Robert Jervis

Please for the love of God never take a class taught by Robert Jervis

Weekly meetings. Apparently attendance is not mandatory. Focus all of your time on the research paper, don't bother with the assigned readings.

OK so I say Jervis is brilliant, but read this about the class Ok, Fall of 2002 C&C is 3618, Fall of 2003 it is 4818 - that is telling. Interesting subject matter and advisable to take the class then drop it and take it again - then you'll know what to do. Very theory orientated, which is fine, but sometimes the theory becomes ponderous and redundant. The room we had our class in was dungeonous. Read everything assigned (lots) and then read it again, and be able to expound on it liberally at the 50% of the grade final. It may sound as if I am outright slamming the class, far from it - it is a great subject taught by Columbia's best, but the set-up of it was neither for the timid, nor for the beginner - which honestly was me. My badge is that I did it and survived, would have preferred a fair warning ahead of time though. BTW our class had no Discussion Section - a serious loss! and a P/T TA - kinda unfortunate. Nevertheless, great class.

Jervis is an extremely thoughtful well read man. That being said, he seems to believe that if he just gives us his pondering stream of consciousness on international politics for an hour or so every week, we will somehow learn something. No powerpoint, no costume change (he alternates between two different turtle necks), no vocal intonation. He says "I think we'll have a female leader of the Taliban in a few years" like he's saying that cauliflower is coming into season soon. Just a simple powerpoint might make it easier to follow his mumbling lectures. Pro Tips for the Quizzes: 1. AUTHOR NAMES are more important than you think a. Make a QUIZLET with the full names of the authors for each reading with key terms that he might ask you about. b.Jervis has literally said “Name two of Berger’s main points/terms” 3. You don’t need to know a lot about each reading, you just need to find the lists, definitions and systems and the name of the author who said it. Really doing the reading is kind of wasteful because you can get distracted by actually trying to understand it. 4. MAKE FRIENDS in this class and you can all suffer together and split up the work. Godspeed

This was the first political science seminar that I took and I really enjoyed it. When I glance over the other reviews of Professor Jervis from Intro to International Politics, I feel as though every once of those reviewers would change his or her mind upon taking a seminar with Jervis. In a small setting, Professor Jervis is a gem. He's a brilliant mind in political science, and it's truly a gift to have two hours in a small setting with him. You will learn so much from him--and lots of his anecdotes are very entertaining. He is also very approachable for office hours and was extremely helpful, offering to go over your paper with you after he graded it. He will always make time for his students. My only problem with the seminar was that half of the class didn't take it seriously. I think that many are reluctant to attend a Jervis seminar because of experiences with the intro class. Intro to International is boring no matter who you have it with, so please don't let that class turn you away from this seminar. The reading load was quite easy--a book a week which you didn't really have to know by heart. There were no presentations required of each person on the reading, just a presentation on your research towards the end of the semester. I highly recommend this seminar--you won't regret it!

I learned very little in this class that I didn't learn in the Intro to IR class, most of the readings and lecture just rehashed the major ideas in international relations,with some more profound development. Most of what I learned was through my own research for the final paper (15 pages). At first, I naively attempted to keep up with the ridiculous reading list, but eventually just settled for reading what I thought was interesting. Professor Jervis' insight into the international relations is incisive, brilliant, but a bit cynical (he's a Realist after all)--but he willingly concedes to other ideas and perspectives, as well as to his own faults. He'a a quirky character who has had a major influence in actual foreign policy in the US, and he loves sharing his personal experiences and perspective on current ffairs. He answers all types of questions, and spends the first half of the class going through current events. Although this seemed boring at first, it was refreshing to see how the theoretical side of IR was actually working in the real world. I went to see him at office hours, a bit intimidated, but he was quite welcoming and gave me several ideas for the term paper. One great thing is that its generally a pretty small class (30-40) for an IR class with such a famous professor, and you can participate and actively gain from what he's saying. If not, you'll just listen t…

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS I read all the reviews here and thought that I could handle this class, but boy was I wrong. If you don't have friends to divide up the readings with, you're screwed. There's honestly no point in going to lecture. Jervis is the example of a professor who is horrible in the lecture setting, but Columbia keeps them on because they are impressive and make the department look good. Professor Jervis presents a very one-sided view of internaitonal politics, which I found very frustrating. The quizzes are random and midterm prompts very vague. If you do not take the position that the TA's agree with, your grade will certainly be lower than those who took their position. This class is honestly a waste of time, avoid at all costs.

These CULPA reviews are TRUE! I went in thinking that these exaggerated, but they are all true. Jervis is a very very dull lecturer so no one shows up to class...EVER. You have to rely on your TA to be your professor so pick your TA wisely. If you split the reading it is reasonable, but you don't even have to do the reading to do well-just listen closely to what your TA says about the readings. All in all, a pretty easy course because you never have to go to class but it is VERY boring and NOT inspiring at all so don't take if you are on the fence about politics or specifically international politics because it won't help.

manageable for a seminar. 30-40 page paper, no draft required.

This class is really boring. Jervis is clearly a smart guy, but is a terrible lecturer. The course is basically history of IR mixed with IR theories, and is easy to get bored. A lot of people don't show up to classes, which is fine as long as you do the readings. There are A TON of readings, with three quizzes on them over the course of the semester. All the readings are fair game, so it's really hard to do well on them because you basically have to study all the hundreds of pages of readings. Only take if you're interested in IR, or can handle a boring class. The TA's grade everything, so your grade will be based on how easy a grader your TA is/how good of a writer you are.