POL - Political Science Courses
A&S Political Science Course Descriptions
POL208 - International Relations (Gilady)
Two midterms (20% and 25%), two essays each worth 20%, and tutorial participation worth 15%. Tests are short and long essay, and very detailed-oriented. You really have to know your readings and lectures well, and the concepts build on top of each other. The content is intense because of the detailed-oriented and theoretical nature of this course. Class average is usually 68% for all essays and midterms.
Gilady is a great prof. Love her so much. She's got a great sense of humor, and her slides are quite detailed and excellent. She's a very clear speaker, engaging, and she explains concepts well. However, a problem is that she does not provide you with slides at all. She gives you lecture outlines, but they are the bare minimum of what you should know. Her slides are so detailed during class that it makes it hard to pay attention to her when you have to write down everything on those slides.
I also don't like the variable quality of the TAs. Some TAs are very organized, and others are not. This course does not set any predictable standard for how TAs should run their tutorials, so some tutorials are more useful than others. However, I think it's great that a lot of the tutorials make students sign up for readings to make summaries.
Another problem I had with the course is the content itself. It was much more theoretical than I was expecting. If you're looking for a course where you get to debate about the Iraq War and other real-life IR events, this is not for you. This course deals with theory and policy, and how to analyze states and institutions to predict and explain their behaviour. As a science student, I found the concepts too abstract, and even though the lectures were engaging, the content wasn't memorable for me.
3/5.
POL214 - Canadian Politics (1st semester: Wiseman, 2nd semester: Wallner)
Two midterms (20% and 25%), two essays (20% and 25%), and tutorial participation is 10%. Tests are fair, but since I was a purely science student until this year, it was hard to adjust to. The tests are all essays (short and long), and it's easy to get a B, but very hard to get an A. The essays are both research papers based on prompts given in class, and the average is usually 68 - 70%.
Wiseman - Disliked his lecturing style completely. He refuses to use any sort of technology, so that means no e-mails and no slides. He usually has no visual aids, with the occasions that he uses the blackboard. He's very knowledgeable about what he's talking about, and the content is interesting, but I found him very bland. He has a voice that's very monotone in quality, and for a morning course, it doesn't really keep me awake. However, he's very nice to talk to in person or on the phone, and he looks like he genuinely cares for his students.
Wallner - Like her. She's a very organized lecturer- she likes to use slides and show videos (ie. CBC, Daily Show) to show real-life examples of concepts learned in lecture. She's very enthusiastic and friendly, and is a great and effective speaker. I like that she brings in a lot of guest speakers too- we've had the TTC Commissioner and a former Ambassador to Brazil talk to us.
My problem with her is that she doesn't control the class as much as she should. There are always these two guys in the class who make anywhere from 5 to 15 minute-pointless conversations with her during class time, and it irritates the whole class, and it just kept going on the entire year.
Overall, the entire course was a worthwhile experience. I learned so much from this course, and it's allowed me to engage in Canadian politics in a much better way. No regrets. And the TAs in POL214 are pretty amazing- I had Heather, and she's very organized, fluent, and easy to talk to. Most amazing TA ever.
