This was by far the worst class I have ever taken. The professor seems like a good person, and is obviously very knowledgeable and well respected in his field however he falls short as a teacher. The lectures were unorganized and impossible to follow. Midterm was announced a week before, and we had no idea what would be on it. Dont take this class.
I only lasted 30 minutes in his INTRODUCTION lecture. He is hard to understand and cold-calls people to answer. He doesn't know how to use Canvas so it's difficult to find the resources he wants you to read. He assigned 2 textbooks. I tried hard to pay attention but he jumps around a bit so it's hard to follow his train of thought.
best professor in the globl departmart!!! so inspirational! wow!
He's the worse professor I've ever had! His class has no content at all, you will end the quarter without having learned anything. He is really unorganized the course has no structure (he has no slides or book). It's the final week right now and he still hasn't graded anything. He is rude and not helpful if you try to reach out to him.
Everything this man says is incredibly convoluted to the point where it loses all meaning. He constantly contradicts his own arguments and is pretentious. Do not take.
Listen, if you want an easy upper div class, TAKE GLOBL 123! There are no tests, lecture is not mandatory, and all you are graded on are your discussion posts each week (that correspond to readings). I skipped every class and was able to pass. You grade your own discussion posts btw, so easy A! His lectures are pointless tho
He seems like a good man, but he is not a good lecturer. His lectures are not cohesive at all. I'm not sure how in-person classes would be, but online classes were reasonable when it came to difficulty. Do the readings and read his lecture notes and you should be able to write strong essays. He does give extra credit opportunities as well!
Nederveen straight up CANNOT teach. His lectures have no clear format and either gives attitude if a student asks a question or pushes it onto the TA, who has no idea what's going on either. Also, he was quick to blame our class for getting overall low grades on his test when he is not helpful whatsoever when we sought help.
Smart man, Terrible professor. Get ready to teach yourself.
Highly respected in the field and knows a ton, BUT I have never taken a class with a worse professor. DO NOT TAKE A CLASS WITH HIM. DO NOT. SAVE YOURSELF. He is hard to understand and has the most dead lectures I have ever sat through. He's condescending, ambiguous, and doesn't understand his students are not professionals in his field. JUST DON'T.
The worst professor and class I have ever taken at UCSB. Difficult to understand, unorganized power points, extremely unclear with directions, and expects you to already know everything. Do NOT take a class that he is teaching. Attendance is mandatory and he picks on you to answer questions that are impossible to know. Terrible, terrible, terrible
WORST professor I have EVER had. His lectures are confusing, unclear, and unorganized. He is so stubborn and pretentious. Reading Memos are once a week and are graded extremely harshly. I wanted to claw my eyes out every lecture. The 44 question multiple choice midterm exam had an average of 60% with no curve. DO NOT take a course with Nederveen!!
His lectures were unclear and disorganized, and he would skim over entire sections that he deemed boring or that we might already know without asking the class. People stopped going after he started picking on individuals and criticizing their opinions. Keep up on current events and get to know your TA and you'll be fine.
His lecture is very disorganized. He always brings some terms that you never heard of and never explains them.
A multi-polar and multi layer approach.. amazing class
TOTALLY AGREE THAT HE IS LEAST ORGANIZED PROFESSOR. At least teaching Global studies. He is hard to understand and it's not his accent, it's his rambling slides that he reads off off. Whenever he answers a question he tells the student asking it that they don't understand what he's saying. There are a lot of better profs teaching same course.
Least organized professor teaching core globl classes! Did well but had to second guess everything. Lectures are confusing and despite what some reviews here say it isn't his accent. Rarely gives straight answers to questions. Worst thing is from what I saw he has a bad mean streak and yelled at students for sitting in the back and using computers.
One of the biggest problems of this class was the lack of organization; he must've changed the syllabus four times during the course. Also, he's not a very good lecturer so I stopped going after maybe the third week and instead focused on the readings. Midterm and final were easy, all multiple choice which is so nice compared to writing essays.
DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASS. Worst proffesor I have encountered by far. It is VERY difficult to understand his accent. The average on our final was 43% and he did not curve it. He has no slides and his notes make no sense. He is very foreign and he doesnt have a clue how to teach. Put in a lot of effort and got a B-. I barely learned anything from him.
He is a nice guy, very knowledgeable but not a good teaching professor. His lecture content and slides were so difficult to understand and his thick accent made classes even more challenging. The content of this course is super intriguing and I had a good amount of prior knowledge on economic systems and politics. But, Pieterse was complicated.
A lot of reading involved in this class, but my TA was very helpful with reviewing during sections. His lectures are pretty boring so I take advantage of that and take naps, but he posts the lectures online. Lots of info but its pretty interesting stuff
GREAT teacher. His accent is completely understandable if you just listen. He wants you to ACTUALLY learn, not just pass the class. A lot of reading but if you do it you will learn quite a lot about the real world. Pieterse is very reputable and personally knows a lot of the scholars we read about in Global Studies. Highly recommend.
This prof is awesome! He's quite eccentric, but has an great sense o humor. There's a lot of reading but it's not that bad if you're interested in the class. He's very knowledgeable in his field, and it's his first time teaching an undergrad class so the pace was a bit fast at first but he's adjusted it and its great now. Love this class!!
If you want a fairly boring class, taught by an interesting yet barely understandable teacher, with quizzes on over a hundred pages of reading each week, feel free to take this class. Otherwise stay away. Far away.