PLPT 3020

I highly recommend this class. Professor White is absolutely hilarious and keeps you entertained every single lecture. He makes what most would find dry and complex material very interesting and easy to understand. The reading is very manageable, as White goes through long texts and gives you very specific page ranges to read. I never read anything that wasn't applicable to what he was teaching. The reading responses are a little annoying, but don't take that long and an easy A if you do them (he gives you one freebie). The exams (short answer and essay, with extra credit) were not bad at all if you had a basic understanding of the readings and went to lectures (I would recommend not skipping many). If you pay attention in lecture and take good notes, you can basically regurgitate that on the exam and do fine. White gives the TAs rubrics and looks for very specific things that he mentioned in lecture. Not sure if he always does this, but he let us drop the quiz if it was our lowest grade. He definitely gives you the quiz early and makes it very difficult to scare you and prepare you for the exams (don't stress if you don't do that well on it; the exams are easier and they grade it much harder to scare you). Don't expect to get an A in this class--it's nearly impossible, but an A- is very easy to achieve. If you're a politics major needing to take the PLPT requirement or just interested in the topic, this class with White is the way to go. Highly recommend!

You take in what they tell you, you parrot it back. It's a zero critical thinking simulator. The professor is fun but it's honestly an extremely monotonous, robotic, uninteresting course format.

Stephen White is a great professor and very interesting. Readings are not overwhelming either. I would recommend this course. Grading on the quiz/midterm/final is fairly strict, however. Your grade may not be as high as you like. Depends heavily on your TA (don't take it with Arani Sanyal, if he's still teaching it). Good content, but grading seems opaque.

This class is absolutely absurd. If you keep up with the readings, the material is not difficult, but the grading scheme is so strange. The TAs grade based on a rubric made by Prof. White that gives barely any information. They don't grade your essay based on any kind of understanding on the material, rather on if you hit the 10 or so bullet points White expects you to hit. I feel like my grade in this class doesn't reflect my understanding, and it is very frustrating. Try to avoid if you care about your GPA.

Honestly just not that good. The material presented is foundational to understanding political theory, but it is not well presented. The professor is quirky and tries to make lectures entertaining but does so at the expense of actually explaining the material. Grading is absolutely absurd and has no correlation with understanding of the material.

I loved this course. It was extremely engaging and informative. I would highly recommend it to any UVA student (not just politics majors!).

Prof. White is great. Very entertaining and makes otherwise dull material pretty interesting for a dry political theory class. TA's basically run the class. Make sure you get a good one. Grading is very very strict. What you think is A material is a B at best in this class. All grades are based off writing and what's weighted highly as opposed to lower is very foggy. Getting an A is actually impossible, If you want an interesting experience take this class. If you care about your GPA for your sake don't even think of taking this class.

Prof. White is amazing! He is so knowledgeable and thoughtful with the material. Even though the readings are sometimes tough to understand he makes things digestible and interesting with each lecture. If you're interested in politics at all, I'd definitely recommend this class.

Pros: Prof White was a great and interesting lecturer. I thought all lectures were very clear and organized and he made tricky concepts very clear. Overall, a nice guy. This class was also just very interesting and taught me a lot about the foundations of today's politics. IMO, info taught in this class is important, even if you are not a politics major, so I would recommend this class for that reason. Ross Mittiga was my TA for this class and was the best TA I ever had! Try to get him!

Cons: The grading scale for this class is whacked. As you will see in many comments on this page, White grades based on what information he expects you to have in your responses (i.e. specific points from lecture) instead of the quality of information you include in your responses. In other words, for the quiz, midterm, and final, even if you write a strong essay, your grade will be low if you do not include the specific points from his rubric. Because of this, it is hard to get an A even if you feel you have a good grasp on the information. However, it is very possible to get an A/A- if you understand the way he grades, so pay attention to that,

Overall, would recommend, but be prepared to adjust to his grading style .

I have some issues with this class. First, my TA graded incredibly harshly (totally mincing words... grades based on keywords only and if you do not have EXACTLY the keywords that the TA wants you do not get credit). Especially so with regard to the response questions. Even if you read the material and make a solid attempt to understand it, my TA would only give credit if you gave the EXACT answer he wanted (this is material that had not been covered in class and normally hundreds of years old... so not super easy to understand at first glance). Second, the professor says he doesn't try to influence your opinions but that's a blatant lie. I don't want your opinions and you don't want mine.
The only good thing is that he allows you to outline the long essay for the final exam, so the final wasn't hard.
One quiz (short-ish essay, easy if you pay attention, take good notes, and study), one midterm (short essay and long essay), and a final (short essay and long essay)