LPPP 3620

This course was genuinely a living hell for me. I want to preface I think Paul Martin is a great guy who is super knowledgeable and passionate about Policy and American Politics, however his course was just a nightmare. To begin, the readings in this class are very LONG and EXTREMELY dense, taking hours to complete. This is not a class where you can get away without doing the readings, since the two exams were based upon them. The first half of the course mainly focuses on theory in Public Policy, then shifts to focus on the Federal Government and American policy making. The name “Engaging Policy Communities” is incredibly misleading, since the course does not delve into engaging any community of any type. It should be framed more as a theory in Public Policy course. The course consists of 7 Reading Engagement Papers, 2 Mid Term exams, a semester long group project that consists of three papers, and small in class activities. The reading engagement papers are randomly graded by student graders, which was particularly frustrating since they all had varying levels of difficulty. In particular, Andrew Chand was AWFUL and would mark off points for ridiculous reasons and provide contradicting feedback on my papers. The exams were also challenging, since they content on them was anything goes and no study guide was provided whatsoever. My biggest issue with this course is there is no way to receive help. The people who grade papers do not have office hours, and Paul Martins office hours were at times most students have class. There were many times I went to office hours and simply did not leave feeling any more confident and was left to fend for myself when asking about incredibly dense readings or directions on papers.The lectures felt useless and I genuinely do not feel like I learned a single tangible piece of information in this course. I really dislike theoretical classes and this is what this class entirely was. It honestly has made me really dislike Batten this semester, and this has by a long shot been my absolute least favorite course I have taken at UVA (over Calculus!). I will say one aspect I enjoyed of this course was the group project. It is very important you select a good group, as you will be working together all semester. The project allowed me to gain better research skills and really gain a better understanding of how weak American Policies are. Overall you’re in for a boatload of work in this class. It is unavoidable since it is required for the Batten major and god it is just awful.