<p>How many math courses does the undergraduate (Upper & Lower Division) major require? Would one Statistics course be adequate? Thank you.</p>
<p>the political science majors don’t require any math classes, only poli 30 (a stats class).</p>
<p>How rigorous is PS 30? On Assist.org, it lists it as a “Political Inquiry” course. Any recommendations as far as professors go?</p>
<p>well i had never taken a stats class before but i got a B (i took ap calc in high school). i could’ve done better but i just didn’t put forth my best effort.
the hw was really long but there were only like 4 assignments and a final.
my professor was despato but galderisi is the general favorite for that poli 30.</p>
<p>“Political Inquiry” is a stats course? ***! I’m taking a stats course right now and I absolutly hate it. I’m only getting through it because I thought I would never need this stuff after these last 2 weeks are over. Great, this sucks!</p>
<p>Don’t worry babygurl 
You’ll be fine - that class is easy.</p>
<p>babyygurl (I feel like a creep), I doubt you’ll “never need this stuff” ever again. Statistics and your understanding of them (and knowing how media/politics absolutely manipulate the hell out of them) is extremely important in everyday life. I mean, you’re not going to be simulating iterated regressions in your head walking down the street or anything, but if you’re ever reading the newspaper or looking at advertising, you’ll actually think twice about what numbers mean.</p>
<p>
-Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)</p>
<p>The rigor likely depends on the professor and the TA you get. POLI 30 is a demanding course for the TAs since many students do struggle, but it also can be one of the best academic experiences as we know it’s tough and want to work with the students to help. I wish my undergrad degree had required such classes. </p>
<p>And as Oyama pointed out, the statistics you learn in POLI 30 will likely be very useful to you in pretty much any situation. It’s a bit more applied than your standard intro to stat class and there are plenty of real-world examples.</p>
<p>Thad Kousser is generally considered the best POLI 30 professor. I didn’t think it was that hard- I didn’t even take Calc in high school and I’m not great at math, generally, and I got an A without too much effort. And if it makes you feel better, it can also count as one of your Math GE classes as well as a major requirement, depending on what college you’re in. :D</p>
<p>I took POLI 30 with Kousser and I couldn’t have spent more than 15-20 hours on that class the entire quarter and got an A. I didn’t even attend maybe 25% or so of the lectures. I’m not “good at” math, I’ve never taken statistics, and the course does not require calculus at all, which I can attest to. I even heard that Kousser is one of the more rigorous professors for that class which is so ridiculous because I really don’t know how he could’ve made the class easier. I heard Desposato and Galderisi are easy too. It’s really not a bad class. I might be worried if you’re horrible with math, but at least for Kousser, the math in that class involved memorizing 3 equations and knowing how to plug numbers into them. and realizing that the proportion .68 represents 68%. Seriously.</p>
<p>+1 to 92faim, class is easy</p>
<p>I agree, Kousser was awesome. He knows his stuff, and is very helpful in office hours. It’s not hard to get an A if you put in the effort. Take him if you have the chance.</p>
<p>Should we take this course as a first quarter freshman? It recommends against this on the website, but I’m wondering why it isn’t recommended. Did anyone do this?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t.</p>
<p>Yes, but why not? Everyone says it is very easy. Just curious as to why it isn’t recommended.</p>
<p>I actually would recommend taking Poli 30 first. The reason is that it gives you a very good foundation for future poli sci classes. In a lot of upper div classes you will be reading scholarly journal articles that use a lot of the math that you learn in poli 30. I would read journal articles before and have no clue how to read the charts in the articles but poli 30 explains all that. It also makes you see deficiencies in other peoples research that you probably wouldn’t pick up on imo.</p>
<p>In my opinion, taking POLI 30 is a better idea after taking another lower div polisci class. Learning the concepts is pretty unhelpful if you have nothing to apply them to, and I definitely remember drawing on things I learned in POLI 11 in POLI 30.</p>