PLCP 1010

This complexity of the material of this class for a 1010 is A LOT, but Professor Waldner does a great job in lecture of breaking it down. While there are a lot of readings, you can get away with skimming the intro/conclusions and tables, then paying attention in lecture to what Waldner highlights from them. I took this course as a first-year interested in majoring in Politics-Foreign Affairs, and I would strongly recommend the course. It is a lot of work but it is definitely worth it.

Prof Waldner was a great lecturer and really cared about all his students. He always offered his help pretty much 24/7, especially at the beginning of the year when we were learning to use R. Using R was definitely not hard at all since all you had to do was run the pre-written code and answer questions based on the stats. The beginning of the course was pretty stats heavy, but not too bad. There were a ton of readings assigned for every lecture, but I stopped doing them after the first week and just read the summaries of them provided in the discussion sections and did fine (B+ final grade). I had Sally Bonsall as my TA and she did a good job at summarizing the important parts of the lectures and the readings in her powerpoints. However, I know Simonas Cepenas had some more in-depth slides of the readings, but less in-depth of the lecture. To get the best of both worlds, I just had someone send me Simonas' slides before exams. I really liked Sally as a TA because she made discussions interesting and I think she might have been a slightly more generous grader.

#tCF2020

Waldner is a great lecturer who really cares that each student understands the material. I would not recommend Tolu as a TA, she is smart, but her discussions were very stressful and not as helpful as the other sections seemed to be. There is a lot of stats, but not hard to understand. The midterms and final were very fair and followed the course material very well - they were essay format.

Professor Waldner is a great person with a good heart and an intention to help students gain an overall understanding, but his delivery is quite confusing. The expectations of this course greatly exceed the introductory level. The readings are extremely lengthy and the volume is way too high. Depending on your TA, your discussion sections will either save your prep for midterms/finals or be a demoralizing experience. The fact that we had a virtual class (and therefore open note exams) was an absolute lifesaver, I would not have survived without them. This is definitely not an easy A class, you have been warned!
#tCF2020

PLCP 1010 was an overview of the major theories and methods of comparative politics. Professor Waldner was an engaging lecturer. There were a lot of readings and they were pretty dry. Discussion sections depended on your TA... Tolu was not particularly helpful in explaining the material. The assessments were writing-based. There were also a few easy but dense homework assignments that used R programming. Ultimately, the course was really interesting as someone who has never studied comparative politics, but it was a fairly standard large lecture intro class.

This class was sometimes very challenging to me, but as a future foreign affairs major, it was extremely interesting. The readings can get very long for an introductory class, but by the middle of the semester, you're able to see what information is actually important for the exams. The beginning is focused heavily on statistics, which was a little more difficult, but nothing that can't be done. Discussion sections were VERY helpful. Overall, I'd recommend this class, especially if you are looking to major in the Politics area, but aren't completely sure. Also, I highly recommend Simonas Cepenas as the TA; he made very helpful, concise, and direct powerpoint slides with all of the relevant material. #tCF2020

This was a great class. The first portion of the semester is very statistics heavy, but it all has a purpose later on and helps add context to the more theoretical topics towards the end. There is a ton of reading, most of the time it isn't necessary to do all of it, just make sure you have the general ideas for the exams. Dr. Waldner is a very caring professor, it is obvious that he really wants every student to succeed. This class wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I learned a lot and am still happy I took it. #tCF2020

The reading can get lengthy but Waldner is a great teacher. The exams are all essay questions so grading is pretty lenient. You do, however, need to know the readings and be able to name drop the authors and their main points.

I really enjoyed this class. Professor Waldner is great and I found his humor to make the class more exciting ( but i get that some people may not find him funny at all). I found the material interesting and easy to understand, and the homework assignments were pretty easy and didn't take too long. The only downside was the grading. I found it hard to get an A, even with putting in the effort and understanding all of the material. There are two midterms, both short answer and then a final which is also short answer, but longer.

This course would better be titled "Introduction to Statistics" than "Introduction to Comparative Politics". Waldner focuses heavily on the statistical approach to comparative politics, and the course didn't actually get interesting until the last few weeks. Though I got an A- in this course and diligently read and attended every lecture, friends who never even looked at the articles achieved similar grades. The discussion sections are particularly useless, as my TA only regurgitated the previous lectures that week. All in all Waldner is a nice guy, but this class simply wasn't what I expected and introductory comparative politics class to be.