I absolutely loved this class. All lectures are prerecorded, posted online, and very succinct. Professor Bawn teaches exactly what you need to know for the exam, provides multiple practice exams before both midterms and the final, and overall is not trying to trick you in any way. The low stake quizzes are really effective in helping students keep up with the materials and not fall behind. Attendance to both lecture and section is completely optional, and I did just fine without hardly ever attending. Rarely do I feel like I have learned something walking away from a class, but for this class I can definitely say I have! Oh, and literally the only math you need is basic algebra- you'll be fine I promise! 100000% recommend!!!

First of all I just want to say that I absolutely love Professor Bawn and she's the best! If you have the chance to take this class do it! The course is super flexible because she uses the flipped-learning method (watch lectures on your own and then solve problems together in class), so attendance is completely optional. Everything is posted online. Professor Bawn is also super organized so the entire plan for class is laid out from week 1.

To my pol sci people who are concerned about the math involved in game theory - this class only required basic algebra (you don't even need a calculator for exams).

Grade distribution:
3% preview quizzes (graded on completion, you do these before you watch lectures; 2 are dropped)
10% closure quizzes (get full credit as long as you get more than half right, do these after watching lectures; 2 are dropped)
12% homework (6 total, one is dropped)
20% midterm 1
20% midterm 2
35% final

The exams are no surprise and several old exams are provided for practice each time. As long as you do all of the work and watch all of the lectures, the material is very understandable.

Overall, I'd highly highly recommend this class! It's been one of my favorites so far.

TAKE THIS CLASS WITH BAWN! She was a wonderful professor, went at a great place, incredibly clear and easy to follow. Essentially a game theory class so if you liked the Nash equilibrium chapter in high school Econ, you will love this class. Super easy and just felt like fun Brain games to me, not school or assignments. I dont plan on concentrating in this field, but really recommend taking it as one of your lower div requirements!

This is a very interesting class and I would recommend it for Political Science majors. I found the material to be clear but it can get confusing if you do not follow the lectures. The exams were okay but overall pretty fair. If you do not like essays and/or written assignments, then this class is for you since it is more of a math (Algebra)/puzzle type of class (hence "Game Theory" name).

This class was amazing. The workload was pretty fair, homework and mini-quizzes were graded on effort. Only the midterms/finals really affected your grade. There are 2 midterms and a final. Practice is everything in this class. Since there's a slight math portion in the class, doing the homework really prepares you for the exams. I was able to get 100% on both my midterms and an A on the final, as long as I practiced using the homework. Prof Bawn is such a sweet person, she gave out so many practice exams ahead of the actual exams so the exams weren't shocking. Overall, I recommend this class. Don't let the math portion scare you, it's not as bad as it seems, I promise.

Make sure you go to discussion, more than anything! Your TA will work through all relevant problems with you and explain the concepts in more detail so that everyone understands it. Bawn's online lectures were informative and I think the concepts covered in this class are interesting and useful. Work through all the practice problems before tests and you will do just fine.

This class is mainly online and there technically isn't lecture but rather workshops where if you're having trouble understanding the material, her and the TA's go over particular concepts. Though, she successfully explains the concepts through her online lectures which are very, very, digestible and easy to understand. Also, the tests are very similar to the study guides and I recommend going to the test bank and grabbing multiple tests she's previously given. Very easy if you get the repetition in of constantly working on her previous tests.

Her flipped-classroom style makes it really easy to understand all of the material. This is a class where the material builds on itself and you need to utilize previously taught tools to overcome new problem sets, therefore, if you don't understand something, take the time to really learn it, regardless of the online quiz grade and how much you hate it. It will come back later. The textbook wasn't really necessary to buy since most of the material covered on the test was given in her online lectures and her midterm and final reviews are really well written and give you a good idea of what to study. Definitely recommend this class overall, Professor Bawn is extraordinary.

This is a challenging but straightforward class. If you do all of the homework properly and practice the problems, you can definitely get an A in this class. This class is formatted so that you don't have to go to lecture, since all of the lectures and homeworks are online.

I HIGHLY recommend this course. I am applying to the COMM major and this is a pre req for the major...so as someone with no experience in poli sci I found the concepts easy to grasp. I loved the style of this class which is like a flipped classroom so you watch lecture videos on your own and I went to the optional workshops once a week with the professor. While some of the workshops were a little pointless when covering easy topics I found most of them really beneficial and good practice. However, this class was a pretty heavy workload compared to my other classes with two weekly quizzes and HW assignments. But. I definitely spent way too much time on quizzes worth less than 5% of the total grade and HW assignments that were graded on completion. So the workload is definitely manageable, I just made it hard for myself. The professor is really clear when teaching the concepts and while a few on the concepts were difficult to grasp I found it extremely helpful going to office hours to see the best TA Tamar. She wasn't even my TA and she responded with detailed explanations to all of my emails and helped me during office hours. She explained everything so clearly that by the end of office hours I felt confident in the material. Therefore, I did dedicate a lot of time to be successful in this class. On the first midterm, a lot of students did poorly, but I got a 98%, a 100% on the second midterm and 100% on the final. The average for the second midterm was a 92%, so the majority of students do extremely well in this course. The professor provides old midterms and study sheets and problems that really help you prepare for the exams because they are usually structured very similar. Game Theory is a weird topic to explain, even after completing the course I couldn't tell you, it's not like AP Govt its more similar to my AP Econ class I took during high school, for example, I remember prisoners dilemma from high school. TAKE THIS CLASS...You won't regret it!!! It's just super competitive to get..a lot of athletes in the class. Also, this is the first class I didn't buy the required textbook for, but I promise you don't need it. She tells you practice problems you should do before exams so I checked it out from the library before the first exam but the structuring of the problems are completely different from her exams and she provides soooo much study material, I promise it is not necessary.