payson is the poli sci professor ALL poli sci professors should take note from. this is mainly regarding her reading guides. poli sci is a reading HEAVY major, and payson recognizes that. she literally cuts that reading time in more than half by giving us a reading guide and telling us EXACTLY what to focus on and what to skim briefly and what to skip completely. it made this class such an easy workload.
the midterm was online, open note, and fairly easy. it was mc, short answer, and some "essay" qs but those were really like a paragraph or two. she reviews exactly what she wants in those essay responses, and it should be the most straightforward response, no fluff at all. the best part was that she rotated grading the responses through herself and all the TAs, so your grade was not based on JUST your TA, but all of them combined so it was very fair. the final was also online, and payson made it easier based on the midterm. it was also open note, and you choose 5 terms and write about them and find a connection to another topic in class. it was also easy and i think fairly graded as well.
lectures were super engaging and she was so personal and tried to learn everyone's name. i've never seen a prof ask the class a question, and for every person responding, she would ask their name and write it down. she would try to remember everyone (it was like 100+ people) in lecture and she made it so straightforward and easy to digest. she is def a professor every pol sci major should take.

Professor Payson was extremely helpful and did her best to assist her students. I found the class to be super interesting initially but after the second or third week lecture became boring and hard to stay interested in. A lot of topics are the same as AP gov topics which also made the class less interesting. The midterm and final exams were online and untimed which was nice but essay topics remained broad and vague. I had Joshua as my TA and appreciated all his help and efforts.

Payson is great! Class is straight-forward, engaging, and informative. Workload is appropriate and very manageable. She posts weekly reading guides, which is so helpful because she tells you which sections to skip and which to focus on. You don't even really have to do them as she goes over in detail in class. All assessments (3 quizzes, midterm, final) are remote and doable. I will say that even though the work is manageable, the grading scheme makes it pretty easy to get lower than an A even if you do everything right. Section participation is 10% and final project is 20% (average on this was a 94), so other 70% is assessments. So if you do poorly on one assessment, your grade could take a hit. But none of the assessments were unreasonable, so if you go to lecture and pay attention you should be fine. She also records lecture audio and posts slides if you can't be there in person. Payson is so sweet! She's young and engaging, and offers some more interactive activities that actually aid your learning. Good class if you can get in!