POLS V3633

If you missed grade school and just wanted to go back for a minute, now you can do it for a whole semester here at Columbia at Prof Hoopes class. "Who can tell me what an export is" or "what is a union" are common questions in the class and Prof Hoopes is especially good at praising opinions no matter how irrelevant unimportant or dumb they are. For the entire 2005 spring semester two extremely annoying republicans in love with their voices succesfully highjacked the class and without a single drop of evidence went on for hours preaching without an interuption or a single comment from the professor about what the hell they were talking about. This is not to say republicans shouldnt be allowed to speak but come on if a student is talking nonesense a good professor shouldnt encourage it. The reading and one of the TAs were the only good things in a class that with another professor would probably be one of the best ones you could ever take.

Tons of reading, moderate midterm, take home 10 pager, moderate final (cumulative)

Great course especially for those who don’t have an extensive background in economics but want to learn about it. Davit’s lectures are extremely interesting and engaging. He is friendly and has a funny banter.

OK so here's the lowdown on this class. IPE is NOT for non-majors. There is a ton of reading that you cant skimp on. The readings are all incredibly interesting by the way. You can skim some of them to get by, but must read the more important ones thoroughly, and to get an A you need to read a good percent of it (or split the readings among friends and explain the arguments!). Cooley does a great job of outlining the course and each lecture. Be wary though, of Cooley's tragic flaw: he gives his opinions as if they are facts. You must keep in mind that he does not know everything, although he talks as if he does. Even so, he's a good prof. He likes his voice too much as well--has trouble listening to students. Is very critical (was not at all helpful outside of class), but I liked him, and loved the class (and got an A to boot). I highly recommend this class to a Poly Sci major willing to work, and intelligent enough not to take Cooley's views as God's.

Really only did work the weeks of assignments, which took a day of locking in but no more.

I would definitely recommend this class if you're looking for an easy A. However, I wouldn't say I learned a ton from this class—the lecture styles are pretty disorganized, and we often didn't get through more than a couple slides about the topic officially assigned to the lecture. The style was more conversational, which was really fun and engaging at times, but also led the conversations away from productive discussions pretty frequently. That being said, the assignments were really quite easy, and it wasn't necessary to do the readings. Two 700-word summaries of readings (those you need to read, but short!), in-class debates that are graded quite leniently, and a final essay. The material itself was really interesting but the organization could have been better.

I really enjoyed this course. It was a wonderful fusion of international politics and economics, and I learned a lot about globalization, international trade, and how the global economy influences foreign affairs. Additionally, Dr. Sahakyan is a wonderful professor. He is very kind, and his lectures are informative and easy to follow. He also was always willing to answer questions and make himself available to students. The workload was also good, especially for a 4 point course. The grading is well-distributed over several categories so that alleviated some of the stress from each individual assignment. Everything was graded very fairly as well. If you're interested in international affairs and economics, this is definitely a good course for you.