POLS V1501

There were 2 short essays, a midterm, and a final. That sounds like a lot for an intro class, but it's really not. The essays are extremely short and the prompts are focused on applications of concepts to a specific case study, so they aren't very correlated to the specific readings assigned, but rather the concepts learned in lecture. I will say, the grading is done by the TA's, and I do think that your TA matters a lot regarding your grade. While I don't think any TA's are failing people or being extremely harsh, there are definitely easier ones, so that's something to keep in mind. I spent roughly 3 hours on this class a week doing readings, in addition to the 2 classes and discussion section. If there was an essay that week, I probably spent ~6 hours writing the essay and then revising it (I got A on both, but I also know people that wrote them start to finish in 2 hours and got A's too). For a midterm/final, he gives a list of relevant terms/concepts/case studies, and I would spend the two days before the exam focusing exclusively on the class.

The work was pretty fair. Each week we had around 2-5 readings which would range from being 15-50 pages long. However, you can kind of get away with just reading the abstract, conclusion, and skimming them. There are only a handful that I would recommend reading fully, since some of the "required readings" really were not that important. There were 3 essays, each from 2-4 pages long. The grading was pretty fair and I got full points on nearly all. We had quizzes in roughly every other lecture, but they were not serious at all. Sometimes he even reviewed the correct answers before we submitted them. Other times they were open notes and you could talk to your neighbors. And the lowest couple quizzes were dropped. I think they were more to review the previous lecture and get people thinking than actually testing your knowledge. There are 3 exams throughout the semester, which is actually really good because they are not cumulative. Our last exam just covered the topics from the last third of the semester, which was much easier than having a real final exam. Professor Huber actually changed the syllabus halfway through the semester after talking with one student. It went from each exam being worth 20% to the exam with the lowest score being worth 15%, the exam with the second highest score worth 20%, and the exam with the highest score worth 25%. The TAs are also reasonable and I…

Easy A. The readings are fairly light, and mostly optional. The TAs are very easy graders. Easy midterm and final...the final paper is a bit more challenging, but definitely doable. If you need to fulfill the poli sci major requirements, taking this class wouldn't be a bad way to do it.

I absolutely loved Professor Kasara's Introduction to Comparative Politics Class. I have absolutely no idea why all of the other reviews were so negative toward her teaching of this class. She is extremely informed about the topic, her lectures are engaging and interesting, and I left the class with a much stronger understanding of the subject. She has very informative slides and posts them after every class, so you never have to worry about missing any core information. The workload was very manageable and exactly what I would expect for an Intro Poli-Sci class. The tests were not any more challenging than the class would merit. The TAs gave very informative feedback on tests and were more than happy to talk through any questions you had about the class. The tests all cover material that was extensively covered in the lecture. There is only one paper and it is over a very basic, core principle of the class. Professor Kasara was very generous with grades and even changed her entire grading scale when my class was doing worse than her previous classes had done in order to help improve our grades. I would highly highly recommend this class for everyone who is interested in the field of Political Science. I cannot wait to take more classes with Professor Kasara in the future.

weekly readings, 10-page research paper, midterm, final (5 ids, 2 essays)

Two 3 page essays (hard to call it an essay, more like copying stuff off wikipedia and citing indecipherable foreign sources), Midterm, Final (both quite easy but a lot of writing in a minimal amount of time)

One "country paper" (pass/fail), midterm, and final, plus two take-home final essays.

Overall very standard. readings normal for polisci. tests not bad. super annoying (but not hard) research design.

a lot of boring reading1 midterm1 final1 10-12 page research paper on a country of your choice

2 summaries of readings (2 pages each), midterm and final which were both open book, open notes, open lecture slides, open articles, basically open anything and everything.