Professor Lee was manageable but not the easiest Professor to take. Your grade is based on a small quiz at the end of each class (which are easy to miss and close at midnight but also very easy), the midterm, and the final. For this quarter the midterm and final were in person and no notes. Two prompts are given one week before and then she chooses one the day of. If you are able to memorize and cite at least 8 sources but name, you should be able to get an 80% or above. She isn’t too harsh of a grader. Lectures could seem boring at times but she is very impressive and education as a Professor. This class was honestly pretty stressful at times because she didn’t update the midterm or final grade til Winter Break. Although she doesn’t take attendance, you do have to go everyday in order to take the quizzes. I would say she’s a 8/10 easiness, workload is a 2/10 regularly but once midterms or finals come around and you need to prep I would say the stress level is 9/10. If you have a good work ethic an A is definitely manageable in this class.

I really enjoyed this class with Professor Lee. She is probably the most knowledgeable professor I've ever had- she seemed to know every detail about the China reforms and she truly cares about making sure we understand the content. The content is also really interesting, coming from someone who knew nothing about China prior to the class.

There is a daily quiz after each session that is on Canvas and can be submitted until 11:59 that is based on the readings for the day and the class content. You get two tries so it's pretty easy to get full points each time. The rest of your grade is split 50/50 between a midterm and final essay, both in class. They are a bit challenging, but if you do well on all the daily quizzes it is very easy to get an A in the class if you don't do perfect on the midterm and final.

I'd definitely take this course again and would recommend it!

Quite a fascinating experience that the professor responded with an all-affirming "yes" when a student asked if Chinese international students sometimes disagree with him on views regarding certain Chinese policies because they're all brainwashed. Aside from that, a pretty easy class.

This class is divided into 3 main parts. Quizzes, Midterm, Final. *Each point in the class = 1 percent, 100 points in all assignments combined

1. Quizzes (60% of your grade): There are a total of 16 quizzes in the class, and just for doing it you got .5 (so 8% and points are given for just completion). Each quiz is between 3-4 questions and the quizzes all add up to a total of 58 questions over 16 quizzes. However, the final grade only accounts for 52 points. So, you get 6 points of "extra credit" to use as a RETAINER for points you miss thru the quarter. This means if you miss 7 questions, you will get 51/52 on your quiz total. However, this cant be used as extra credit, so if you get all 58 questions right, your quiz score will end up as 52/52 not 58/52. It is a retainer that can only help you reach up to 100% and not more.

2. Midterm & Final @ 20 points each: She gives 2 prompts a week in advance for you to prepare for. It is a handwritten argument essay, done in-class with a 75 minute timer in a blue book. She does not allow any electronic sources, outlines, notes. She lets you bring in the readings because you need to cite sources in the argument, but you can not annotate them. You may HIGHLIGHT ONLY. You need to print these out for both prompts. ***advice: only print pages that you wanna use quotes from, overprinting entire 30 page sources is gonna get you lost flipping thru the pages*** It is stressful but not impossible, The average is usually 80-85 on both. I got a 82 on the first one and a 88 on the second one and my writing was pretty consistent on both. She doesnt give out 100 on the midterm or final. highest was 19.5/20 but that was very rare, which she also said that. so expect a 16-18 on them!

If you do the quizzes and do as well as the majority on the midterm and final, you will get an A. To be honest, I didnt do the reading after week 2 because she covers it in lecture WHICH YOU NEED TO ATTEND! Take pics of her slides because the quizzes cover almost everything from the slides, which include lecture content and the important parts of the reading. The lectures are awesome and she is a great lecturer. Sometimes it was hard to understand her through her mask & accent sitting in the back, so I recommend getting to class earlier to get a good seat since there is usually over 100 students in the class.

Content-wise I learned alot, main focus was China-US relations, Taiwan, and the South China Sea but she touched on all of Asia. It was boring at times but if you are passionate about international politics in a comparative approach, you will enjoy this class as I did. No matter the class, the readings get boring and so does the content but it can still be enjoyable. It is not vital to do the reading for the quizzes but SUPER important to do them and highlight for the midterm and final. I never read for the quizzes but probably read the entire course's readings in the two weeks I studied for the midterm and final lol.

