Robert Erikson

I thought this class was going to be an easy A because I heard from many other students and read reviews that reaffirmed that. However, this class is not an easy A. The grading scale is 80-100 is considered an A. However, after getting a 77 on the midterm I realized there was a reason for the scale. Going to class is pointless because Erikson is so old he cannot even speak coherently. He struggles to get through students and has his "staff" walk around the room with a microphone if a student has a question. You also have to listen to what he says during lecture because sometimes he just makes up stories and if you are not paying attention you'll take notes on something that never happened. I also expected this class to be interesting, given that it is an election year, however the class focused on historical examples, mostly from the early 1900s when Erikson was in his prime.

Any political science seminar that you take with Erikson will be awesome--if you are laid back and have a sense of humour. Professor Erikson is a secret genius--you'll read about him everywhere. However, his seminar is hilarious and so is he. He will make jokes about the more comical members of the class and he loves all and everything corny. I seriously love this guy. Yes, his powerpoints are dull and worthless. Yes, you might have to do some bullshit book report. But Erikson is a more than fair grader and the discussions in his class can be pretty fun because he loves to talk about current events and lets you go off on whatever tangents you want. If you are someone who loves to study and loves to learn, then this class isn't for you. If you prefer to party and play sports (like me) take this class. You don't have to do any of the reading (okay, maybe a little when you have to write a discussion paper). Erikson is awesome, chill, and doesn't give a fuck (can I say fuck on this website?). Don't take his lecture class, you'll get shitty TAs. Take the seminar and become BFFs with this dude. He rocks.

This class was focused largely on current events and how we can perceive them through using contemporary political science on elections, voting, and looking at the contours of the electorate's demographics. We were given the opportunity to give multiple presentations on books, work with partners, and write an in depth research paper on a topic of our choice related to contemporary electoral politics.

Take literally any other American politics class. This one isnt worth it. SO boring. I would fall asleep during class and at one point I just stopped going. Most of the content is pretty general common sense. You just learn absolutely nothing and the content is so boring. Erikson really need to retire. At one point in the semester, he got Covid and we all thought he was going to die. But he is resilient. He is a very bad lecturer. I struggled to understand what he was saying. He often went on HUGE tangents that everyone stressed would be on the exam. TA's weren't too helpful (except Patrick, love you Patrick). Waste of time. Take any other class.

I suspect that you will not have to worry about this class being on the schedule again; but in reality it's not like we really did any previewing. Erikson might just be the country's leading scholar on voting in America (he came up with the "sophomore surge" idea), but he doesn't show it. This class quickly became: review the previous week in politics, which was fun, and then was half an hour talking about reading that no one did, or just doing something completely random. This class could have been fantastic--we could have each taken a battleground state, and predicted how we felt the election might go there, or we could have tackled something as a class, but we ended up doing random, shitty research project. I'm not so happy.

Somewhat unclear, but I received a broad understanding of the American polity and how it changed over the last ~60 years or so.

Sweetest professor ever, but it was hard to hear him and a lot of the lectures were too old for a class that works best with current events. TAs didn't really know what was going on, but they were really helpful with students. Went to all the classes, did not do any of the readings because they say exactly what the professor says in class.

Obnoxious small 4-5 page papers throughout the semester that you think are just for fun, then come back with letter grades on them. 15-25 page research paper.

I gained knowledge about the voting system. This class prioritizes breadth over depth. I developed skills in presenting information in an organized way, and I also learned how to respond to literature both through written and oral mediums.

DO NOT TAKE avoid at all costs. Professor Erikson is so boring. You cant understand a single thing he says in class and if you ever raise your hand, even after repeating it 10 times, he wont understand what you are saying. He is very old. He is an extremely hard grader. He gave the concepts for the exam and I studied them, I felt like I did great when I handed in my exam, I am an A student and I got a C in my exam .... I still dont understand why he grades so low. You will learn absolutely nothing from this class.