Professor Roberts seems like a genuinely kind person who has done meaningful work, and that comes through in his teaching. That said, the organization of the course can feel inconsistent at times. For example, early in the quarter there was some confusion with participation grades that caused concern for a large portion of the class before it was eventually addressed.

The reading quizzes are straightforward and actually serve as a helpful study guide for the exams, though the readings themselves can be fairly dense. You’re allowed to bring a double-sided cheat sheet (typed if you prefer), which is useful—but time management during exams is important. In our case, the final was scheduled during a regular class period rather than finals week, which made the time feel more limited than expected.

There is also a group presentation and paper based on a country research project. The workload for this is manageable, especially with a collaborative group, and overall it’s not overly time-consuming.

Overall, despite some organizational challenges, the class is very manageable. If you stay on top of the readings and attend regularly, it’s very possible to do well in the course.

Disregard all other reviews. Yes, there is a lot of reading (but it's relatively interesting). Yes, attendence matters and there are in-class quizzes (but it's not that hard to come to class and the quizzes are like 0.01% of your grade). Yes, there is a lot of homework (it's really not that hard). Yes, there is a group project and 2 exams (you complete the project slowly throughout the whole quarter and the exams take from the quizzes). There is so much grade-buffing from all the activites throughout the quarter and the material is actually really interesting. Out of all the UCLA classes and professsors, I genuinely recommend this class. This guy is so funny and his 151 classes are fantastic.

Class was pretty easy, work was very manageable, midterm was retread of the quizzes. Easy recommend.

Professor Roberts is a nice guy. The class is pretty easy throughout. He doesn't always seem to know what he's talking about and him and his reader have way different standards of what assignments should be like. My issue with the class is that I received 98% and above on every assignment except the midterm (which I got 93%) and the final presentation brought me down to a B+ so I was pretty disappointed in his distribution. He gives templates for how to do assignments then his reader constantly calls almost every submission "minimalist" (for everyone not just me) and gives childish comments like "sigh....this is so minimalist." Other than that, it's doable and easy.