Gideon Rose

The course is very reading heavy but grading (at least with my TA) was generous. A large part of the grade is dependent on memorization which is present in both the midterm and the final. Midterm (1 essay and 10ish terms) and final (2 essays and 15ish terms).

A lot of knowledge about America's position vis-a-vis major regions/powers in the world, the process of policy-making

I really enjoyed the course. Professor Rose is very charismatic and entertaining making lectures actually worthwhile. The lectures are also recorded. The syllabus is well laid out if not a bit excessive if your only goal is to get through the class, although the readings were pretty cool.

Learned about regional and functional areas of foreign policy: China, MENA, LatAm, Africa; terrorism, human rights, environment, etc. Learned about the general nature/values reflected in U.S. foreign policies, decision-making among policymakers including practical information about careers in government. Very much builds on the foundations of IR.

two quizzes, midterm, and final. the IDs take up a very significant amount of your grade, but grading is pretty light.

Learned about intl political theory, regional and functional (topics) foreign policy.

Really cool class, especially with the guest speakers who come in in the second half of the class. Wasn't a huge fan of the AI-generated summaries for the ID terms we had to memorize and spit out for the two quizzes, midterm, and final, but they did make getting a good grade pretty easy. He's an engaging lecturer with a lot of strong opinions, and I definitely came away from this class with a solid understanding of the topics covered. Would recommend for one of the intro polisci classes.

If interested in IR or foreign policy, there is no better class at Columbia to learn about that from. Gideon is an incredibly qualified person on that subject, and his syllabus covers the bases of everything you'll need to know in a FP career.

More on the difficult side. All grading is completely based on the TA which can make outcomes a little unfair. Do not go into this class expecting an A but definitely possible if you have a good TA

My other intl politics seminar had a 20-25 pg paper, so this class with its 4000 word (about 8 pages) policy memo has been chill so far. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Spring 2024 Course: POLSUN3961_004_2024_1-INTERNATIONALPOLITICSSEMINAR : POLSUN3961_004_2024_1 - INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR Instructor: Gideon Rose