I received an A+ in this class. I am selling my 130 pages typed-up notes for this class (all lectures + discussions) for only $15. They can be shared right away. Email me at lanasamii19@gmail.com if interested.

Professor Min is easily the best professor I have taken at UCLA. He was extremely clear in his lectures, which were accompanied by a slideshow, which he gave to the class with some of the terms and definitions blanked out to help us follow along. Most weeks (8 of 10) we had to do a CCLE-based quiz of about 15 questions covering the topics that we covered in class, with the quiz comprising 30% of our grade. There was no final, rather we had to submit a six-page essay on an important foreign policy issue, in Fall 2021 the essay examined where the US went wrong in Afghanistan. This essay was broken into a proposal due week 3 (5% of grade), a draft due week 8, and the actual essay (45% of grade) due on the Monday of week 9, which meant that there we had nothing to do during Finals week for this class. Participation in discussion sections counted for 20% of the grade. I had Merabi as my TA and he was very knowledgable on all of the subjects and very open to helping out if I had any questions or problems. Overall, if I could take this course again, I would not hesitate to and I would recommend taking it as a GE credit as you do not need to understand any complexities of political science that Professor Min does not cover.

Professor Min is one of if not the best professor that I have had during my time at UCLA. His lectures were extremely clear. He provided detailed breakdowns for concepts and theories—allowing us to contextualise each of them with a relevant real-life application of them—and even blanked out certain key terms and sentences from the powerpoint PDF for lectures that he made available prior to classes to allow us to fill in the blanks as we went along. The concepts we learned were genuinely interesting and I’ve already found myself applying some of the topics related to bargaining and negotiation in daily life. We were assigned weekly, open-book quizzes once a week which very well-designed and easy. Discussions were enjoyable and gave us further opportunities to apply what we learned to real-life situations. The ‘final’ for this class is a 5-6 page long analysis paper on a significant world issue related to the concepts we studied. Last year, it was a paper on the Iranian nuclear issue and this year it was about the most effective ways for the U.S. to handle North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. The paper was not a cake-walk by any means, but if you have passable research skills and understood content well enough, you will do very well. I haven’t heard of anyone who got below a B+ on it. Grade breakdown: Quizzes 45%, Paper 40%, Participation in section 15%. Overall amazing G.E that I would recommend to anyone regardless of major.

---Lecture: Min is the one of the best lecturers I have had so far. He makes the lectures extremely engaging and tries his best to incorporate entertaining elements. The information is presented very clearly, and his slides are a sufficient replacement for the textbook.
---Discussion: Sections do not provide much new information, but they do clarify certain concepts and provide examples of situations that are useful to bring up during exams.
---Paper: Min gave an interesting topic for the paper, and I had fun researching for it. The deadlines are reasonable, and the TAs offer good advice throughout the process.
---Exams: The midterm and final were both pretty difficult, but they were reasonable. You do have to do quite well on both exams and the paper to get an A in the class.
---Tips: Min provides sufficient information through his lectures. The slides are useful but are not a stand alone. You don't need the textbook if you use the recourses Min gives.

I loved this class and I highly recommend it. Min was very clear during lecture and very helpful before and after class as well as during office hours. Reading the textbook is not necessary, as it basically just regurgitates his lecture, but it was helpful in my opinion. The assessments are multiple choice and easy enough if you study. The discussions and practice midterms and finals were also very helpful. This class gave me an appreciation for and interest in world politics and more awareness about politics in the world outside the US.

The key to an A in this class is to 1) do well on the paper 2) collect good notes/memorize the content from the posted slides and bring this knowledge to the midterm and final. You do NOT need to read the textbook in order to do well (though some may find it helpful. In my opinion, though, it was way too much reading to do [~100 pages per week] and I was fine without it).

Professor Min is a great lecturer and I will miss being in his class! I'm a poli sci major but I would recommend this class to anyone interested in learning how states interact with each other and applying theories to trends we see in the world today - super interesting stuff!

Professor Min is hands down one of the most clear and engaging lecturers I have encountered at UCLA so far. The format of the class includes a final paper but NO midterm and NO final. Weekly quizzes make up the rest of your grade, but they are very doable if you just go to the lectures. They are also open note/online so you really should really be able to do well on them. I would highly recommend this class if you are interested in politics or just wanting to take a fairly simple GE. You cannot go wrong with professor Min!

There were no tests in this class, just weekly quizzes which were online and open-note (no collaboration allowed). Super easy and most of the info you could find on the slides. Lectures were pretty helpful.

The big project was this essay worth 50% of our grade on a topic we didn't learn about. That was pretty stressful but I ended up receiving a 97 on it even though I felt like I didn't know what I was doing. The prompt was "What should the United States have done differently in Afghanistan, if anything?" and relating it to class concepts, and I felt overwhelmed because I knew nothing on the topic beforehand.

Professor Min is incredible. I looked forward to every one of his lectures and the content of the class itself is really interesting. He posts all his slides beforehand but leaves a couple small blanks in them that you fill out during lecture.

Here's how grades are weighed:
30% - weekly open note, take home quizzes that stay open from Friday to Tuesday but do have a time limit (lowest grade is dropped)
20% - section participation (my TA gave full credit for each section as long as you showed up and answered/asked at least one question)
50% - 5-6 page analysis paper (5% is guaranteed simply by submitting a proposal by the deadline, regardless of how good that proposal is)

Quizzes are very straightforward and based off the slides & lectures. Also, you are guided through the paper bit by bit with each section so it's really not that intimidating! There is also a clear rubric provided for it, so you know exactly what you need to do in order to get a good grade.

The textbook wasn't even necessary in my opinion because Professor Min covered all of the content clearly and concisely during lecture. It's great to read for some extra context though.

Overall, I would highly recommend this class. It was very manageable for me and it was my first quarter at UCLA!

amazing and super easy class!! the quizzes are easy and straightforward as long as you take good lecture notes. his lectures were super interesting. would 100% take another class with him