This is by far the most engaging, interesting, and pertinent political science class I've taken at UCLA. "Professor" Sherrer is exceptionally talented and gives engaging and clear lectures (it's amazing to have a professor that actually speaks like a normal human being and not a robot programmed to spew out overcomplicated academic jargon, as do 90% of the tenured faculty here).

The readings for this class are fairly light and the vast majority of them were actually very interesting. I think there may have been only two or three that were boring (the majority were Washington Post or NYT articles, excerpts from a very recent/engaging book, and super cool voter psychology studies). None of the readings felt like filler or irrelevant to the course (again, credit to Sherrer for planning the class so well).

Grading is fair and is based on a midterm (30% of grade, was super easy), a short writing assignment (20%), an infographic (10%), and a final (40% of grade, very fair but marginally harder than the midterm).

Sherrer is very organized and uses very clear slides. He also recorded lecture and did not require attendance.

I highly, highly recommend this class and Prof. Sherrer in general. I wish UCLA's political science department offered more classes related to this topic.

30% midterm
40% final
15% essay 1
15% essay 2

Sherrer is pretty good he moved around assignments to be accommodating.
Covid-19 so tests were open book
however, he is a super slow grader(3+weeks) and graded stuff after p/np deadline so some people were concerned.
Did not give a ton of feedback on essays
overall he's a good professor to have

Do you ever have a professor who you think, "wow, I could probably play a nice game of connect four with this guy"? Well, Thomas is one of those professors (lecturer, he insists on not being called professor). He is super chill and has a great sense of blunt humor which I found hilarious. I would 100% take his class again. Granted, he is new and the material was at times a bit unnecessary and felt like common sense, but I'm sure he will get over that soon. The homework was super easy and was graded based on completion. The tests were a bit odd and felt unrelated to the course at times, but they weren't hard. Definitely my favorite covid-era class.

TAKE THIS CLASS, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH BEST TEACHER IN UCLA, THIS CALSS WAS SO GOOD I CAME BACK TO MAKE A REVIEW, I HAVE NEVER DONE THIS.

Professor Sherrer is such a cool dude and a great teacher. He is engaging and so passionate about American politics. He had great lecture slides and encouraged us to engage in breakout room discussions with our peers every class. This helped us feel a bit more connected to each other during online school. The class was made up of two homework assignments that were full credit if submitted on time, attendance and multiple choice and short answer midterm and final. There was no textbook required and instead, he provided really interesting chapters from books he enjoyed. I would highly recommend taking this class and any class he teaches at UCLA.

One of the best POL SCI classes I've taken at UCLA so far. The main thing for me was that the content was engaging and I learned a lot of interesting things in this course. My only qualm was that this class was too early in the morning... ha!

This class is great if you just need something simple to ease your workload. Attendance is not mandatory nor necessary to ace the class. There are only three assignments, and they can be completed very quickly in one sitting.

This class was great and very interesting. Thomas Sherrer is a great lecturer and has really well prepared slides. He knew a lot about this subject and made his lectures interesting and did tell some pretty solid jokes. Overall, he was great but he is pretty slow on returning grades (it's just him and a couple of graders for the whole class so I don't blame him). Overall, there were four assignments total which comprised your grade. The two projects were pretty easy to do fine on and graded very kindly. The Party Platform assignment was definitely a little difficult because it had to include a lot of information, but still be short (200 words a section x 4 sections). The infographic was basically a free 10% on your final grade. The midterm and final weren't too difficult but there were some pretty specific questions on there which made them harder than they should have been. Overall, I recommend this for an upper div poli sci.

Should be illegal for a 4 unit class to be this easy and chill.

Very interesting class. It was mainly focused on political polarization and less on actual campaigning. I feel like the course could have addressed the latter a bit more and maybe give insight on different campaign styles, successful ads, and more practical electoral campaign knowledge. Every lecture was recorded. Professor was very chill and overall the course is insightful without being stressful.

Midterm exam: 30%
Written assignment: 20%
Homework assignment: 10%
Final Exam: 40%