Professor Chwe is literally a KING. So sweet, and always engages with the class. Very patient and willing to help when people were having difficulties with material. The course itself was overall good. Some of the material was tricky, but again, he makes himself very available for any questions over email, slack, or office hours. In response to zoom learning, he restructured the course to where we just had to complete a certain number of problems (correctly or mostly correct) for an A, instead of traditional exams. My TA was Soonhong and he was super helpful. From what I've heard, the other TA's were fantastic as well.

Professor Chwe was easily one of the best instructors/ teachers Ive ever had. He’s funny, nice, and is always willing to answer your emails or questions, even before and after class. All the lectures and most of the office hours were recorded and posted which was extremely helpful in learning the content (you could still attend the lectures live if you wanted to). Overall the work load was very manageable. Sometimes the homework and material was rough but my TA was willing to give extensions if I needed it. The professor and TA were also very helpful in explaining the homework problems and course material during office hours. The lectures are also very organized and he usually started it off with breathing exercises and fun things like pet show and tell.

Fall 2020 Grading Policy:
The grading policy during Fall 2020 (online) seems to be much different than the reviews for when this class was in person, so keep that in mind. This is how the class worked in Fall 2020: You are GUARANTEED an A- or better if you turn in all the work. There is a weekly set of homework problems that you have to do (excluding the midterm week) which can take half an hour to a few hours to complete. If you make minor mistake(s) you still get full credit. If you make a major mistake you will be told where your error was and you can resubmit it for full credit. There is no real mid term or final, all you have to do is turn in 12 exam problems by the end of the quarter. Like the homework, if you make minor mistake(s) you still get full credit. If you make a major mistake you will be told where your error was and you can resubmit it for full credit. You can always email your TA or professor about an exam problem if you’re confused, and we went over some of them at the end of the quarter too. Lastly, you also have to turn in video explanations of a few exam problems. The videos were quite manageable as we were given the answer keys for most of them. You also have to turn in one video where you come with an explanation for a situation that happens in real life, a movie, a video game etc. using one of the concepts taught. It doesn’t have to be long though. (note: The exam video explanations requirement might be different in later quarters since our class managed to get in video explanations for most of the past exam problems already. )

There is a cut-off for getting an A- (doing all the 12 exam problems, 8 homework sets, 8 video explanations, 1 personal video) and B- (doing most of the work). So you are guaranteed an A- if you do all the work. To get an A or A+ or B or B+ etc. is a little subjective based on the TA and Professor discretion but there’s a lot of ways to get it like participating in class/lectures a lot, or doing extra exam problem(s), or doing extra video explanation(s), or doing video explanations on difficult problems, etc.

I would definitely recommend taking this class ( at least while it’s online) because the material was very interesting and the grading policy was excellent.

My advice for this class is don’t procrastinate on the problems and don’t hesitate to contact your TA or Professor Chwe if you’re confused!

Professor Chwe is easily one of the most knowledgeable, helpful, kind, and caring professors I have ever had the pleasure of taking in my 6+ years of college throughout multiple colleges. Professor Chwe emphasizes the importance of actually learning and understanding the material rather than getting everything correct. He is funny and extremely understanding of personal struggle in which he remains completely accommodating in any way he can. The workload is quite a lot, but given the load upfront, students are generally free to complete it at their own pace and shouldn't struggle as long as they don't procrastinate and put it off until the last week. Lecture is very friendly and informal with a constant openness for discussion and questions. These lectures are very engaging with interesting material that bolsters/explains the required homework. Homework and projects are graded generously and allow for redo's for full credit. Professor Chwe also has no issues staying after class and working out problems from homework and projects that students do not understand or are having trouble with. Overall, if you're dipping your toes into poli sci or are a poli sci major well into your degree, I HIGHLY recommend taking Professor Chwe at least one time. He is easily one of the most kind-hearted, smart, and generous professors of all time and it is an absolute pleasure to be a student of his.

Amazing class and professor, one of the best I have ever had. He was super helpful and extremely approachable if you had any questions at all. Chwe really cares about his students and wants to see everyone succeed and will make himself available to help you do so. The material is fascinating and truly makes you look at the world in a different way so that's another bonus. I highly recommend taking this class with Prof Chwe if given the opportunity.

You need to take this class. Professor Chwe is so cool. He has all this technology that he uses during lecture on ZOOM like a camera that follows your movements and this board he had that allowed him to write on the camera screen (?), I don't even know. It was cool. He is also in a choir I believe. Class was so easy. No exams. None. You learned game theory which is so interesting and fun. Changes how you think of things and how you make choices fr. You just had weekly homework assignments that were for completion not correction. And, you had to make flipgrid videos of you explaining problem sets for your final. One of my favorite professors. Only take Poli Sci 30 with him!

I loved having Prof. Chwe! While I took his class online, I'm sure it would be just as fun and engaging in person. Assignments were set up through H (homework), X (example), M (movie), and P (past exam) problems, and his syllabus described specifically how many of each we would have to do to get a specific grade. Grading was based mainly on completion and comprehension, which was easy enough if you paid attention in class. I'd recommend Chwe to anyone completing the pre-poli sci major or for anyone looking for an engaging GE. Definitely will require either math skill or work ethic, but was significantly more enjoyable than some of my other writing-based classes.

He's a really awesome professor! I highly recommend this class. It is more math-based so having a good TA is really crucial to this course. That being said, Yana is the BEST. She is super helpful and really wants you to succeed. There is a lot of work because there are no midterms or exams. I would definitely NOT take this course in person because he posted the past exams and they look pretty tough. The work is doable, but try not to fall behind in class and leave all the work till the very end. Take this class!

I love Chwe as a professor. I am taking another game theory class with him right now. That being said, PS30 is VERY hard if you are not a math person. It is entirely math. Having a good TA is crucial to your success in the class because with the large lecture hall, it was difficult to understand the material presented (I never ended up going to lectures because my section was more helpful.) Posting past midterms and finals is extremely helpful. Do every practice test 2-3 times and understand EVERYTHING. Even then, Chwe will throw in "trick" questions to help curve the class, making you come out of tests feeling like a complete failure (fear not, you likely did not fail.) There are much easier Political Science lower division classes. Nevertheless, I would still recommend PS30 because it is a course that will teach you concepts few other classes will teach you.

I really enjoyed this class with Professor Chwe. It was probably one of the best and most interesting classes I've ever taken. Chwe is a funny guy and I really enjoyed his lectures. It could get boring sometimes though. There was a midterm, a final, and 10 homework assignments for this class. The homework was a little hard but we barely got any homework in that class so it wasn't too bad. Unfortunately, the TAs weren't very helpful. It's really important to do/turn in your homework though because it really helps your grade if you do poorly on the exams. Chwe also has this policy where the top 30 percentile of students in the class get an A+ which i thought was pretty awesome. The lectures don't have attendance and are on Bruincast video so I used to skip all the time (he posts the slides online too). I personally thought the videos were more helpful than the lecture because the material is hard and it took me some time to process it so I could pause and rewind things on the video, instead of asking questions in front of the whole class lol. I really enjoyed this class and i would recommend it to others! Prof chwe is pretty awesome and I'd definitely take more classes with him.

I honestly do not regret taking this class. I thought I would hate it and I took it because all the other lower div pol sci classes were full by the time I was able to enroll. With that being said, I can say that this has been one of the most rewarding classes I've taken. It wasn't easy and some of the concepts were a bit confusing to grasp but the professor definitely helped in clarifying various questions we had. Everything you need to succeed is accessible to you its just the matter of putting in the hard work. I had to practice on a lot of the past midterms and finals he posted online in order to pass with a satisfying grade.