Set up terribly and unfairly, presented decently

Bad intro to polisci, focuses all on theory while claiming to cover all subareas of polisci, should've done it more evenly. Also expected excessive prior knowledge as if people already covered all the prereqs for the major, some of us are new here buddy!

Nice but overrated. Honestly, most profs have more or less personality but this is no intro to poli class

Get another prof

As someone interested in politics I found this course pretty interesting. It was great when things were brought up that were very relevant to current world events but gotta be honest the foundations of polisci are very very uninteresting and I forgot them right after the class. Definitely a must if you plan on studying anything mildly associated with politics though I'd say.

I really lover Dr. Arneil's teaching style, she is extremely knowledgeable and down to earth, and has a really clear and concise way of teaching. The slides were however not always super descriptive so you definitely need to pay more attention to what she's saying then what's on the slides.

Honestly did not read the textbook once so don't bother with that unless it's to define certain words. As for notes, you have to follow the key terms list she provided. I ignored it first half and did so much better when I actually started taking notes only based on the key terms and not just of what the slides were on.

There's many ways that intro to politics could be carried out. I think Barbara did it well. There's a terms and concepts list with things from lecture and readings, and that's all you need to study. However, for the final exam essay, you've got to link those to real life in questions and that's hard especially if you don't know a whole lot of current events.

If you're passionate in politics, take POLI 100 with Barbara! If not, then don't take polisci at all. If you want to build your knowledge on ongoing things and politics, I find you can learn a lot more from other arts classes

Prof Arneil's lectures are always interesting and easy to understand. Because my term was online it was definitely different than the normal class but it was still interactive and easy to stay on top of the work. I also found the TA's super helpful and knowledgeable.

The textbook was useful in the long run for finding definitions and descriptions but you could definitely survive without it. Just make sure to take notes based on the Key Terms list. After I started only taking notes based on those I found the class much easier. Pay attention particularly the first 2-3 weeks because without understanding that content the rest of the class is very hard.