Good lecturer; keeps class interesting with jokes and pop culture references. Class covers easy concepts and professor does an adequate job of explaining. He's chill and patient during office hours and seems to genuinely love teaching. There is one research paper, and that is the only assignment for the entire class.

Don't purchase the textbook, it's genuinely useless. Exams are based solely on slides, and they're thorough enough to go off of. Lecture attendance isn't mandatory, and concepts are easy enough to understand on your own. However, if you're having trouble, lecture is genuinely useful and sometimes fun to attend.

Professor Min is one of the best professors I have ever had at UCLA. He is funny, engaging, and knows the material very well. He often makes jokes in class, making his lectures very enjoyable. I went to his office hours once after the midterm, and he was extremely helpful. He spent at least twenty minutes going over every single question I got wrong, and I learned a lot.

Overall, PS 20 with Professor Min was a pretty great class. The workload wasn't too bad, since the readings aren't really required. There was one midterm, one paper, and the final. Professor Min posts his slides on CCLE and they basically cover everything in the reading, so study those and you'll be fine. Word of advice: start the paper early, you'll have a much easier time if you do so.

Professor Min was an awesome professor and I'd definitely recommend taking his class!

You don't need to spend the $140+ on the textbook for the class as long as you go to the lectures, since all of the content for the midterm and final are in the lecture slides (which are also posted to CCLE). Professor Min emphasizes what you definitely need to know for the tests, and he gives real-world examples that clarify the theoretical concepts being covered in lecture.

There is one research paper due towards the end of the quarter, but they really break it down over the course of the quarter and have you peer review each other's work throughout the process. You may want to go to office hours or email Professor Min or your TA to have a full understanding of what they're looking for (some of the instructions and the rubric can be a bit ambiguous), but otherwise it's a straightforward assignment.

Speaking of TAs, Yana Otlan is a helpful TA who genuinely cares about the subject and the students she's in charge of, and she seems to have the clearest understanding of diplomacy and war, so I highly recommend signing up for her discussion section.

International relations isn't really my jam, but I absolutely loved taking this class! Professor Min is funny, clear, and engaging. His slides are extremely well-organized and he provides them to students with blanks, which makes it easy to study for exams (although you will have to study for them). I read the textbook religiously at the beginning of the year, but I found myself getting the same grades when I just studied the content from the slides so I would recommend using the textbook as more of a reference for when you get confused. The structure of this class was perfect though and I would recommend it to anyone. My one complaint would be that the discussions were pretty pointless, but that didn't bother me that much in the grand scheme of things.

I took this class my first quarter of college, but I can't imagine a professor being much better than this. His lectures are very organized, and he makes relatively boring topics engaging and interesting. You don't need the textbooks since his lectures are plenty enough for the exams. He doesn't have clicker questions, but he leaves parts of the slides blank online to encourage you to come to lecture. I found the discussions pretty useless. The quarter analysis paper was only 5-6 pages, required relatively little time, and was graded pretty easily. Instructions on it are a little confusing so I recommend going to office hours to clear that up before you start. As long as you look through his slides the midterm and final are both pretty easy. If the class A rate is less than 35% he gives everyone extra credit until it is at least 35%.

I took this class in my first quarter at UCLA and really liked it; Professor Min is an engaging lecturer and his passion for the subject is clear during lectures. The workload is pretty light (one paper, a midterm, and a final); I generally didn't do the readings because the lectures cover the exact same topics. He does go through a LOT of info in lecture, so you might have to go back and fill in some notes after. Overall, I really liked this class and Professor Min; also want to give a huge shoutout to whoever airdropped me a pdf of the textbook during the first lecture.

I took this fall quarter of my freshman year and I thought that it was completely doable. Class consists of a midterm, a "research" paper, and a final. Discussion is mandatory. The final and the midterm are pretty easy if you just go over the slides. No need to really go to class because he puts the lecture slides online (but he does black out some key words so you'll need to get those from a friend). Overall, take the class for an easy GPA bump. I didn't put in a ton of effort and did well. For the paper, it's a pretty open ended questions that's easy to answer. Also, they really hold your hand through the writing process. You have to submit a proposal one week, then a two page outline a few weeks later, then a rough draft later, and then finally the final draft during week 9. It's literally impossible to fall behind because they guide you through it. Min is an engaging lecturer, though can get boring during lame material. Min is also super helpful during office hours, and an overall 10/10 guy to be around. Take the class.

I have no criticism for Prof. Min! He is very thorough with his lectures, and he goes to great lengths to foster a relaxed atmosphere in class.

Some advice: Be wary of the wording on examinations. I've noticed that he creates some questions in such a way that glossing over even a single word could completely change the question's meaning. Make sure to take your time and read each question multiple times.

First things first, DO NOT LET ANYONE SCAM YOU INTO BUYING A PDF OF THE TEXTBOOK FROM THEM. The textbook's not really necessary for the class, it's really more of a supplement with extra details.

Now onto the class itself, the grading is pretty straightforward, 15% participation (going to section is mandatory, lecture isn't), 20% midterm, 5% 1-page paper proposal, 25% 5 to 6-page paper, 35% final. It's definitely important to do well on the paper (going to office hours is super helpful!!!). The midterm and final do cover a lot of concepts that take a lot of memorization. I found that the hard part was more the amount of content that had to be memorized, not the difficulty of the concepts themselves, they were pretty straightforward. You do get practice midterms/finals in discussion, but keep in mind the actual exams were a bit harder than the practice ones. Professor Min does hold a review session for the final that's pretty helpful in consolidating all the information you should know for the exam.

Professor Min's an awesome lecturer, he's super clear, engaging, funny. Definitely pay attention in lecture, he drops LOTS of hints on what's going to be on the exam, like quite literally he constantly repeats, "KNOW THIS FOR THE EXAM." So even though lecture isn't mandatory, I'd recommend going because he explains stuff super clearly and makes concepts easy to digest. He also uses a lot of modern examples to explain certain concepts. I guess you could say he's "hip with the kids." He also posts the slides on CCLE with certain sections blanked out to motivate you to go to lecture, but if you want to refer them afterwards, just highlight the blanks and copy and paste it and the blocked out words should show up.

Overall, great class, 10/10 would recommend.

If you're going to take PS20, you've got to take it with Professor Min even if you have to wait a quarter or two. He's by far the most straightforward and reasonable professor I've ever had. He expects you to get your work done and participate (discussions are very mandatory) but he only requires what he believes you ought to do to understand the class concepts. There's only a midterm, final, and one paper (along with proposal, outline, etc.) but just review the slides and you will be absolutely fine. Textbook is a decent supplement but you don't really need it--download for free if you want but definitely don't spend the money to get a hard copy. Lectures aren't mandatory since all the slides are posted on CCLE although they do have blanks you need to be in lecture to fill out (tbh just highlight the blank, sometimes it shows up), HOWEVER, he's such an engaging, smart, and funny guy that it's worth your time to show up. He once read the entirety of the Cardi B-Nicki Minaj feud post (profanity included) to demonstrate a concept. At his very last lecture, the whole class applauded, which hasn't happened in any of my other classes, which just goes to show what a swell dude he is. 100% would take this class again.