Ms. Bellette will give you reading (4-6 readings + extras) and in order to do well, you must keep up with the readings. It's not an easy A class, you have to put effort into it in order to grasp the material especially with Taiwan and the South China Sea *two most important topics*. The course has not a lot of outside work besides keeping up with the readings and the weekly 3-4 question online quizzes.
Please go to the lectures because its really important in order to do well on the in person tests. The Midterm and Final (20% each of the grade) is what gave me a worry. It's not as bad as you think. Coming from COVID online classes, where I normally took tests online; it came a shock for me that I had to do a blue-book midterm and final in person. Ms. Bellette will give you 2 essay questions a week before the exam date and you must study/plan for both of those questions. She will pick ONLY 1 on the date of your exam. However, she does give you an option to bring her approved printed articles/readings. So its technically open book BUT you cannot write anything on the papers when you take to the final/midterm OR use outside sources. You can ONLY underline/highlight to help you guide your essays.
Overall, this class eased me into working hard for my grade at UCLA. Let me underline to you that its not an easy A but if you put in a decent amount of work you can probably pull a B-B+ if you are a good writer. I was on top of readings, did all the quizzes, and came to all the lectures. Note: she gave two attempts for the quizzes. I recommend talking to her, sitting at the front of the class, and be participatory; if you get to know her, she really nice.
Good luck and I promise you will learn a lot! I know I definitely did.

Overall really enjoyed this class. It's made up of a midterm and final, both 5-6 page papers on two different prompts and daily quizzes based on the readings.

The daily quizzes really aren't that bad and you get a 6 point question buffer to miss quizzes or get questions incorrect before it affects your grade which is really helpful. They're based directly on the reading and the answers can often be found by ctrl+f on the readings. When they can't though, the readings are really not that bad and can be relatively interesting. Lecture is pretty much a synthesis of the readings in a more digestible way without many of the details.

Professor Lee is an excellent lecturer that is very knowledgable about the topic. She has many interesting stories about her youth in Hong Kong and the way she saw the economic changes described in the course in front of her eyes. It's very rare to have Poli Sci professors that are first hand sources for what they teach so it was a real treat being taught by her in that regard.

Attendance isn't mandatory but due to "security reasons" the class was never recorded. She thankfully provided a zoom option that while wasn't preferable to attending lectures in person it was much appreciated. Especially when I got COVID towards the end of the quarter and could not attend in person.

My only issue with the class was the requirements for the midterm and final essays. She does make a good job at helping you formulate your arguments and ideas based on the prompts in office hours, but there is no rubric. Nobody really knew what was truly expected for both papers, and she often gave conflicting answers to students. As a result I performed poorly on the first one simply because I just was not sure what she wanted.

I'd suggest going to her office hours privately as soon as the prompts are released and going through it with her. If she posted some kind of rubric or more detailed prompts it may be more clear.

Overall one of the better poli-sci classes I've taken at UCLA. I'll definitely be taking more courses with her if I can!

Th course itself was okay. You honestly get more out of the beginning readings than anything else. The issue was, however, that it was taught as a history course. That and Lee's lecturing style bounces around quite a bit. Following along with her notes on the board is practically impossible. Fortunately, she is rather knowledgeable and offered extra credit. I ended with an A but only through my own work outside of class.

Professor Yuen-ching Bellette Lee’s course is one of the best that I have taken at UCLA. Her class was very engaging, interesting, and informative. She tries to engage the class through discussions and her lectures are well-structured. The lectures build on one another so it is easy to follow along. If you do the readings and pay attention in class, you will do well. Professor Lee always reviews key concepts in class and is willing to help students during office hours. She is by far the friendliest Professor that I have met, she genuinely cares that students understand the concepts taught in class and that they succeed in their careers. Professor Lee is one of the best professors in the Political Science Department at UCLA, I would highly recommend all students who are interested in comparative politics, international relations, or Chinese politics to take all of her classes.

Bellette is such an engaging professor. She takes the time to teach you the material and engage you in an actual discussion. I was initially nervous about the participation component of this grade but Bellette makes everyone feel welcome. The course had a group project component that was annoying at times because of the collective action problems, but she made it clear that if anyone was having difficulties with their group they could speak to her in confidence and it was really nice to have a professor that willing to listen to our concerns and work with us to make us have as good of an experience as possible in her class. Take this class!

This class requires participation, which was daunting given how large the class was, but Bellette will actually learn your name by the end of the course, which says something about her as a professor. She is one of the most helpful and approachable professors I've had at UCLA. She gave us midterm questions in advance, and we got a choice of essay questions to answer out of several. Even though the questions were difficult, they were useful in getting us to engage in the material. And I was even able to go to office hours to get her help on formulating an outline for the questions in advance. As long as you do the reading for classes, and prepare for the tests, you should be able to get an A in the class. The class rewards hard work, and the content is really fascinating. This class was the first one I took on Asian politics, and I learned so much. Could not more highly recommend this class or any other with Bellette.