Erik Gartzke

Best to avoid his class. He seems nice enough, but his lectures are superficial summations of points out of the textbook (which is not that great to begin with) and the treatment of international political economy is really abbreviated. Of course, these shortcomings could be overlooked were it not for his aggravating speaking style (he uses way too much inflection and makes simple analogies, often involving stories about his kids... he basically treated us like kindergartners). I, and a lot of people I know, simply stopped going to lecture because I couldn't take it anymore. That didn't really affect my grade, though. It's pretty easy to get an A- if you have a brain and do enough of the readings aside from the textbook (most of which are pretty interesting and bring up issues never addressed in lecture). Still, a terrible experience overall. Do yourself a favor and try to get another professor if you truly want to take this class. I didn't heed these reviews, and I definitely paid the price. There are too many good classes at Columbia to justify taking anything taught by Gartzke.

Highly exciting subject matter, but Gartzke kills it with his powerpoints (1-to-1copies from the textbook, only he had managed to make mistakes in copying them). His clear dislike of students and preference for his own post-doc work doesn't help either.

Someone needs to slip a copy of Public Speaking for Dummies under Professor Gartzke's door. Maybe it will be me. He is a relatively young professor and seems well intentioned, but his lecture style is a disaster. His lectures are packed with personal anecdotes, mostly referring to his 4 year old daughter's perspective on international affairs. I don't mean to be a heartless grinch, but he could go a long way in the direction of staying on track and teaching instead of reciting lecture slides. Besides administrative announcements, which often pertain to changed lengths of papers or due dates (usually shorter and later in your favor, he's easy going), lecture is not really worth attending and definitely not worth taking notes in. Section was worthwhile, and the TAs from fall 05 were all more on the ball than Gartzke (a fact they seemed aware of).

a very interesting course, made me want to major in it. Loads of reading can be tedious but some of it was very interesting and engaging. The lectures can get boring, but discussion groups generally very engaging. The questions for midterm and final are given beforehand- making work easier. Lectures mostly all available online. Overall a good class, although lectures arent always helpful. TA's- a big help in the class.

Gartzke's lectures are designed for 10 year olds, not college students. However, he is a very nice man with lots of anecdotes about his family. Lectures are completely optional. He posts lecture slides and the midterm and final questions are handed out in advance. There is really no point in going to lecture!!

Lecture was painful, but the Powerpoint outlines were helpful to print out. Textbook was pretty poor, so I used the first edition to avoid buying the new one and did just fine. Supplemental readings are good, the basics of IR theory. Your TA makes this class - I really only learned in section. Overall, the class is boring, but tolerable. Try to take the course with a different (ie better) professor, but if you can't, you'll survive. I actually learned a lot, considering how bored I was during every single lecture. Use class time to do the reading and make sure you don't miss his numerous administrative announcements.

Professor Gartzke is very nice, but he is not such a swell teacher. His lectures were painfully boring, and they were based on a set of slides available on courseworks and formed entirely on the content of the book. This made the idea of actually attending the lectures incredibly unappealing. Yet, despite his shortcomings as a teacher, his class is one of the easier ones I have had. For both the midterm and the final, he gave a short list of possible essay questions. On the days of the tests, he randomly selected two of them, and we wrote about the one we prefered. Participation in discussion sections (which was easy to do) was also worth a big chunck of the final grade. Take his class if you want an easy A, but don't expect to enjoy it much.

I would disagree with most of the reviews. Many kids don't show up after the first lecture to class, so they don't really know what they are talking about. It's true that he is a little boring in the first couple lectures... maybe realism isn't his specialty. But he is funny in a poli sci way, and he gets really interesting in the coming chapters. His specialty is Democratic Peace and International Political Economy, so if you are perhaps thinking of these 2, definitely take the class. The class itself needs reform though. All readings are from American/European authors, even on subjects like India/Pakistan. The class could be more international by encompassing opinions of non-American authors. Also, we spent more than 2/3 of the time on the Cold War, only to realize half-way through the course that the present world is a polar opposite to the Cold-War world... then why should we be spending SO MUCH time on the Cold War?? Also, the class is taught mostly from the perspective of essential or powerful nations, so it makes you biased against small countries from the beginning. I wouldn't take the class itself again if it weren't for the interesting theories taught and Professor Gartzke. The theories are awesome! Discussion sections are boring! TA's are awesome, but there's so much to cover that there is no discussion. I've heard LitHum has more discussion than our class...

Professor Gartzke is obviously a very nice person, but not an outstanding lecturer. He starts out every class talking about the news, and manages to tie it in to the curriculum with some rambling broad generality, which actually characterizes much of the course. HIs specialty is game theory, so he talks about diplomacy in the abstract a little too much for my taste. I don't really feel like it was a rigorous introduction to international politics, or that I think much differently from when I started out. My TA, and interest in the topic, and good readings, pretty much have made the class worthwhile.

One of the reviewers who practically wrote an essay was absolutely correct in his/her analysis of the class. It pained me to go to class only to sleep during lectures. Gartzke is incredibly boring and has this lulling voice that would put me to sleep right away. The only reason i attended most lectures was the thought of the tuition i was paying to get an ivy education. Despite these factors, my TA was pretty decent, was interested in the material, and genuinely seemed to enjoy IR. Again though, i was LUCKY.