Jack Snyder

No structure, monotic tone, only discussion where people talk about themselves, very long list of readings

Took this class in Spring '24 (received A). Ten years after the last review, I’m pleased to share that little has changed. Professor Snyder has the most remarkably soft-spoken and pleasantly monotonous voice that I’ve ever heard, and paying attention in this class is an olympic sport not for the weak minded. That being said, he’s a genius in his field and perhaps the most well-read and knowledgeable professor I’ve had at Columbia so far. He’s like a trove of theory, resources, and case studies, and has such a kind and approachable demeanor. IF you can force yourself to pay attention and take notes, you will learn an incredible amount and develop a really sound, robust foundation on some leading theorists in the field. On a minor note, this class is 80% theory with 20% historical case studies. The word ‘contemporary’ is used in its most academic sense and by no means translates to ‘of the 21st century’. If you’re looking for current politics or nationalisms today, this is not the class for that.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. I cannot tell you how regretful I am that I took this horrible class. Snyder, while he is a very nice man, is a horrible lecturer. He goes too quickly between topics and is not even slightly engaging. I thought this class was going to be so cool but it truly is not. You will have weekly readings that are about 100-200 pages. And unless you are very motivated to continue to do these readings, it's very easy to fall behind as you only need to know the material for the take home midterm, take home final, and research paper. What's really going to get you is the 15 page term paper. The prompt is "research something relative to this class", you get very little help at all on the paper, and it's worth half of your grade, so don't mess it up. If you fall behind in the readings, you are pretty much screwed. Honestly, this is my least favorite class I've taken at Columbia.

Well..... to begin, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROFESSOR SNYDER. I honestly don't know how to describe the horrendous teaching methods and non-engaging lectures that this man put me through. Every class, the attendance when down drastically. He cannot find a way to be engaging to save his life. I honestly was so saddened by this experience because, genuinely, the material should be extremely relevant and interesting, but Professor Snyder made me want to jump off a building. Seriously, torture would have been more enjoyable. His thought process makes no sense, and he goes on hour-long tangents that are incomprehensible. I can honestly say that I did not learn one thing from this lectures. Thank god the midterm and final were take-home, because you simply have to pick the readings that apply to the questions you choose.

This was a pretty good class, I suppose. It serves as a logical extension/continuation of an introductory International Politics class, and is definitely a good class to take if you are a political science major who intends on international relations being one of your major subfields. Professor Snyder is a decent lecturer - he speaks slowly and clearly but also very eloquently, making the lecture relatively easy to follow along with, and making note-taking very easy, despite the fact that it was an early morning class. I also appreciated that despite the fact that Professor Snyder is clearly very accomplished in his field, he was always very receptive to comments and opinions expressed in his class, even when students sometimes interrupted him in the middle of his lecture. His lectures were also always very interesting (even if they did sometimes go unnecessarily in depth into more trivial details). Content-wise, the course was also pretty interesting, divided up into different themes weekly (e.g. human rights and transitional justice, international institutions, global economy). Perhaps one complaint I have is that Prof Snyder sometimes tends to over-extend his expositions on introducing the various subjects, to the extent that it feels that the crux of the lecture sometimes only begins close to the end of the class. We were also falling behind in the later part of the semest…

I had jack snyder for fall 2010. He is a really friendly and nice guy while also being very accomplished in his field. The man is highly approachable and accessible. Do feel free to drop by during his office hours. Every semester, he conducts a dinner session at his house where he invites around 12 students and the TAs to sit back and talk casually. It is a great chance to see another side of your professor and it also illustrates that he cares about his students and wants to know them better. Regarding class, he can be very boring and too nice a person; especially when he makes clear efforts to save students who asks weird and ridiculous questions from embarassment by desperately trying to quote from some random political scientist which he has read before and says that their point is in line with theirs. There is a harsh load of readings but you do not have to do all of them. The mid term requires u to do 2 essays and the final is an in-class 1hr essay; both of which you have the liberty to choose out of maybe 7 questions, which ones u want to do. So basically just focus on one week's readings carefully and pick that question/theme on the mid term or final and u will do fine. There is a 15 page massive research paper that you have to either discuss with him or with your TAs.

I really enjoyed Professor Snyder's seminar. He is extremely well-known and respected in his field, and because the material discussed in the seminar was about "contemporary" security issues, it was exciting to hear Professor Snyder weigh in on current events. Although discussion could sometimes get boring, the readings were always interesting. Also, Professor Snyder is a very nice man and is always willing to meet you outside of class. He also responds promptly to emails. He is also very hands-on when it comes to writing the paper, which can be an overwhelming task. He schedules mandatory meetings to go over outlines and planning, and is very helpful about getting ideas out on the table and setting up a conceptual framework for your paper.

I took Snyder's seminar on Political Development and IR. Overall, I would say it was a decent class. Snyder is obviously a brilliant man and commands impressive name recognition. He really cares about his students and responds to e-mails almost immediately. He meets with every student in the class--twice-- to discuss their term papers. However, I would also say that the classroom experience was pretty hit or miss. On some days he would spend almost the entire class talking-- hardly what I wanted out of a seminar. Other days we will be engaged the entire class. It seems like towards the end of the semester he realized that the students wanted to participate more and started asking questions. The syllabus was kind of all over the place. I can't really say that I learned a ton of new things only because the knowledge that I acquired through this class seems a bit incoherent. Summary: Definitely a good call. The classroom experience just wasn't as dynamic as I had hoped. Although he may be a bit awkward at first, Jack Snyder is a kind a brilliant man who cares about his students and, as a student of international politics at Columbia, you should definitely give one of his classes a chance.

This course has really interesting content and you should take it because of that. Course content goes through theories of nationalism and international relations, while covering case studies in several regions like Rwanda, India, and Bosnia. Prof. Snyder's lectures can be dry as he just talks the whole time and can be hard to keep up writing notes in his class. But he is an incredibly knowledgeable person and has published so many books/papers in his field. The most learning I've got from his class was meeting him during office hours to discuss about the term paper. He was so helpful at recommending suitable readings for my research. Got an A in this course, seemed like the median was an A-. Also shoutout to the TAs for this course: Gilbert Lai and Emily Carr, they were really amazing! Really helpful in sharing resources and their discussion sections prepped well at answering the midterm/final exams.

This class blew. Honestly I was so excited for it, the description sounded so interesting, but don't let that fool you, it sucks. If you LOVE reading long, boring and dense readings every week about China, then you are in for a real treat, otherwise this class will be your worst nightmare. Snyder is not an interesting lecturer and sitting through his classes is painful. The midterms are take home but get graded with very little leniency. I would never recommend this class to anyone.