PLPT 3020

Professor White is excellent. You can tell he's been teaching the same class for awhile, but its still very enjoyable. White unpacks the readings for you and makes everything make sense. The grading is reasonable and I always enjoyed coming to lecture even though it was mandatory. White talks about what's important in Political theory and leaves out everything else. He cuts right to the core. Fantastic class and professor!

Great Class! I went into it thinking I was just going to take it to fulfill distribution requirements for a govt/foreign affiars major, but turned out to be my favorite class of the semester. Prof. White is a very engaging lecturer, uses great examples to get you thinking, and definitely knows what he is talking about. Grade consists of a midterm, final, quiz (dropped if you do better on the final AND midterm than on the quiz), and daily response questions (pain at the beginning, but really help you stay on top of the reading - which is light to begin with - and know the information for the class). Highly recommended! Sbach was an awesome TA, very helpful in clearing up some of the confusion from lecture.

The class in manageable, but the grading is intense. Professor White encourages students to answer the question presented on midterms, but it seems that "brain dumping" everything you know about a particular concept is rewarded by the TA's.

Not inherently an easy A, but it was definitely one of the easier courses I took this semester. White has clear themes that he wants you to see in each of the writers, which can detract from a full understanding of each individual, but provides an interesting, easy to understand patterned approach to political philosophy in continuum. Sbach was an awesome TA and did an excellent job supplementing White's lectures.

White is a great professor and this was an incredibly enjoyable class, but the way exams were graded is just plain stupid. For the final we were allowed to take a sheet of notes into the exam to reference, so I literally had my TA's words verbatim to look at and still got a C on the final. They were graded very harshly! So that part of the class really sucked and a lot of people felt similarly, but that shouldn't keep you from taking it nonetheless because its a fantastic class and ironically, even though it was my worst grade of the semester, it was the class in which I feel I learned the most in.

Very interesting material and Professor White can explain abstract ideas clearly and concisely. It has been one of my favorite classes in UVa so far. Highly recommended for anyone interested in political theory.

Not a very difficult class but Professor White has very dry lectures. He is really cool in person though so definitely go to his office hours. Your TA determines your grade but White gives them a list of specific requests so sometimes they can't give you points even if they want to. Overall interesting topics discussed so if you are into political theory/philosophy it is good to take this class.

This course more than exceeded my expectations. White made what I thought would be a dry subject matter interesting by framing theory in a narrative that helps to explain the way that we currently view politics. This course has inspired me to take others in the field. Reading was minimal but useful, and lectures were mandatory but interesting. The only thing that could be a little frustrating were the exams; I felt that my grades often didn't reflect my knowledge of the material since it appeared that the exams were graded on a strict rubric (and would venture to say that others felt the same.) Regardless, I found this class to be more than worthwhile and would recommend it to anyone, especially with Andrew Gates as the TA.

He brought a gun to class to teach us about modern political thought. I will never forget some of the examples he made. This man is a boss.

A great class! Professor White takes a boring subject and makes it interesting! Highly recommend!