Professor
Margaret Peters
1 of 2
AD
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2019 - this class was a complete disaster and i didn't really learn anything other than the power of divide and conquer. there was a ridiculous amount of reading, easily double the average UCLA class, and we had weekly reading quizzes that had the same four questions each time. to tackle this with sanity relatively intact we had made a study group and used a google doc to divvy up and stockpile the answers for each quiz. i think in a different life peters wanted to be a good professor but gave up bc she refuses to acknowledge that the way she understands info as an "expert" is not the same way undergrads process information. my ta, i think his name was cesear, he was really nice, there was a female ta who was also nice, and then there was a nasty german guy, julian. each ta was responsible for grading one paper for everyone instead of each ta grading their own students' papers. so for one of my papers, nasty guy took off 18 points bc he didn't like my intro or conclusion but then offered no feedback as to how they could have been improved. at the end of the quarter after evals were turned in julian sent out a horrible email to his sections where he threw the other TAs under the bus by saying something like he was doing them a favor by grading harshly or whatever bs he used to justify his power trip. my advice is don't take this class, but if you were like me and a gs major and had to take this, do everything in your power to score high on assignments where you can either memorize answers like the reading quizzes, or be able to reference open book material like with the papers, bc the final was a gd nightmare that i know i flunked, but bc i did really well on the other components my final grade wasn't too bad. funny part was i took a different political econ class later on that had some of the same material and the prof wasn't even tenured like peters and she was able to teach it in a way more concise and easy to understand manner.
Spring 2019 - this class was a complete disaster and i didn't really learn anything other than the power of divide and conquer. there was a ridiculous amount of reading, easily double the average UCLA class, and we had weekly reading quizzes that had the same four questions each time. to tackle this with sanity relatively intact we had made a study group and used a google doc to divvy up and stockpile the answers for each quiz. i think in a different life peters wanted to be a good professor but gave up bc she refuses to acknowledge that the way she understands info as an "expert" is not the same way undergrads process information. my ta, i think his name was cesear, he was really nice, there was a female ta who was also nice, and then there was a nasty german guy, julian. each ta was responsible for grading one paper for everyone instead of each ta grading their own students' papers. so for one of my papers, nasty guy took off 18 points bc he didn't like my intro or conclusion but then offered no feedback as to how they could have been improved. at the end of the quarter after evals were turned in julian sent out a horrible email to his sections where he threw the other TAs under the bus by saying something like he was doing them a favor by grading harshly or whatever bs he used to justify his power trip. my advice is don't take this class, but if you were like me and a gs major and had to take this, do everything in your power to score high on assignments where you can either memorize answers like the reading quizzes, or be able to reference open book material like with the papers, bc the final was a gd nightmare that i know i flunked, but bc i did really well on the other components my final grade wasn't too bad. funny part was i took a different political econ class later on that had some of the same material and the prof wasn't even tenured like peters and she was able to teach it in a way more concise and easy to understand manner.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - I definitely recommend this class. No textbook required, as Professor Peters provides all of them for free. Professor Peters is very kind, helpful, and empathetic towards her students. Her class is flexible, especially for the due dates of the weekly reading assignments (Quizzes on CCLE). Her recorded lectures aren't very long and are a great supplement that summarizes the main points of the weekly readings. However, attending the live lectures featuring guest speakers is mandatory for attendance grade, which IIRC there was only 6 throughout the quarter. If you cannot make it to the live lectures, you can submit a one-page summary of what you learned and might get some credit. To be clear, I am not one of those "laid back" students, so I did do all of the readings and felt that the exam questions were fair. To be more precise, I found the Final Exam to be a bit more complicated than the Midterm as the essay questions required deeper thinking. The essay exam requires you to write 4 essays in total, but each essay has a one-page limit and done in single-space, with a reference page at the end. The weekly reading assignments (Quizzes) was not too hard, but it would be if you didn't do the readings at all. Typically, the quizzes have 3-5 questions, and you have an hour to submit. Be sure to do some of the readings before the discussion sections, as you are expected to answer questions as a group. Your TA will be the ones who grades everything. Thank you, Professor Peters, for the great quarter!!
Spring 2021 - I definitely recommend this class. No textbook required, as Professor Peters provides all of them for free. Professor Peters is very kind, helpful, and empathetic towards her students. Her class is flexible, especially for the due dates of the weekly reading assignments (Quizzes on CCLE). Her recorded lectures aren't very long and are a great supplement that summarizes the main points of the weekly readings. However, attending the live lectures featuring guest speakers is mandatory for attendance grade, which IIRC there was only 6 throughout the quarter. If you cannot make it to the live lectures, you can submit a one-page summary of what you learned and might get some credit. To be clear, I am not one of those "laid back" students, so I did do all of the readings and felt that the exam questions were fair. To be more precise, I found the Final Exam to be a bit more complicated than the Midterm as the essay questions required deeper thinking. The essay exam requires you to write 4 essays in total, but each essay has a one-page limit and done in single-space, with a reference page at the end. The weekly reading assignments (Quizzes) was not too hard, but it would be if you didn't do the readings at all. Typically, the quizzes have 3-5 questions, and you have an hour to submit. Be sure to do some of the readings before the discussion sections, as you are expected to answer questions as a group. Your TA will be the ones who grades everything. Thank you, Professor Peters, for the great quarter!!
AD
1 of 2
