Selling course reader. Prices negotiable. **********

Really hard class, very unfair grader. Recommend against taking this with her. She's really strict too, not an engaging lecturer either

This class is practically useless. Honestly, all this course does is reiterate Stats 10, so I don't understand why that class is a prerequisite to this one. Personally, I have taken 2 stats classes prior to this one and thank god I did because this professor is not a good communicator. She is extremely reliant on her slides (once when the projector didn't work she kept having to refer to computer as if she didn't know her own curriculum) and also makes concepts much more complicated than need be. Often I would sit in class and think of different ways I would teach the class one of our concepts. When Professor Lamberson was a substitute lecterer, his classes were so concise and straightforward the convoluted teaching style of Kernell really became apparent. Kernell also caters to the lowest common denominator -- she takes so many questions in class that really should be directed towards office hours if people still don't get a concept. She also assumes everyone in the class is super slow and reiterates very very basic concepts/definitions way too many times. The expression beating a dead horse definitely comes to mind when thinking about her teaching style. This is even represented in the homeworks Kernell creates where she would make us calculate the standard deviation of a data set that is over 100 observations -- this is a skill I didn't even have to do by hand in AP Stats and most likely would never do by hand outside of this class. Also I never felt particularly comfortable asking for help outside of class. I once asked her a question after class because I didn't understand a homework problem and she was kind of condescending that I couldn't get the answer right away and put me on blast for having to say I don't know. I will say though that Kernell does create fair exams and (on average, excluding monotonous questions) the homeworks do help prepare you for the exams.

I like Professor Kernell. She is generally very knowledgeable and helpful. Her presentations were well-prepared and she fostered good class discussions. Lecture was a bit monotonous at times, but I think that just comes with the material. I also think lecture could be just a bit slower.

Your grade is based on a midterm (20%), final (28%), in-class reading quizzes (5%), participation (12%), and a group commercial project (35%).

You have clicker questions at the beginning and middle of each class so you can't really afford to miss; you'll get 12% for just showing up for each clicker question and the extra 5% comes from how many you get right over the course of the quarter.

I feel like the workload for this class was a bit much. We had a heavy amount of reading each week, in addition to the large commercial project we had to complete. It's definitely more than I have for my other classes, and I think this could be remedied with just a couple fewer readings each week. That being said, I understand that some classes just require more work and that this is a practicuum class so I understand to some extent why the workload is as it is.
The exams are fair but only if you study a lot for them.

You have a commercial project in which you have to make two 30-second ads; one positive and one negative about political candidates. I have mixed feelings about this project. I feel like I learned a lot and generally think it's a good exercise, but I think my problem with it is that our grade largely depends on our creativity, or lack thereof. That being said, both the professor and TA (if Joe is still TAing, he is so great!! We all loved Joe) and were willing to give advice and feedback so I can't complain too much.

Also, the reason this class counts as a practicuum is because you are supposed to learn video editing skills; the professor incorporates this by making you watch an online video tutorial for iMovie (which you can also test out of by proving proficiency).

My last note about this class is that I wish it was a little less about news/journalism and a little more about communication between/among officeholders. This is what I expected going in and was a little disappointed. I know there is some overlap, in terms of how the press covers the government, but I think to call it political comm and then discuss mainly the news is a little misleading.

This was one of my very first upper div comm courses i took and i loved prof kernell. She is super relatable, down to earth and really passionate about her material as well as teaches it in a way we can all retain. Never thought about politics much before this class but it was very insightful and i was way more interested than i thought. Tests are based of lectures and readings so i would make bullet notes of key points for each reading bc they were a lot and then GO TO CLASS. Also, just because kernell is cool but it will help a lot. There is also a group project where you are assigned a real time two candidate and you have to make a pro campaign and an anti campaign. A bit more work than anticipated but still fine

Personally I loved this class because I found the subject matter to be fascinating, but it was a crazy amount of work. The nice thing is that it was only once a week on Mondays, but I think I spent every Sunday trying to finish the absurd amount of readings there were and preparing for the iClicker questions. I didn't mind the workload because the readings were interesting, but if you're not interested in campaigns and other forms of political comm it might be a lot. Overall, I found the class to be very inspiring and it made me want to pursue a career in political communication.

