Prof Swango does not really 'teach'. He's your tour guide through a sea of material.

If you have gone on a guided audio tour of a museum, you might understand what this course is like.

You are given readings each week. Swango's lecture consists of playing a 20-40 minute video clip of a speech/lecture and then summarizing it. This summary is then connected with a review of the readings. So you take notes and learn as you read and watch, then Swango summarizes to make sure you caught the important points in the readings and videos.

If you don't mind this format of teaching, where the professor's role is more of a teaching assistant and less of a lecturer, then you should get a B or higher if you put in a large amount of effort. If you already have hard classes and are looking for an easy class to do less work in, this class is not it.

It's true that Swango doesn't actually do all that much lecturing, and the video lectures and reading can get repetitive and are a bit dull at times, but overall I found the class really cohesive and interesting. A lot of reading, though as long as you budget it into your schedule, it's not unmanageable. I didn't like that we only had a paper worth a third of the grade, and a final worth two thirds, 'cause there's so little room for error, but as long as you stay on top of the material and follow all the instructions, you'll be fine. This isn't a class for slackers or people who don't come to class though.

I think Professor Swango is a brilliant man. I enjoyed going to lecture, (even though, to be forewarned, most of it's video lectures) and hearing what he had to say. He lectures afterwards with no visual aid, so that's a little difficult for the visual learners out there. He loved students who made an effort to speak in class and would even learn your name. He answers intelligently and never makes you feel dumb for your statement.

Reading load is standard with any Poli Sci upper div and the paper is a bit of a drag. I worked my ass off and did the readings/notes and went to almost every lecture. Word of warning: you will definitely feel a little paranoid after this class, haha. I think it is one of my favorite classes here.

Swango is not a very good lecturer at all. He is kind of cocky and unapproachable. This was my very first upper div class and I had no idea that Swango was going to be so bad. If you want to take this class, I would recommend it with a different professor because it is quite interesting. The videos shown in class are intriguing, for the most part. Then Swango just repeats everything said in the videos after they are finished.

Also, the paper was very time-consuming, and you really don't want to screw up on it because the grade only consists of the paper and a final. I got an A- on the paper, studied my a** off for the final, and still ended up with a B in the class. Terrible grading system and unfair curve. You have been warned

WORST PROFESSOR EVER. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. YOU'LL THANK ME.

Professor Swango is a knowledgeable professor...but he has a serious problem with teaching it to students. I took him for 120B. His style of teaching consists of just recapping the videos, which overlap the readings, is very lethargic. He's unenthusiastic and while the material is engaging, he somehow manages to mess with it. Would not recommend, take with caution.

I think Swango's class (120C) was well worth my time. His style is to show you videos from other speakers, but most of them are really good and charismatic so it's not tough to watch the videos. The material is very interesting and if your excited about this kind of stuff doing the readings is easy. The only thing is he does curve the class pretty hard, but other than that he's a good professor with some room for improvement.

Swango is a below average professor relative to the rest at UCLA. He lectures in a sparse manner and relied primarily on video lectures which sometimes were just a repeat of the course readings as the Kenneth Pollack reading and lecture. The material is enriching but the delivery is lacking. In addition to faulty delivery he attaches a curve of making the average of the class B-/C+. The final is a combination of IDs and an Essay based on the 5 or 6 modules. The bad thing about the final is that it is cumulative consisting of everything (lectures, video lectures, and readings). The readings are substantial and there is no study guide given. Very little guidance is provided. Take him at your own risk. He also missed like a week. The positive thing about the course is that all the video lectures are available online, which is the only positive thing.