<p>If so, please post your experience thus far.</p>
<p>I'm not a poli sci major, but Darren Zook is in my top 3 for all time amazing professors.</p>
<p>I'm a poli sci major @ Cal...how can I help?</p>
<p>Its pretty easy compared to other classes, especially economics. Just do your reading, outline, and know what your gsi's want. Your gsi will be grading your class so you have to be careful to pick good ones. You can tell the good ones because they have structure to the things they point out.</p>
<p>what's a gsi?</p>
<p>Graduate student instructor. It can make a big difference. In one of my bigger Poli Sci classes my instructor kept giving me B's because of my bad handwriting but the head GSI always bumped my grades up to an A. The fewer the GSI's the greater the range of my grades to IMO apparently random things.</p>
<p>So GSI's usually take your side when it comes to grading?</p>
<p>GSI's can be considered your graders and they are often forced to have a quota system to determine grades. The criteria they use to determine grades is often obscure and dependent on how much they care. Some GSI's are really nice and will give you slack, some won't. Since its up to the GSI's discretion a lot, (especially for essay questions). </p>
<p>Usually they do have criteria but its not necessarily clear before the test what they expect or the professor does. Its probably the same way at other colleges but you have to be very careful.</p>
<p>In my opinion, GSIs are sometimes the worst part about Cal. A lot of them have over-inflated egos. It's too hard to collect info on them prior to signing up for a class, too. Meaning, you can't find them on <a href="http://www.ratemyprofessor.com%5B/url%5D">www.ratemyprofessor.com</a>, for example, and you can't usually find out about them by word-of-mouth. The fact they GSIs always teach first-year language classes is a mistake; they can be less than enthusiastic.</p>
<p>Some of my GSIs have been the best part of my experience so far. I've been fairly lucky. My friend's experiences, and some of my own, seem to relate that like professors, you generally either get lucky or unlucky with them, although most seem to be middle-of-the-line (not amazing, not terrible). </p>
<p>Like csmurf says, they are rarely on ratemyprofessor.com, but that site is only good as a very rough guide anyway. Smurf, GSIs don't "always" teach first-year language classes. My French professor, as is my friend's this semester, is not a GSI, but either an associate or visiting professor, and this case isn't that uncommon.</p>
<p>And doesn't whether or not you have a GSI depend on the size of the class? Usually, don't small upper division classes lack GSIs?</p>
<p>Is political science a difficult major to get into?</p>
<p>I don't think so. I think the requirements, numbers-wise, are average relative to other social science majors.</p>
<p>The political science major isn't impacted, therefore merely applying guarantees acceptance- provided you have completed the pre-reqs.</p>
<p>i here there's a difference between just poli sci and poli sci rhetoric.........?</p>
<p>rhetoric and poli sci are completely different majors....</p>
<p>oops...haha...sorry...i received some bad intel i guess...</p>
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<p>I was admitted as a Middle Eastern Studies major at Cal. I changed my mind after admitted and went to the Political Science department and they said as long as I completed all the major requirements to declare, I would be admitted (even as a transfer student). I heard that it's officially the largest major at Cal as of last semester, but still everyone is admitted. </p>
<p>As far as GSIs go for small upper div classes, I don't know. Every PS class I've ever taken had GSIs... but I think I saw one class that didn't have GSIs. I think it was something like Political Campaigning and I heard it was one of the best classes in the department but I have a hard time fitting a 2-5 Tuesday class into my schedule.</p>
<p>More poli sci than MCB majors? Perhaps. I guess the way they do biology, it might work out that way.</p>
<p>i was accepted as a poli sci major at cal. I lived abroad and clerked for the european union parliament. That is basically my experience in the field!</p>
<p>calbear10: that's awesome! :)</p>