<p>no, just where they are located, their date of sovereignty (if a former colony), any territorial disputes they have, and any major wars that have occurred there … actually, i don’t think ‘just’ was the proper word to use there, but it isn’t as bad as it sounds. Use lizardpoint and sporcle to help you memorize the country names/locations</p>
<p>Yeah online quizzes are definitely really helpful.</p>
<p>for map,</p>
<p>they don’t actually test you on years of independence–it just may help you eliminate an answer option. also, western europe and north america are excluded. so is east asia (china, japan, koreas, india)…if i remember correctly</p>
<p>thanks to everyone that replied, what about courses such as Intro to IR and Comparative Political Systems, does anyone have any opinions/details regarding those courses?</p>
<p>I took intro to IR this Spring with Victor Cha–he’s great, you should take him if you can but I believe he only teaches it every few years. He was the former head of delegation for the U.S. in the Six Party Talks with North Korea and former head of Asian Affairs at the Nat’l. Security Council. He knows SO MUCH about IR and practical application of theory. This class isn’t bad. His was one midterm, one analytical paper, and one final exam, all weighted 1/3 of grade. The TAs were all Ph.D. students and were all very good; they graded all the assignments. There was some amount of reading but the readings weren’t really on the exams, mostly from notes and lecture.</p>
<p>Intro to IR is ALL theory, though. Don’t think of it to be a current affairs class or whatever, it’s not. Sometimes you relate things to the theory but in general it is theoretical, which is weird sometimes but it’s just the nature of the class.</p>
<p>^Sounds good.</p>
<p>Returning to the Map thing, does anyone have mnemonic devices they used to help memorize the countries and their locations? I had one for S. Am. in 9th grade and I’m going to try to dig it up…</p>
<p>I was also in Cha’s IR class, but unfortunately for most people reading this, he only teaches the class about every 3 years. IR is the theory, but the other required govt class (Comparative Political Systems) is the current events equivalent of IR.</p>
<p>^^^from the SFS website, the 2 Government courses required are Intro to IR, and Comparative Political Systems, is this right or is there something I don’t know about, can someone tell me more about the CPS course?</p>
<p>bump…anyone?</p>
<p>Are you a fall transfer?</p>
<p>it really depends who your professors are…both my ir and cps profs were good and people who’ve had different professors have also said good things about their experiences</p>
<p>for me, edelstein in IR kind of split his class into two. we would learn international relations theory (realism, constructivism, liberalism, etc) and then apply them to historical examples such as wwi (classic example of security dilemma), wwii, etc. you learn about the differing views about the fundamental purpose of a nation state, how they interact, how they manipulate each other. great class</p>
<p>cps also varies by professor. i had gustafson who didn’t focus too much on actual theory. there were a few major theorists that kind of weaved the class together that we learned at the beginning (i.e. huntington). gustafson actually specializes in eastern europe/former soviet union so that is what we spent the majority of the class on. we studied the different governments of eastern europe, the former soviet republics, prc and examined basic questions about how these different regimes form/maintain their legitimacy, the efficacy of their economic systems. we also looked out the general evolution of political organization that spans history: from tribe, to kingdom, to empire, to nation-state, to ??</p>
<p>@hec2008, no I’m considering transferring, but I’m not sure yet, just trying to gain more info so I can make a smart decision when that time comes</p>
<p>Wait, so only 3 people out of 1200 supposed foreign affairs buffs passed out of the Map class? Seriously? I really don’t want to come off as rude or arrogant or whatever, but it sounds like a high school geography class. From the sound of it, I could pass the proficiency exam easily just from having read the Economist for a year or two (although I might have to study for some of the obscure Pacific island countries, since they almost never come up in the news). Has really no one else done this, or have this introductory geographic background? Maybe I’m missing something…?</p>
<p>this year the map of modern world exemption test was changed and out of the 400 or so freshman, around 60 passed out. The change was that it started to include earth sciences and environmental information…it’s kind of been a controversy on campus this year.</p>