Professor Alves does not take his classes seriously. He holds students to unattainable standards, while he does not meet those standards himself. Students are marked down for spelling and grammatical errors. The caveat is that his prompts and emails often have several typos and spelling errors. DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASSES

Professor Alves is a bad professor and teacher. He rarely responds to emails, and his directions are not clear and very vague, and on top of that he grades harshly. He is not very understanding either. Does not except late work period. He once answered my email in spanish, even though it is a Geopolitics class, and I don't speak spanish.

This is one of the worst professors I've ever had. I did an online course of his, of which he was super unclear on instructions, sometimes doesn't even post assignments ON THE DAY THEY ARE DUE, and shows a general apathy towards his students that is extremely disconcerting. Avoid this class like the plague if possible.

I loved Professor Alves's class and it was very eye opening. The content can be a lot to process, but if you do the readings you can really gain a whole new perspective. The course was graded on two papers and a final presentation (plus participation). Prof Alves is a leading scholar in his field and I'd strongly recommend taking a class with him!

I've had Professor Alves on two separate occasions now and he's genuinely fantastic. He's super passionate about his work and it translates through the quality of his lectures. He assigns quite a few readings but all are very interesting and eye-opening. I found him to be very approachable so don't be afraid to email or visit his office hours!

Literally the worst teacher I have ever had and super disappointing to see that at UCSB considering it's ranking in university. He doesn't give you a grading rubric, no clear instructions, only lectures in class which he tells you not to take notes on, so why are we looking at it? You have weekly discussions and he has no grading rubric for that.