I think the TA you get really makes or breaks this course. I had Ella and we literally never had discussion and she was basically unreachable. Sabato is cool but I took this thinking it would be an easy or medium level attainable A and it was not.

This course was super fun! The entire class is essentially Prof Sabato talking about JFK's life leading up to and during his presidency. We also spent time talking about the assassination and Kennedy's impact on the presidents that followed him and just general legacy in American culture. Prof Sabato will also tell some of the stories about things related to the course content that he's personally experienced which I always found fascinating especially since I love politics and history. The Midterm and Final almost entirely pull from the lectures which means attending them and taking good notes is a must, especially for the final where the questions were a lot more detailed. You also have to write a policy memo about how some aspect of US policy would've changed had Kennedy not been assassinated. You're also graded on your attendance and participation in the discussion sections. I had Noah as my TA and he was super nice and accommodating. There are assigned readings each week that are quite a lot but you honestly don't need to do anything beyond just skimming them at most. Highly recommend taking this class if you're in Batten or are a Politics major!

Overall great class! Professor Sabado is SUPER engaging and such a fun lecturer. He is truly passionate and so knowledgeable about this topic. The class consists of a Midterm, 5-7 page research essay, Discussion section Participation, and a Final exam. This year, the Midterm was in person but the final exam was take home which was nice. The class mainly begins discussing Kennedy and his background, and then the leadership style of presidents before and after him. In lecture he would often go kind of off topic and ramble, making it somewhat difficult to decide what to write down since he also has no slides. Because of this, it is essential you go to class. The Midterm and Final felt more like JFK-themed bar trivia if anything, so definitely try and remember and write down every detail possible from lecture. You definitely do not need to read the book I maybe read one chapter. My biggest gripe with this class were the TAs/Discussion section. The TAs legit did absolutely nothing this semester. It was very clear they had no guidance from Sabado on what to do. In total we had discussion section 4 times throughout the semester. I am always for a canceled class but it kind of got to a point where it was ridiculous considering we are paying extra tuition to be in Batten! Nonetheless I would highly recommend this course. It was basically a glorified history course, and was super light and very interesting!

The course is taught by Professor Sabato, with Professor Stroupe running the computer and putting up images related to what Professor Sabato is saying. There are TAs that run discussions, I had Ella this semester, and to date we've only had 3 discussion sections but I believe we'll be having more for the rest of the semester. The class consists of the midterm, which was some multiple choice, short answer questions, and a long answer questions---for the essay-based questions, we had multiple prompt options for each question to choose from. I didn't think the midterm was too hard, the multiple choice questions were incredibly specific, and often based on what Sabato said during class (not the books assigned). We also have to write a policy memo (5-7 pages, double-spaced) about a policy that we believe JFK would have supported if he had lived longer. There will also be a final, however this semester they made it take-home. I'll say overall, you need to show up to lecture. Everything that we're tested on is based off of what Sabato says during lecture, so it's incredibly important that you go and that you pay attention.

Onto the other benefits of the class! Since this is taught by Sabato and Stroupe, you're attached to the Center for Politics, and get invitations to some of the events (sometimes exclusive) that they have. For example, this semester a couple students got to go to a dinner with Nancy Pelosi, or a private talk with a Congressman. Definitely an interesting class to take, although, don't expect Sabato to follow the syllabus as there are a lot of tangents and rants throughout the class, as well as personal stories from Sabato's long-standing career in politics!

Great course, but not exactly the most in-depth on JFK. Classes mainly consist of some basic facts about JFK, as wellas anecdotes from Professor Sabato on his experiences with the various people the class is about. It is a very easy course and I learned it alot, I am just unsure if I learned a lot more than I would have from a basic documentary or wikipedia page. That said, I would still highly recommend the course, since it is super interesting to hear Professor Sabato's stories and the class is easy enough that there is no need to study or do any homework.

This class is a breeze, somewhat of a joke, but overall interesting. If you're looking for an excuse to get to know more about American politics during the time of JFK and his own life, this is an easy way to do it. The work is very lax overall. Lecture kind of becomes pointless as Sabato likes to go on tangents and just rehash information that was already part of the assigned reading. Discussion is also just review and more or less super easy. The midterm is super easy as long as you just do the readings. The final project is just a policy memo essentially. Overall, recommend for an easy course.

Overall, I really enjoyed this class. The subject seems very niche, but learning about Kennedy’s life and legacy proved to be really interesting. Sabato was a fantastic professor, and he truly lives up to the hype surrounding him. This class was very low-effort, and I found getting an A in the class to prove relatively easy.
The course consisted of two 50 minute lectures and a 50 minute discussion. Discussion is mandatory as participation accounts for 20% of your grade. However, I always found discussion to supplement the lecture well, and most of the time we did not use all of the 50 minutes. I had Molly as my TA and she was great. Lecture basically consists of Sabato talking his way through his book, The Kennedy Half Century. The first half of the semester was focused on Kennedy’s life, and the second half on his legacy on other Presidents. The course essentially became a US Presidents crash course which was cool. Sabato is fascinating to listen to due to his sheer amount of experience in politics. Although he would often get off-topic in class, I did not find that this detracted from my learning. He also brought in several guest-speakers for us, including Secret Service agent Clint Hill. Additionally, he is an overall super nice and friendly guy. He would often offer to buy us lunch after class and invite us to sit and talk with him about politics. Couldn’t recommend him enough. As far as homework goes, there is almost none. I never found myself spending much time outside of class working on this course. Although there is assigned reading every week for discussion, I found that you could get by with either skimming the reading or not doing it at all. However, Sabato’s book is very helpful in being prepared for the exams so I would recommend you read it.
Now onto the tests/policy memo. The grade distribution is as follows: discussion 20%, midterm 20%, policy memo 30%, final exam 30%. Although the small number of grades seems daunting, I found doing well in this class to not be too difficult. Discussion points are made pretty easy to get by your TA, especially if you are doing the readings. As for the policy memo, I was able to do well on this despite this being my first public policy class and never having written a memo before. The instructions for the assignment are very well-outlined so you essentially just have to make sure you are doing everything that is being asked of you and you’ll do well. I wrote it over the course of three days and I don’t think it took me longer than 3-4 hours in total. As far as the tests go, they can be tricky. The midterm and final were structured essentially the same way with a few multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, true/false, and short answer questions and then one long-essay question. I found the multiple choice/fill-in-the-blank/true false questions to at times be very specific. They either came from the readings or in lecture, so be sure to do the readings/pay attention in lecture. However, I did not do all of the readings and managed to get A’s on both exams. The free-response and long essay portion I found to be much easier. These questions covered more thematic topics regarding Kennedy, and the long essay in particular was a great way to show knowledge. Any points missed in the first portion from specific questions I was able to make up with free-response. I will say, you are not provided with a real framework of what’s going to be covered on the exams. My TA gave us a list of pretty broad topics that were to be covered. Pretty much anything in the book/lecture is fair game, so there’s no way to study other than going over your lecture notes/studying the readings. The course ends up covering about 60 years of content so it’s a lot. However, if you are pretty familiar with the overall themes of the course and have a general knowledge of Kennedy and the presidents that came after him, you should be fine. I personally just spent a few hours going over lecture notes the day before the exam and did just fine.
Overall, I was very glad I took this course. It was relatively low-effort, albeit still challenging, and I walked away from it genuinely feeling as if I learned something new and interesting. Sabato is great, and if you have an opportunity to take a class with him I would suggest taking it. In summary: lectures are great, reading isn’t too bad, tests are tricky but manageable, and the policy memo is straightforward.