jan. 6, 2025

I will say I liked this class, but I barely went to lecture (my fault). A little frustrating because even if you 100% understand the content of the class, there's a good chance that you still might get an A- because of the sole reason that the grade is composed of the midterm and final, and the exam questions are extremely niche (sometimes a multiple choice about a statistic mentioned once the entire quarter). Sherrer is a great professor overall though, while the class content is basic American politics you probably learned in high school or on the news.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PUB AFF 10
Quarter: Fall 2024
Grade: A
Dec. 23, 2024

Pub Aff 10 with Professor Sherrer was a great introduction to the public affairs major. Sherrer is an eloquent and engaging political scientist and speaker who genuinely cares about the subjects at hand. I went into the class thinking that I was simply going to learn about the same old civil rights, women, and LGBTQ+ movements I had already studied about in high school, but I actually left the class with a new perspective on these movements and the US government in general. Professor Sherrer's love for the class content was contagious, his class is definitely going to be one I will miss having in my schedule.

2 Tips
1. Keep up with the readings their contents will show up on the multiple-choice section of his exams. He only assigns about two readings/videos before each lecture, and they are not very long, the course load was so light

2. To best prepare for exams is to not simply rely on the posted slide decks, but by attending lectures. A good deal of exam content is on information the professor says in class

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
POL SCI 149
Quarter: Summer 2024
Grade: A+
Aug. 13, 2024

Course Title: PS 149 - Careers in Political Science

This was easily the most laid-back class I’ve taken at UCLA. Nothing about this class was stressful, and it was overall a super easy class. All this class is about is preparing you for jobs and internships and finding a career path that interests you. There’s a guest lecture once a week from people who graduated from UCLA (whether a recent graduate or someone who graduated 20 years ago), many of whom are in law school or current lawyers. Professor Sherrer is simply amazing. He is so chill, kind, helpful, and insightful. It’s obvious that he wants all his students to succeed and even cracks a joke or two during lectures. I have nothing negative to say about him. I plan on taking a class with him again in the future!
Here’s a grading breakdown:
ATTENDANCE/PARTICIPATION: 20% of your grade. Professor Sherrer usually has two check-ins per class, one at the beginning and one at the end. The answer for the check-in question at the beginning of class was given to us, and the second check-in question was usually something like “What did you learn today?” Sometimes, Sherrer had one check-in or none. The check-in points were usually just one or two, so if you miss a few, it won’t affect your grade too badly, but it does stack up over time. So make sure you attend class and pay attention!
CAREER JOURNEY JOURNAL: 30% of your grade. There are three journals, so each is worth 10% of your grade. This assignment is super easy, as there’s no wrong answer to the questions asked since it’s YOUR journey. 
RESUME AND COVER LETTER: 20% of your grade. For this assignment, Professor Sherrer asked us to find a job or internship posting that interests us and tailor our resume and cover letter to that position.
CREATE/UPDATE LINKEDIN, HANDSHAKE, AND UCLAONE PROFILES: 10% of your grade. This is pretty self-explanatory.
CAREER RESEARCH PAPER: 20% of your grade. This isn’t actually a paper; it’s a Google Slides presentation. That being said, we don’t actually present our slides; we just turn them in. For this assignment, we research a career path that interests us. We have to answer six questions, and there’s a 700-900 word limit for our answers. We have to interview one person with this career path and ask them a few questions, and we must include some part of the interview in our assignment. 
We had one assignment per week, which is so nice, especially during a summer class! There were no tests or quizzes, just quick assignments that took less than an hour to complete. Additionally, we are allowed one absence as long as we notify him ahead of time, and the participation points for that day you miss won't be counted against you.
Overall, I highly recommend this class. I was never stressed or worried about this class, and as long as you do the assignments and show up to class, you are guaranteed to get an A. Plus, it's nice that this class is trying to set you up for the future! The point is, there's no downside to this course. Take it!!!

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0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PUB AFF 10
Quarter: Spring 2024
Grade: A
June 23, 2024

Dr. Sherrer is great. Midterm was very easy exam, final was a bit more difficult but with the research presentation it is very easy to get an A! Good class.

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