Examines the politics of US immigration policy.
4
UnitsOptional
Grading1, 2, 3
PasstimeNone
Level LimitLetters and science
CollegeI'm sure Pei-Te is very nice, however, her class...not so much. Lectures are uni-directional, never asks for questions. Slides have paragraphs of info that she skims through quickly (handwritten notes= impossible) Papers have little to no prompt and include 10 readings worth of info in 5 pages. Multiple-choice questions on tests are trivia-like.
Gets more flack than she deserves. She's a highly knowledgable and respected professor, and I think that is lost on so many students just because she is an immigrant. Her class isn't hard--she provides study guides! She does require using all the readings in the 2 short papers, but they're opinion-based so its easy if you put in an ounce of effort.
While Lien is very knowledgable, she truly doesn't want people to succeed. Her rubric for exams requires you to memorize very specific information in order to get full credit. In lecture, each slide is packed with information that she monotonously reads and then skips too quickly for anybody to transcribe everything. She doesn't provide the slides
This class is bad. There is no organization to the material so each lecture feels random. It is very hard to understand her in class and she speaks really quickly. Slide are not posted and the slides are packed with information. Provides up to 3% of extra credit. Randomly takes attendance and grades a few papers from each TA's section.
It feels horrible to say this since 161 is a minority politics class but I literally could not understand a single word that Prof. Lien said in lecture. Lecture attendance is mandatory you will spend an hour and 15 minutes trying to teach yourself course material from the giant paragraphs of text on the slides.
Super nice and respectful lady—very accommodating. However, she's a bad lecturer/speaker and heavily weights midterm and final. Her grading is arbitrary and unclear. Beware she grades harshly if you don't follow her format. Not the worst but not the best. Don't be scared to take her if you have to but don't expect it to be great.