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.

This class was extremely interesting and I liked the way that it was organized, and Lien is responsible for shaping that structure. Succeeding on exams is very possible with adequate preparation. One thing I will say is that lectures are not good. They consist of extremely dense slides that are quickly skipped over and not usually posted IMO.

Class is kinda hard so get ready to read. I feel like she also prefaces this in her course. She gives a really detailed study guide though, which is word for word on the midterm, so bless up. Also average was like 79 for the midterm, which is B- ... i fear it is not bad bro. Hack is to save her lecture slides after class

Lien is without a doubt the worst poli sci professor I have had at UCSB. Her lectures are terrible as she is extremely difficult to follow and is not charismatic/engaging in the slightest. On the midterm, the multiple-choice questions were about hyper-specific details, and for the papers, she doesn't provide a prompt and grades super harshly.

By far the worst professor I've had at UCSB. Could barely understand her lectures as she was rambling off the slides and just mumbling the whole time. Attendance required at lecture. Dense study prep for midterms. Obscure and difficult papers(must include every reading somehow), took 15 or 20 minutes away from us during midterm for printing error.

Really just a poor lecturer with terrible policies. Mumbles and is hard to hear, incredibly vague paper prompts that make no sense, took the lecture notes down the day before the midterm, took 20 away from our 75 minute midterm because she printed the papers incorrectly (sat there waiting for her to come back as TAs just watched us), and more.