Thomas Bernstein

This was a good class in terms of the material covered. Lectures were interesting and the professor would use every moment of class. He is soft spoken, so sit near the front of the room. Attending lectures will benefit you more than reading, though doing both helps. There was section, but if you said you had a class conflict, you did not need to attend. He is a harder than average grader.

Sweet guy. As pro as you get when you're talking about modern poli-sci experts. Cutting edge insights. GREAT reading list (if you do the readings). You'll leave the class understanding why modern china is the way it is, and what kind of place it really holds in the world. On the other hand, his lectures are only really informative at a BASIC level, with the occasional informative and/or funny personal story.

I know many will probably whine and complain about Bernstein, but I found him to be a fine professor. He speaks quietly and without much inflection, which would be, for me, the only legitimate gripe of students. If you pay attention (I know, it's a tough task for us Columbia students) the class is interesting and not terribly difficult. I did not do much of the reading for the first half and got an A on the midterm, because I went to class and paid attention. Bernstein is cute and has a great wit that you just have to listen for. The class is straightforward. If you have to take a PoliSci course and don't have attention issues, I'd recommend this class.

The man has a dry sense of humour that is subtle and hilarious. Don't be put off by his quiet mild-mannered demeanour at the onset. He is an old school lecturer and academic, meticulous and really well respected in his field. But who cares about that. The best thing about Bernstein is that you really learn, you really enjoy the learning, AND he is a model professor, helpful, challenging, supportive, etc., Check out the pictures in his office if you drop by for office hours and, if you ask, maybe he'll tell you some cool stories about his China travels. He also teaches and has an interest in some of the coolest, most off the wall subjects. Remember, this man also teaches Major Dictators of the 20th Century. He is very approachable and in general just very professional and adept at dealing with and encouraging students. There is no reason why anybody should ever leave Columbia without taking a class with him.

My biggest regret this semester is not dropping this class while I had the chance. The lectures are incomprehensible and impossible to hear if you don't sit in the first few rows. There is a lot of reading, on which the tests are mostly based. The most enthusiastic students in the class are the large number of continuuing-education students; many undergrads don't even bother coming to class.

Take this class only if you're interested in Chinese politics, and I mean REALLY interested. Otherwise, the lectures, with Prof. Bernstein's soft and lulling voice, will put you to sleep. Only half the class shows up. If you are interested in the post-Mao era, you'll find his lectures informative and at many times insightful. Sometimes they seem like he' s been giving the same lecture for decades (esp the Mao era); his best lectures definitely start after the Reform Era. Outside of class, he is a wonderful, accessible, and caring professor who would make a grandfatherly mentor.

Think very, very hard before you take this class. This man cannot stay on a lecture topic to save his life. Once, after only covering half the material he had planned to in the lecture, he commented, "I guess circumstances prevented us from getting to the other material...but I'm not really sure what those circumstances were." He frequently refers to all subjects in his lectures as "they" or "you" so when he took a comparative approach, it wasn't always clear which country he was talking about. The midterm was entirely based on outside readings; I don't think I would have been able to write an adequate response to the questions about Leninism if I hadn't been enrolled in political theory at the same time. TAs were excellent but just as unenthusiastic about the class as all the students; furthermore, they never had any idea where we were supposed to be in the syllabus since it had no dates on it. Readings were interesting, but not worth the horror of sitting through these lecturers.

This is a great class for anyone who has even a speck of interest in post-1949 China, from the Mao years thru reform and the present day. Professor Bernstein's lectures are always interesting, informative and well-organized, and the readings were almost all excellent as well. He was able to boil down an unwieldy and very complex subject into understandable and even compelling sections without dumbing it down. My only bitch is that this class was filled with students who took advantage of Bernstein's soft- spoken and generous manner -- these idiots were half-asleep at best and openly disrespectful at worst. Every class had at least 5- 8 latecomers who thought nothing of disrupting lecture by clomping in loudly, slamming doors, giggling to their friends, etc. Don't get me started.

This was a fanastic class. A painless history lesson. A rigorous political-science analysis. Statistics and anecdotes. Humor. A professor who dresses well and acts friendly, always taking times to answer questions without veering off-topic. He mentions books and authors, and you'll be jotting down the names so you can look them up later. Go with that instinct! (I did, and I'm now reading Solzhenitsyn's _The First Circle_.)

Bernstein is a GREAT guy. He knows a lot about Chinese political institutions and puts the problems the face in context with their history and their position in the world. This was one of those classes that could give you most of what you needed to know in lecture, and youcould supplement the readings later for the paper. The final was a bitch, but the class was super-interesting and everything was extremely informative and to-the-point. Every poli sci major's dream. Give him a chance.