Lectures were very bland but had a lot of information packed in them. She made the final take home and said it was possible to complete in 3 hours--writing 1250 words for one big essay and then 1200 for 3 small essays is not it.
Freeman is a nice lady. Attendance was not mandatory. Because of this, most people didn't show up to lecture. Her lectures were very dry and weren't engaging. She told the TA to grade harshly on the final due to lack of attendance when it wasn't even required. TA Sterling was a chill guy but a very harsh grader. Review the syllabus frequently.
Im not gonna lie this is one of the worst professors, I've ever come across throughout my time in UCSB, and Ive seen some pretty bad ones. (e.g. Nall, Moosebreiger, and Felicity Stone-Richards. Don't take this class, and also don't take any class with Laffy Taffy.
Second time taking her. She knows what she's talking about and has a clear rubric. Makes it easy to get an A.Section is a big chunk of your grade, and 5 commentaries that are graded for completion help balance out your grade against the paper and midterm/final...I don't understand why the ratings are so low! She always comes to class with a smile
Professor Freeman has very disorganized lectures, and we were oftentimes behind in content by several days. She seems like a lovely woman but I could not get with her teaching style. Also puts zero effort into pronouncing ethnic names. You could honestly pass the class just by reading the textbook -- which you have to pay for.
I am shocked at the bad reviews for Prof Freeman - her class was by far easier than other poly sci courses and was packed with relevant information. 10+ readings a week but you do not need to do them. Take home midterm/final was essay format with 2-4 days to complete. She's nice but lectures are copied Wikipedia and grading criteria super unclear.
Prof Freeman is such a sweet lady who cares about her students. She does put a lot of info on her slides, but she posts the slides on gs so you can copy/paste them into your notes. I never did the reading! Midterm & Final were take home short identifications and a small essay. A pretty easy class TBH. As long as you have notes you'll be fine.
Professor Freeman was my first Poli Sci professor and she was great. Very caring and did her very best to accommodate for COVID-19 remote instruction. Lectures were a bit long and tedious but interesting nonetheless. She did a good job of keeping the information fun, current, and captivating. Lots of essays (mini and long). Take POL S 6!
She posts lectures anywhere from 3-6 days late. She has not posted a single one on time. Her lectures are regularly an hour (or more!) over the allotted class time. How is this legal
I took this class during the covid-19 pandemic so it was online. her lectures were basically going over what the book said. They were boring and tough to get through. She often is disorganized and lectures weren't going up until the end of the week. I would go back to my cheating ex before taking a class with her again.
Prof Freeman gets a bad rap for being a bit disorganized at times, but she is super passionate about her work in Japanese politics and the topic at hand. I highly recommend taking this class here. I heard her lower division classes weren't so great, but I loved her Japanese politics class. It wasn't hard or that time consuming.
Freeman is a fair and nice professor. Many people say she is overwhelmingly disorganized, but if you pay attention in lecture and keep up with the reading, you will have no problem. I would recommend taking her! She is incredibly passionate about teaching.
This class was a nightmare. She is incredibly unorganized, and while you may think her lack of presence results in less work for you, it doesn't. She can't stick to her lesson plan, which put my class 4 weeks behind schedule at the end of the quarter. If you must take this class with her, don't bother with the lectures. She just rewrites the book.
Professor Freeman is very educated in her field of work. Her lectures can get a bit dry but it's worth going to if you don't want to read the textbook. Her midterm and finals are directly from the textbooks. 1/4 of the class showed up to lecture once and she gave us extra credit points on the final. GO TO LECTURES.
Though it is true she tends to go on tangents, and its true we ended up being behind on the lectures, she is incredibly sweet and smart which to me more than made up for the fact that she is disorganized. She is clearly passionate about the subject and cares about her students, not sure why everyone is so hard on her! she's a sweetheart.
Sweet lady but terrible professor. Wastes a lot of time talking about worthless details and has to rush to get to the important stuff. Her notes are taken verbatim from the textbook so you don't really have to read. Even though the books are long, they are quite interesting.
Professor Freeman is a really nice person, if you go to office hours and talk to her it is clear she cares about her students. However, she isn't the best professor. She is very disorganized and seemed lost at times. Her lectures can also be very dry and repeats everything from the book but lectures are mandatory due to her use of iclicker.
Terrible class. Lectures were slow and boring, but mandatory because of the iclicker. She pulled lecture slides right out of the book. Lots of reading, especially in the second half of the course. This class and how Freeman taught it made me not want to be a political science major. Wait for another professor if you can!!
Seems like a nice lady but not a good professor. She spends WAAAY to much time in lecture talking about the unimportant details, consequently, lecture was behind a week for the entire second half of the year. Lectures are boring and just a restatement of the reading. Power points are disorganized, hard to follow and have no natural flow.
Professor Freeman is a nice lady, however her lectures were an absolute waste of time (and I attended EVERY lecture). Much of her lecture was copied verbatim from the assigned readings, and it was really difficult to study for the test because the guidelines were not especially clear and material to study was not narrowed down.
I have been excited to take this course and interested in the material, but this class was ruined for me with unclear lectures and messy tests. The whole quarter I felt like a guinea pig, she has never taught the class before, lectures were a mess, her tests were never clear, by unclear I mean that the TA's weren't even able to pass the midterm.
Wait another quarter if you can if she's teaching this class. She ruins what would have been a pretty interesting class. Super boring. All she does is read from the textbook. She pretty much depends on her TAs to teach her class during section. Stay away from Freeman if you can.
Super boring. She needs to take a class on how to teach a course. I don't think she understands that she's being paid to teach, not to read slides that were copied directly from the textbook. Come on, now.
I was really excited to take a poli sci class this quarter and it was a very disappointing experience. The lectures were boring and taken word for word from the textbook. The only things added to them were "little cartoons"-the professor. On a good day she gets through 2 out of the 7 sections she has planned. She does provide some comedic relief.