I loved this class! Professor Homola has been the best professor I’ve ever had in the poli sci department. He’s a great lecturer who breaks down tough topics and gets his points across. He’s very engaging and encourages people to participate in lectures by answering questions or doing group activities. He’s very kind and welcoming to students, and even brought us cookies on the last day of lecture! He almost always posts his lecture slides after class and answers any questions students have. I have nothing negative to say about him, he is such a great professor!
Here’s the grading breakdown of this course:
ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION: 20% of your grade. This is pretty self explanatory, and it is your discussion section grade.
CASE STUDY PRESENTATION: 20% of your grade. Every week, there is a topic for the week, for example some of our topics were Democratic Backsliding in Europe and EU response to COVID. In discussion sections, you and up to two other people choose a topic and present on it. Professor Homola provides you the material needed (such as articles or podcasts) to complete the case study. The presentation lasts anywhere from 12-15 minutes and you are allowed to use 12 slides during your presentation. TAs will email you a sign up sheet and you sign up for what topic you want to do.
MIDTERM: 25% of your grade. There were 18 questions. Of those 18 questions, 13 were multiple choice, 4 were short answer, and 1 was an essay. Homola administered the exam on BruinLearn/Canvas, gave us 80 minutes to complete it, and it was open for about 18 hours, so we were allowed to take it at any point during the exams opening. Most importantly, the exam was open book and open note.
FINAL: 35% of your grade. There were 21 questions. Of those 21 questions, 15 were multiple choice, 4 were short answer, 1 was an essay, and 1 was an extra credit question. Just like the midterms, it was administered the exam on BruinLearn/Canvas, was open for 18 hours, and we were allowed to do open book and open note. Homola gave us more time to do this exam, so instead of 80 minutes, we had 120 minutes.
EXTRA CREDIT: There were two extra credit options in this course. The first extra credit opportunity was an extra credit question during the final exam. I believe Homola said the extra credit question was up to 5 points max, although I cannot confirm this. The second extra credit opportunity was course evaluations. We had 118 people in our class. Homola said that if 45/118 people did the course evaluations, everyone in the class would get 1 percentage points added to their grade. However, if 87/118 people did the course evaluations, everyone in the class would get 2 percentage points.
Due to the strikes and everything that occurred on campus during this quarter, Homola was very accommodating. He told us that if we were happy with our grades, then we did not have to do the final exam, and our grade would stand as is. In other words, he made our final optional. He also said that if you chose to do the final exam, he would make your higher exam grade worth more for your grade. So for example, if your got a 95 on your midterm and an 85 on your final, instead of having your midterm be 25% of your grade and final be 35% of your grade, he would flip it to make your midterm 35% of your grade and your final 25% of your grade. PLEASE NOTE — as previously stated, these were accommodations due to the TA strike and protests happening on campus. So, I wouldn’t count on Professor Homola saying the final is optional. Maybe he will also do that for future classes, but don’t go into this class with the expectation of him making the final optional.
Overall, I just loved this class! There’s a saying that a professor can make or break a class, and Professor Homola made this class amazing! Even if you aren’t super interested in European Politics/Comparative Politics, I still think it would be worth it just to take a class with Homola. I hope to take him again in the future!

Honestly don't know what to say about Professor Homola other than him being the absolute best professor I have taken here at UCLA. He has been the most understanding and most engaging professor with the students. He organizes his lectures around the readings, so doing both the readings and attending lectures will help you do great on the midterm/final. He is open to extra credit and open to students asking questions. I would 100% recommend taking his class!

The professor really cared about what students had to say and the lectures were easily digestible with a good format of teaching and midterm and finals made me feel well prepared