Linda Beck

I enjoyed this class and am glad I took it with Professor Beck. I found her lectures engaging, though the readings were sometimes a bit excessive in comparison / conjunction with work from other courses. The TAs for this class were absolutely amazing, and I would recommend going to discussion sections (which were mandatory). The midterm and final had the same format and were graded very fairly. Excellent class!

I adore Professor Beck. She knows exactly what she's talking about, her lectures are fascinating, and she cares about her students. I learned a lot in this class and I would recommend it to anyone.

She is an outstanding professor. I really enjoyed her class. I came in knowing nothing about the topic and only taking it to fulfull a major requirement, and I left with a general love of the subject. She engages the class in discussion even though it is a big class, and reviews the material slowly so that everyone will understand it.

midterm paper and exam, final paper, final exam, some postings, a lot of reading

The other reviews are right on. This woman was not my cup of tea. Unfortunately, you will hear otherwise from those less experienced with professors of political science. In short, Beck babbles incoherently on the most inane points, she cannot complete her thoughts, she is unable to teach on a college level probably because she seems completely oblivious to the fact that her students are out of diapers and have had some (sarcastic) education before. She will spend more time running a commentary about things happening in the class amongst her students i.e. "as this gentleman just asked", "what I'm trying to get you to see" "this is crucial folks" yada yada yada without EVER getting to the point that she is leading up to. Without ever getting to the essential INFORMATION of comparative politics and the country she is talking about. I don't know whether this is a result of her shallow level of knowledge or if she just doesn't understand what a course is all about. She quotes pop culture tv shows more often that real world issues. Oh and don't be fooled by her grand theatrics and overdone gestures all to pretend as if she is saying something of paramount importance and complexity. She dummies every potentially fascinating thing down. The TAs however are fabulous and will be the saving grace of this class.

Don't bother asking questions when she pauses her lectures for class discussion; if what you ask about isn't specifically on that day's PowerPoint presentation, she'll fumble around for a bit, and then promise to "get back to you later." Had this happened once or twice, I might be inclined to say she was just lazy; however it happened continuously throughout the semester. Another weird thing about Beck is that she constantly tries to dress up this class as phenominally difficult. Maybe she's overcompensating for something else lacking. Maybe she resents the fct that she's stuck teaching a required Intro class. Anyway, don't believe it. This class is easy (can we all agree that any class that involves regular use of PowerPoint is not challenging enough to be taught at Columbia?).

She's a nice lady but sometimes I felt like she was treating the class like toddlers. Now I really don't mind when teachers baby you (especially for grading) but she got really annoying sometimes. Don't let her scare you about the readings. If you have a good TA (like I did) you'll be just fine. Some sections of the class were great, others I wanted to shoot myself.

Linda Beck is a good professor whom seems to work very hard at teaching, organizing the class, preparing lesson plans, and cooperating with the TAs. I wasn't that crazy about the class, probably just because it was an intro class and the material was expansive and superficial. I felt like the readings were sort of a pain, because they all had to be completed every week in order to "participate" in discussion section. And I thought the readings were a little boring, and definitely lengthy. All in all not a bad experience. She brought in really good guest lecturers.

This class is a required waste of time. Emphasis is placed on memorizing vocab and being able to BS on essays, which is totally mindless and unhelpful to actually learning the material. Beck picks readings which are dry and ill-suited to the topics being taught, and it's quite possible to avoid doing them at all if you can collect the vocab needed for the midterm and final. Lectures are boring and confusing, and a substansial amount of time is wasted on questions and debates that are not intelligent or worthwhile. Avoid taking this class if you can -- it's not hard at all, but you'll resent having to waste your time.

Pretty straight forward class. Professor Beck teaches with great clarity. The material is appropriate for an intro level course. Each class is outlined on the blackboard so you know what to expect and explains the topics very well. She takes a bit too much time to answer questions but is genuinely interested in what students have to say. Beware, though all of the TAs were nice, some are very difficult to understand. Also, some TAs take attendance and some don't...so choose wisely. Overall, a solid class--I highly recommend it.