Brian Murray

The class was free flowing, which made me nervous at first. However, it was nice not being so focused on what material I would be tested on. There were no objective tests when I took the class. We wrote three papers, 5-7 pages. I think he is a bit of a tough grader because he argues his points and is not afraid to critique your work. It was frustrating because I felt like I lost points because he did not agree with my opinion. However, you will get at least a B for knowing basic concepts in the readings, showing up to class for participation points, and writing a decent essay.

Adjunct professor, that is a very friendly guy and will take you and your classmates out to lunch. Works on wall street, but really loves teaching. His lectures tend to ramble sometimes, but he is interesting. The reading is good, but you don't have to do it in order to do well.

Brian was by far my favorite teacher of the semester! He keeps lectures interesting with his humor. He is very accessible to his students, whether it be meeting on or off campus for some extra help and direction. Although a number of readings are assigned for every class, you don't have to read all of them to do well. The paper, which is 10 pages counts as part of your final grade. It sounds hard, but you get to pick your own topic, Brian will lead you in the right direction, there are no strict guildlines as to format. You can pretty much spend most of your paper making and supporting your own argument, as opposed to other teachers who want you to cite a million other writers and make "their" argument not "yours". Getting an A- in his class was pretty easy and I would seriously suggest this class to anyone who is considering majoring in Political Science. Not only is Brian a cool guy, but the class is great and you will learn a lot!

Brian Murray is a fantastic lecturer. Lectures are simple and clear and completely changed the way I think about the world. I highly reccomend his class. He responds to emails within hours, is always available outside of class, and highly receptive to questions-- not intimidating at all. sure he is an adjunct without the credentials of a Jervis or Snyder-type, but its intro IR so such a background is not necessary to convey the info. Brian is funny, intelligent, and knows his stuff.

All I have to say is that whoever said they worked hard in Brian's class and got an A- did FAR more work than they needed to. I can honestly say that I never opened the coursepack or supplementary textbook and read maybe 60% of the main textbook (which, incidentally, was never covered on the exams). I too got an A-. While Brian's sense of humor and desire to get to know each of his students personally makes the lectures entertaining and enjoyable, I did not learn very much about International Politics (maybe because I never did any reading). The course is very theory-heavy, which I didn't like, and picking a good TA is CRUCIAL - I recommend Alex Scacco because she really knows her stuff. Overall, Brian's a nice guy with a genuine interest in his students but if you want to take this class to really learn a lot about International Politics, go elsewhere.

I strongly disagree with those who say that Brian is not a good prof. or that he does not come prepared to class. Brian comes to each class, totally prepared. In fact, he is very organised: He plans each topic he is going to teach in the form of a paper, which also prepares us to the paper we need to write for the end of the term. He comes to each class with the plan of that topic and his class notes. Also, about the TAs bringing him down each class and knowing more than he does - seriously - you must be really dumb not to see and realize that Brian WANTS YOU to try to or do bring him down. Brian is just such a great instructor and teacher that he is not one of those stereotype, inferiority complexed teachers who are so biased and narrow minded that they can't hear what the students or TAs have to say, who can't even handle opening up to or hearing different ideas than what they believe in. Also, Brian's sense of humor and extraordinarily fun character makes the class extra-fun! Nobody can beat Brian into making the class fun. Although the class is 150 people, Brian spends time to get to know everyone that u feel like the class is only 20 people because it gets individual. You are not just a person in that crowd. And that's why, although Into to Int. Poli. was my only 150 people class that I could skip, the class was so fun and so interesting that I just didn't want to skip it…

if you want a fun atmopshere and super laid back lecture class where you kinda learn a loose skeletal frame of international politics, you might like this class. However, if you want a solid, indepth understanding of IR-- i would NOT reccommend this class to you. Brian is a really nice guy, but his lectures are so scattered, unorganized and lacking depth. They are completely void of context so it is very difficult to form a complete understanding of the history and relevance of IR theory. I took this class to genuinely learn about IR theory and was disappointed by the spotiness and loopiness of the lectures its up to you whether or not you want to take this class- as you can see, some love him (most of them are probably freshmen), but if you really want to learn IR theory, you might want to try another class... I wish I would have...

This class is easy. Murray quite plainly is not prepared to teach this course. First, he consistently cites facts that are incorrect. After making his argument, which is almost always a sophomoric piggy back onto a theorist he just tried to explain, the TAs routinely shoot him down and pick apart his argument to the point where he admits that his logic was just wrong. He also conducts class with a third grade audience in mind, asking "Who can name a country in the Middle East?", and proceeding to call on students until at least ten answers come forth. Hey, just because he never graduated from primary school doesn't mean we didn't.

Brian is a pretty solid teacher with the exception of a few really aggrivating tendencies. Firstly, i know he is reading this Culpa because he constantly likes to point out the inaccuracies of other Culpa reviews during class. Secondly, the whole deal with his Chinese, though he plays it down in the first few sections, gets extremely aggrivating. A lot of people, though they knew the correct answer on the midterm and final, got confused by the chinese symbols and guessed wrong, losing credit for the question. Aside from these beefs, Murray's lectures are entertaining (though they get quite sloppy and progressively uninteresting as the semester drags on). The guy really knows his stuff and does a pretty good job of helping the students along. On the whole, a solid class which I would reccomend taking if you aren't obsessed with having Jervis. Peace out, Brian

Brian's IR class is an experience. While he is not the most organized of professors, he is an funny and engaging lecturer, to such an extent that I actually went to class even though it was at 6 pm. He is funny and does make you learn a few chinese characters but then they do make for easy mutiple choice answers on the exams. While he does make his opinions known, he presents the existing theories pretty fairly. Grading makes very little sense until the end but it is pretty fair. Overall he is definitly a professor who is worth getting to know.