<p>I'm taking:
Poly Sci 30
English 85
GE Cluster 70 A</p>
<p>Anyone know anything about amount of work these classes require or the difficulty of them?</p>
<p>I know this is off your topic but I was wondering if you could give me some tips on getting into ucla or maybe what your scores and things were I’m stressing out and its my number one !! </p>
<p>Sent from my PC36100 using CC App</p>
<p>i ve actually posted this before, just click on my name, and go to past post, then to the second page, then ucla decisions thread</p>
<p>Pol Sci 30 with Chwe appears to have a rather harsh grade distribution (curved) when compared with most other courses in the department. Are you thinking of doing pol sci as a major or minor or is this course just a GE?</p>
<p>@TWSA50 I’m a poly sci major, and 30 was the only course that worked well with my schedule, plus I’m pretty interested in game theory so I figured it would be a good fit. I agree the curve does seem pretty harsh for a poly sci course, but I figured the course was a bit more math based than most poly sci courses leading to the harsher curve?</p>
<p>If you’re a pol sci major, then I suppose it’s worth it. You should definitely take some class in your intended major the first quarter. Pol Sci 30 is good because it’s interesting and the material covered will probably be new to you (unless you took AP Econ in high school). Do keep in mind, though, that next quarter a man by the name of O’Neill and in the spring a woman by the name of Bawn are scheduled right now to be teaching Pol Sci 30; their Bruinwalk ratings are better and they have historically had much better grade distributions than Chwe. I personally took the course with Bawn, and I thought she was a fantastic instructor. </p>
<p>In general, I think I would recommend that any freshman prospective pol sci major consider adding Pol Sci 40 with Schwartz, if they can, because it’s an easy way to finish a LD requirement with a good grade (lots of As and A+s) and it’s not slated to be offered next quarter. If you’re a bit ahead of the game and think that you might be interested in pursuing an upper division distribution in the methods and models subfield (or if you know that want to avoid taking Statistics 10 or some other–probably more difficult–introductory statistics course), you might also consider taking Pol Sci 6. A man by the name of Zaller is teaching it this quarter, and he’s best instructor for this course. It is also one of the few classes in the department which is open at the moment.</p>
<p>I did take both ap macro and micro my senior year in high school, and i got a 5 and 4 respectively on each ap test, so I think that may help. I don’t plan on doing an emphasis on methods and models though. Do you know if poly sci 30 is mainly a freshman class, or am I going to be competing with a lot of upperclassmen? My other question, is how doable is poly sci 30 to get an A A- in this class? Like is it only the extraordinary students that get a A, or is it more the average students who just put in the work?</p>
<p>sorry for all these questions, and thank you for all the responses</p>
<p>At least when I was taking them, I noticed that the pol sci lower division classes seemed to have an unusually high number of upperclassmen in them. I’ve heard people talk, in fact, in upper division classes about the lower division requirements they still need to complete. However, to encourage people to finish their lower division requirements, the department began restricting the upper division to declared pol sci majors (that is, they must have finished all the prerequisites) on the first enrollment pass. Being shut out of upper division classes on the first pass for the most part means not being able to get into the good ones, regardless of class standing. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of upperclassmen in lower division has started to drop. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t be worried about the concentration of upperclassmen in Pol Sci 30, though. Any upper division course that could give them an “advantage” probably has Pol Sci 30 as a prerequisite. And Pol Sci 30 is a very doable A+, A, A-for just about anyone with any instructor–we’re not talking about a class in something like the econ department. It’s just a riskier bet and a rockier road with Chwe than with Bawn or O’Neill: from what I’ve observed, Chwe uses a remarkably consistent curve that doesn’t vary much on class performance, covers more material than the others (better suited for upper division), and litters his exams with more (arguably needless) complications than the others’, probably to support the curve.</p>
<p>If you want to get an idea of what exactly I mean, here’s a final from Chwe: <a href=“http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/chwe/ps30handouts/f2009.pdf[/url]”>http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/chwe/ps30handouts/f2009.pdf</a>
(answers: <a href=“http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/chwe/ps30handouts/f2009a.pdf[/url]”>http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/chwe/ps30handouts/f2009a.pdf</a>)</p>
<p>Here’s a final study sheet from Bawn: <a href=“http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/09W/polisci30-1/ps30fss.pdf[/url]”>http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/09W/polisci30-1/ps30fss.pdf</a>
(answers: <a href=“http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/09W/polisci30-1/fssans.pdf[/url]”>http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/09W/polisci30-1/fssans.pdf</a>)</p>