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.

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

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.

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!!

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.

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.

super easy class and the class structure was very consistent. We had twice a week lecture and mandatory discussion sections (but my TA was super chill abt attendance). The discussion were helpful because they related class concepts to current events. class basically was about social movements from the 1950s to now--super interesting if you like history or social justice

Assignments:
a super chill research project that essentially consisted of two slideshows. open note midterm and final but it had to be handwritten

this is a super easy and interesting social analysis GE and diversity requirement. highly recommend!

Thomas Sherrer is an angel. He is great at explaining topics and is super nonpartisan in his explanations. The readings he posts for us are super relevant and educational. I really value that he posts up-to-date news, and has clearly engaged with the material himself. He is such a sweetheart, who is clearly passionate about his students and what he teaches. He just overall is a good dude. One of my favorite professors at UCLA. He communicates well, and wants his students to succeed. Sometimes he beats topics to death and overexplains simple topics, but he is never annoyed at questions. I will say, the PA20 material is extremely similar to PA10, which was a little annoying at times. His assignments were explained well, with clearly defined expectations, and were graded fairly. His tests were straight from the material, and incorporated readings, which made them worthwhile. This class is super easy, and his slides are made well and well organized. Overall, I would take this class again, and Thomas Sherrer deserves a raise, he is a great guy and an even better professor. 10/10 guy.

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.

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