Easily one of the best professors I've had at UCSB, if not the best. His lectures are engaging and his material is genuinely interesting. These criticisms of him seem misplaced, likely coming from these soft students who expect an A+ just for showing up. Grow up. Put in the effort and you'll do well - not rocket science.

I prayed to get struck by 50 bikes omw to his class.

The criticisms are fair. There is an absurd amount of readings to do in the class, and the grading structure is disheartening. However, let's not act like the class isn't interesting. Study for exams, get the overall gist of the weekly readings, and take lengthly, but quality notes. He's very lenient with the exams. Just give complete answers.

The amount of reading assigned is comparable to what you'd normally see across multiple classes in an entire year. Most POLS majors I've talked to intentionally avoid this professor, and now I understand why, but with UCSB's limited course options some of us end up stuck. If you care about your GPA or your sanity, take literally anyone else.

As of writing this I am looking at 724 pages of readings for the 2nd half of the quarter. The final is cumulative. I have 100 on the midterm but that's not stopping me from failing lol About half (17… ish readings) are “recommended”, but our TA told us that these r NOT recommended but necessary for a good grade on the exam. This is inhumane

Very hard professor, but he is my favorite at UCSB. I generally learned so much from him and this class, but this class is incredibly hard. I would expect around 8 hours of reading per week, and you literally need to study every single thing he's ever said in his lecture and every author and its content for the midterm and final.