LPPS 3040

Professor Stam is a very engaging professor. He is very interested in national security and has an extreme wealth of knowledge on the topic, so not only is he an interesting lecturer, but he is also a good person to know if you want to get in that field. He definitely seems intimidating during lecture, and towards the beginning of class, but if you ever talk to him one-on-one, he's a nice guy. He starts off every class asking for questions, and you should ask at least a couple for good measure. The downside to his wealth of knowledge is that there is so much material in lectures, and he goes pretty fast. I'd recommend taking notes on the lecture slides, so you aren't writing down the slide content and instead writing down his explanations for concepts. For grading, you have the midterm and final that together equal 75% of your grade, and then a 10-12page security memo that equals 25% of your grade. Caleb was the TA for our class and it seemed like he grades fairly easily... I probably put too much effort into my paper. The midterm and final is essay-based. Every lecture week, Stam provides 6 questions, and on the midterm and final, he chooses 4-6 and you choose 2-4 and write essays on them. For the midterm, it ended up being around 30 questions in the pool he could choose from, but for the final, it was around 75. If you are taking this class, I highly, highly recommend going through the lecture slides and questions after every week and answering 6 each week. This will make it MUCH MUCH MUCH LESS STRESSFUL for the midterm and the final, and all you will have to do to prepare is study the answers you've already been working on. Overall, I found this class very interesting and it jumpstarted my interest in National Security.

This was my favorite class I've taken so far at UVA (2nd year). Stam is a very good lecturer, very well informed, and is a very understanding instructor. There was very little required reading and only a couple (short) writing assignments. The midterm and final were very reasonable and weren't overly stressful. If you are interested in national security I would highly recommend.