I'm still in the middle of this quarter, but I have vowed never to take another class with this Professor. Barry is sweet, funny, and I would be friends with him outside of class, but as a Professor, he makes learning 100x more difficult.

Albeit I'm taking him through zoom in the middle of this panorama, so it might be different in person, but for the last 6 weeks, he has spent the first hour and 30 mins of every class talking about current events. Then in the last 10-15 minutes, he speeds through all the material he was supposed to cover that week. Thankfully I understand what's happening, but most people are not good at math, and this combination of stem and disorganized learning makes it extremely difficult for students to actually learn.

I usually just wait until section to learn what I was supposed to, and my TA has been incredible in that department. If you don't do math at all, then please do yourself this favor and avoid this class or at least take it with another Professor. Many of my friends are having extreme anxiety during this midterm season, and trust me; you don't want to be here for it.

Barry is a very funny and memorable guy but is a poor teacher. I had to teach myself most of the material and attend office hours with my TA in order to understand everything. I didn't do very well on the midterm but managed to do well on the final and was able to get an A. I still think Barry is awesome even though the class was annoying sometimes. However, I wouldn't take this class again since it was really unorganized.

Barry is a kind and funny person; however, his lectures are awful. They utilize extremely confusing examples and you will need your TA to translate most concepts.

Professor O-Neil is one of the most kind, jovial, hilarious, and warm people you will ever meet. You will feel like he is your Uncle by the end of the quarter.
The class itself is a bit frustrating in terms of clarity. Professor often went on tangents about things like stampedes. However, the TAs do a really good job about making the actual class matieral make sense in section. Therefore, as long as you attend section you'll be okay.

I feel so frustrated with UCLA. Prof Oneill obviously is an extremely poor professor, but continues to be at UCLA becuase of his tenure. His lectures were so poorly organized and structured that a lot of students, including myself completley stopped going to lecture. I would instead, spend hours every day on youtube trying to learn the concepts and was constantly working with my TA, who had to teach us everything by himself. I have spoken to my peers who had Professor Chwe for game theory, and said it was one of their favorite classes. I feel very cheated by Professor Barry and wish feedback like this was actually taken into consideration. With that being said Professor Oneill is a very smart and kind man, just the worst professor I have ever had.

I really like professor O'Neill which is the only reason why I'm writing this review tbh. He is such a well meaning professor and definitely puts a lot of effort into his classes - I've stopped by to talk to him during office hours and he is always super happy to see students.
When I took this class (via zoom) a lot of students complained about his midterm being unfair and doing poorly. Yes, some of the questions were a little bit random, but he did provide all the slides before hand that were fair game for the exam. I always tried to be engaged in lecture and, as a result, I got an A on the midterm so my main advice is to actually try and listen to his stories, especially the ones he goes into a lot of depth about, since he might put them on the exam even if you yourself don't think they're that important.
If you are someone who will go to lecture and pay attention most of the time you should be good to go :) And really professor O'Neill is so nice it makes up for the random questions.
Overall

I can imagine that this class runs a lot more smoothly in-person than it does online. Dr. O'Neill seemed lost at times and his best lecturing days are probably behind him. The course covers game theory and its applications in politics, which is definitely interesting.

The class' saving grace is from the TAs. Laura was extremely helpful and was probably the only reason I managed to pass this class. She and the other TAs essentially ended up teaching the class themselves, as a majority of students came into discussion completely lost.

The midterm and final exams are supposedly graded on a curve, but as far as I know, this is BS. The exams themselves were made challenging due to the fact that they included questions from random examples given by Dr. O'Neill, which didn't have much to do with game theory. There were also questions based on Dr. O'Neill's personal opinions, which were probably not appropriate for a class such as this.

Here's my advice. Go to TA office hours every week. Stay on-track with homework and pay attention during discussion. Spend a ton of time reviewing the slides before the exams. Finally, don't take this class if you're not a Pol Sci major or you aren't interested in game theory. You'll regret it.

Barry O’Neil is many things: A myth, a meme, a nice guy, an actual wizard of game theory (not a joke look him up)... a good teacher— unfortunately— is not one of them. Barry uses creative but convoluted examples to explain a lot of otherwise easy concepts and many things get lost in translation. The assignments however, and the actual content of the class, are straightforward and easy. If your TA has any sort of brain, this will be an enjoyable class (despite Barry’s interesting teaching antics) that’s totally possible to get an A in. A lot of people took Barry the wrong way and assumed he was trying to be malign somehow when in reality he was teaching the only way he knows how. Furthermore, he was always accessible and more than happy to answer questions in his office hours. In other words, he puts in the work, is a genuinely nice guy, and a game theory legend, but sometimes can explain things the wrong way. Is that a reason not to take this class? I don’t know, you tell me.

I’d be happy to take another class with Barry again.

Honestly, Barry is a bit quirky? He's a pretty fun guy and I enjoyed my time in the class and in the active group chat, to say it was a fun class due to the people in it.

But it was messy, our first midterm really took us by surprise as everything he says is free game; did you zone out during his talk on the Galapagos? Too bad, now answer this question on this specific thing that was only mentioned once. And we would host zoom sessions as a study group thing but some students had no work ethic and copied others' work. I enjoyed these zoom study group session things since some students explained the course material in a way that made sense to me but that was ruined. Anyways this class is kinda hard when it comes to the lectures and what information to know but the material, when explained by TA's or other students, is actually do-able.

His grading scale is also weird, I can't even explain it but if you do well in the homework and the midterm but fail the final he'll take that into account and make sure you come out with a good grade- is what he said but honestly, spring break has passed and I still don't have my grade for this class.

And the TA's are great, they did most of the teaching. oh and not to forget william spaniel, best youtube channel

but if you're wondering if this is a hard class then the answer is yes and no, exams are open book and the Ta's are always willing to help but the exams are...different :)

NEVER, EVER TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROFESSOR O'NEILL. He is very unclear during lectures and you are often left confused at the end. I took this class online during the pandemic and he would often make mistakes on his slides confusing students, and he change his mind about what we should care about for the midterm and final. ALSO, THE FINAL WAS A MESS. He didn't teach us half of the things that were on the final study guide so students were scrambling for help from TA's and O'Neill himself the day before the final exam. The final didn't end up being that bad but if you can, do not take this class with Professor O'Neill.