This was a very difficult class but I loved the lectures and professor. I enjoyed coming to lectures as they were fun and interactive and Morse provided incredible insight into understanding the world. I would highly recommend this professor but the class exams and essays are graded harshly and are difficult.
Super great and engaging lecturer even though it wasn't mandatory, I'd recommend to go. You def don't have to read the book but it made all of the work really easy and went into a little more depth than her lectures. Midterm we were able to redo one part and get full credit on it that made it super helpful
Literally just here because its insane people are dissing Marc Anthony. He is the most helpful TA I've ever had, he truly cares for his students and if you show up to office hours you would see that. Harsh grader, but that is controlled by the professor. Definitely take him if you genuinely want to improve as a student.
I only knock off points for the grading system and TAs. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS W MARC ANTHONY he was mean, degrading, and nothing you want in a TA. Class is a weeder and TAs have to reduce grades to meet the curve. Textbook readings are dense. However, Prof Morse makes lecture interesting thru discussions and she made the content clear for me.
Professor Morse was detailed, organized, and included references to memes and other relevant events to explain a lot of IR-related terms easily! Do the readings, take notes in lecture, and don't be afraid to ask questions - she explains a lot of concepts really well if you do. Class based on midterm, final, two papers, and two reflections.
Interesting lectures by professor, but assignments and grading were hard. I am not a Poli Sci major and it was especially difficult, probably should not have taken the class. Seems dependent on TA, so pray and hope you get lucky. Morse is helpful during office hours.
ATTENDANCE MATTERS. Morse is a great lecturer but her class is especially difficult and the grading criteria is very difficult. The department seems to be turning this into a weeder class for the major. Read the textbook and go to lecture, best way to pass the class. Pray that you don't have Marc Anthony as your TA
Morse is a wonderful person, but her class was especially difficult.
We did have to read from the textbook, but she allowed reading an earlier edition if that's all we could find for free. There was 1 research paper and 1 midterm. There are 3 reflections throughout the quarter. For the final, it was a take home essay that she gave us like 5 days to write with no time limit. AMAZING PROFESSOR.
She had two TAs, mine the harsh grader and the other an easy A. Instead of being considerate esp. during COLA and COVID-19, she lowered grades. A B- was an 80-86 & a B+ was a 91-93. Even during the quarter, we were told we weren't allowed to ask for help for our essays either? Knows her stuff, but sadly doesn't care for her students.
Professor Morse is an absolutely amazing professor. Her lectures were diverse, clear, and extremely engaging. You can really tell the amount of effort she puts into everything for the class. She always encourages discussion and participation and is very receptive to feedback. All essays and assignments were designed so that you can succeed.
Really great and fun class. One of my favorite profs at UCSB! She's entertaining and nice and makes the material fun.
Class was ok until she changed all our grades by changing the grading scales AFTER the quarter ended w/out telling us before. 91-93 was a B+ for one TA and 89-90 was a B+ for the other. She kept the final the weekend we were told to move out because of Covid19 & lowered all our grades after so the grades we thought we had weren't what we received.
One of the best professors I've had at UCSB, she is so knowledgeable and inspiring! She does a good job at keeping the lectures engaging, and it is clear she cares about the course content as well as her students. One midterm, 2 papers, and the final is a take home written response. Readings are necessary but they were interesting and helped a lot.
Professor Morse is my favorite at UCSB. I interviewed her for a writing assignment and it's super easy to see she is passionate not only about her research but also about teaching, which shows in her lectures. Lecture technically wasn't mandatory but I recommend going because its super interesting and helps a lot with papers/exams.
My favorite teacher at UCSB to date! and to think it was her 1st quarter teaching here! She goes out of her way to keep her students informed and engaged- she's clear about what she's expecting. She teaches you things that are actually relevant, I highly recommend taking a course with her!
Morse taught at UCSB for her first time this quarter and she was amazing! Her lectures are super clear and easy to follow, and she actively engages her students. She's super nice and easy to approach with questions, and is obviously passionate about the subject. I'd definitely recommend her class, its a great introductory class for poli sci kids!
Don't listen to the bad reviews of 124. Look at the distribution. There is a submission bias here. It was a great class with no exams just a final policy proposal, in-class projects, and weekly homework. Once u get the hang of the rubric it's easy As on all of them. Go to office hours. Great lectures. Great professor. I had her for ps 7, it waschil
This class would not have been that hard and mentally draining if it weren't for the HORRIBLE TAs, this class drained me because the TA graded so harshly, was always late, had no clue what was going on, and was just rude to me.
Horrible grading criteria and graded assignments either a 0 or 100. The TAs were hardly any help especially Noosha! She was not helpful at all and rude . Did not want to help and had attitude all the time
First ever negative grade I've ever received at UCSB and I genuinely tried in this class. Professor and TA did not care whatsoever, lacked consideration, and gave out 0's over the smallest mistake. The TA does not know how to grade and will knock you down to a 0 over the smallest things. Don't take this class especially with the TAs this quarter.
The amount of work and effort I put into this class would have been fine if not for the lack of consideration from TA's when grading and helping out with the class. Horrible TA's and poorly designed course. Each week there is multiple writing assignments which you are either graded 100% or 0%. Make sure you choose the right TA when taking the class
Julia is a great lecturer but this class was so unclear. The simulation and mocktrials were disorganized and they did horrible at explaining what we were supposed to be doing. The TAs hardly knew themselves what we were supposed to do.The grading criteria was so absurd and made absolutely no sense.
Extremely hard grader, uses a totally different grading system where assignments get marked down 50% if you have any mistake whatsoever. I was sick and it brought my GPA down because she refused to give me an extension which made the difference in my final grade because any mistake on any assignment results in a 50%. Grading is incredibly unclear.