I took this class with Kernell after hearing all the bad reviews about the other professors who taught this class. Honestly, I don't think she was any better. If it weren't for the TAs, I would have definitely done much worse in this class. This professor only relies on her slides and in her office hours, she is SO condescending. I am already not great at stats, but the lack of communication between the professor and the TAs made this class near impossible and SO frustrating. There were so many ridiculous requirements in this class and it was such a headache. Even the TAs seemed visibly frustrated with the Professor's teaching style and her condescending nature. I am sure she means well, but this class was honestly so hard and I feel bad for anyone who has to take it.

Professor Kernell structured the class so that there were in person lectures on Tuesdays (75 minutes) and virtual lectures in place of Thursday's classes (30-45 minutes). I didn't mind this layout, as it allowed more flexibility for me to learn at my own pace.

However, the virtual lectures were often clearer than the in person lectures and the professor very clearly struggled to explain concepts to students. In response, she would lead us through practice problems but even though she explained each computational step, she didn't quite explain the significance of what we were computing which in my opinion is more important for depth of understanding. A lot of my exam preparation ultimately ended up being from Youtube videos covering basic statistics concepts.

Her grading scheme is split across exams, homeworks, lecture quizzes, and discussion attendance. The homeworks are graded pretty harshly and sometimes without a sufficient reason. The quizzes are easy and fact-based. The exams are mostly free response and are an accurate reflection of the content on the lecture slides. The exams are easy if you've taken Stats 10/AP stats before, but for those unfamiliar with these concepts be prepared to self-study. The final is also cumulative so make sure you refresh on pre-midterm content as she will definitely test you on it. This is a core class for comms so it is unavoidable, but not impossible to ace. You may just have to be prepared to learn the concepts on your own.

Saw my girlfriend take this class and it was disgusting how rude she was and unaccommodating. I imagine it would be hard to pinpoint who could be writing this terrible review because this is a common theme. Georgia went out of her way to make sure my girlfriend did not succeed and went about doing incredibly shady things like outright lying to organizations and twisting the truth to CAE and the heads of relevant departments and violating accommodation terms. Absolutely do not take If you have disabilities or need any form of accommodation. Shockingly unprofessional and vile to an unimaginable degree. I PERSONALLY have a problem with HER, in addition to the academics, as a human being. Lectures are dense and often times off-track. Being from Columbia does not entitle you to being a total douchebag.

The structure of this class was a bit strange. We would have virtual lectures Tue/Thu (they were prerecorded from Covid and 30-50 minutes long each) and we had to watch the lecture and then take a short 3 question quiz to "prove" we watched the lectures. The virtual lectures were okay, pretty simple. Then we had one day of in person class on Tuesdays and discussion once a week (so basically this class met twice a week but had 3 lectures a week...). However, I thought that the one day of week (Tue) that we would have class in-person was pretty hard to understand. We would go through a few practice problems, but it would take so long and the professor would write things wrong on the board and it was very confusing. I often left the class feeling more confused on the topic than before!

The homework assignments were so hard to understand, especially in the beginning, because they were worded so badly and the TA and professor were useless in answering my questions. The TA literally answered one of my questions, I answered that way in my homework, and I got 0 points on that question because "you weren't supposed to answer it that way." SO frustrating. Why couldn't they clarify? On that note, the TA was one of my least favorites :/ I feel like she did not do a good job explaining concepts and would often go in circles and I was left more confused than before I went to discussion. By the end of the quarter, we would just go over the homework and then she would dismiss us - we never got more information about the course content or anything. Also, when we asked questions, she was unable to answer them, or she would answer our questions for the homework, and then I would get the homework back and see that I lost points on all the questions she answered because I did them the way that she said to and then she graded them as incorrect. Finally, I think it was quite hard to understand her through her accent, which I understand is not something easy to change, but it did impact my understanding.

Anyways I know this class is required but I hated it the whole time :(