PLAP 2250

Overall: great course and amazing professor, but I have mixed feelings

If you are looking for an easy class, this is not a good option. I write pretty well and always get at least an A- on all of my written work. I barely got a B+ on one of the 2 essays for this course. This was my highest grade. I would have no problem with these grades if I believe it reflected the quality of my work. They do not. Other students have the same complaint across all of the sections.

There is a TON of dense reading for this course, which is expected when you are reading Madison and other writers from 200 years ago. I did not mind this, but it is more writing than you would think for a 2000 level class.

The exams have a really weird format. You are given 15-20 potential prompts before the midterm and final and are expected to answer 3-5 of them. This would make sense, but you are expected to know the author and appropriate reading for ALL of these prompts because you don't know which one will be picked. You will not get a good grade if you can't say, "In Federalist 63, Hamilton said..." but "Washington said in (whatever work)..." This did not seem that difficult to me from the outset, but we read about 20 Federalist Papers. You had to know which Federalist Paper number corresponded to the question. Another example of the exam insanity was the 5 prompts about Lincoln that could have been selected for the final. We read many of his speeches, so you had to be able to spit out what each speech said. Obviously, they do not say the same thing, so this class takes a lot of memorization. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU DO NOT MEMORIZE THINGS WELL.

On the other hand, the professor is incredibly kind and approachable. She invited us to her house for dinner, and she genuinely cares about each of her students. This is a helpful course, but they should change the course designation to 3000 or 4000 level because the amount of work for this class is crazy.

This was easily the best class I took at UVA my first year. Dr. Uzzell is a fantastic professor who knows a great deal about the content and is very helpful if you need clarification. I am a government major, so I'm clearly very interested in American Politics, but I recommend this class for anyone who wants to really understand the Constitution and the complex issues surrounding its formation and interpretation. Reading load is very manageable, and there are two essays, a midterm, and a final. She can be a tricky grader, so you need to read all the readings, show up to class, and pay attention. There is also a participation component to the grade and occasional quizzes, so make sure you are paying attention and engaging in class. If you are absent, I recommend going to office hours to clarify that day's lesson because the class moves quickly and not all the material connects directly between classes. I can't emphasize enough how much I loved this class, so take PLAP 2250 and take it with Dr. Uzzell! PS I've heard Prof. Koganzon is very good as well, and Jordan Cash seems like a very intelligent and friendly guy too.

Dr. Uzzell is a fantastic professor and is passionate about the subject matter and teaching. She is one of the best professors I've had at UVA. She encourages class discussions (and grades class participation). Many students (myself included) are shy and don’t like participating in class, so the same five people would dominate the conversation, but when people start talking and sharing ideas it’s a really interesting and engaging discussion. There is a lot of reading and it’s very dense, so I found most of the reading difficult to understand and dry. There are two papers, a midterm, and a final. I wouldn’t call Dr. Uzzell a hard grader, but she does expect a well constructed argument in your essays, so take your time with them. She gives good feedback on essays. Overall this class was eye opening and I learned a lot about the history of America’s political and social conditions, but if you don’t like a lot of reading, this probably isn’t the class for you.

PLAP 2250 is a difficult class, but a worthwhile one. The class starts with classical political philosophy, then covers the American founding, then race and slavery, and finally 20th century parties and international relations. You read selections from Aristotle, Locke, Jefferson, the Federalist Papers, Lincoln, Civil Rights leaders and more. This class took me from knowing that various documents were important in American history to actually reading and understanding them. Be prepared to read though -- there's a lot for each class and you're expected to read it closely. Professor Uzzell is the type of professor who will slightly scare you but teach you a ton. She's extremely knowledgeable and expects a lot from her students. Class was a mix of lecture and discussion. The discussions were varied in quality -- I sometimes thought the questions she asked were too broad/unanswerable. The class had two six page papers that took a lot of time to do correctly. Uzzell gave lots of useful feedback after each one. The class also had a midterm and a final, which weren't that bad if you did the readings, took notes in class, and studied some.