Marika (Prof Csapo) was the sweetest. She is so passionate and knowledgeable about her field and very kind + accommodating to all her students in class. While I felt much of the concepts we learned in class were review for me personally, I loved how she integrated unique case studies and current events into her lectures about the topics we covered in class. The exams were a bit challenging - they required you to really think critically....but isn't that the point of an exam? Lol. I genuinely think she deserves more than she gets and I hope I have the pleasure of being her student again in the future :) You could tell how hard she tried to make class relevant and engaging during remote learning/pandemic times. Highly recommend her to any potential student or employer!

I really loved Professor Csapo! She was super accommodating and helpful during the online learning--all the quizzes and final exam we had a 24 hour window for and were open note, so you could find most of the material by rewatching the lectures or looking at her helpful slideshows. Our big project was a policy proposal and strategy brief, and she made it so that we turned in weekly "for-credit" activities as drafts of different sections, which helped a lot because at the end it was like I had already finished most of the project! She was super nice during individual office hours and would help me find resources for my project and even let me stay past the 15-minute time slot because she wanted to help. If you liked AP Government, this class is sort of a review and covers some of the same material. It's very helpful to teach the basics of American Politics and I would recommend it to anyone!

If you have the chance I highly recommend taking professor csapo. She’s amazing.

This class was absolutely wonderful. Professor Csapo was very accommodating during the online quarter but remained very engaging in every online lecture. Lectures were recorded so staying caught up in tough circumstances was easy. The readings are very interesting and the weekly assignments help with truly understanding the material, but the assignments are not difficult at all. The 2 quizzes and final exam are straightforward and will be easy as long as you study the material a bit. Prof released study guides and TAs were very helpful in preparing for them. We were given a lot of freedom in regards to the policy memo and office hours were very beneficial in developing the policy brief throughout the quarter. Amazing professor, 10/10 would recommend, I am taking another class with Prof. Csapo again this next quarter.

Professor Csapo was so accommodating this quarter, and she made sure to address all of our questions and make sure everybody was heard. The exams were open-note and she gave us a lot of time to start our final policy brief, so everything was very manageable.

I took this class in a remote learning environment and the professor was very kind. Attendance for lectures was not mandatory. She recorded the lectures and posted them after class. Quizzes were straight forward and open-note. The hardest part was the policy proposal, but HAs were accommodating to extensions.

I was nervous to take this class due to negative reviews on Bruinwalk/what I've heard from other PubAff majors who took 20 with Csapo last year, but I think Csapo really took the feedback from the other class and made the class much better! The lectures were engaging and Csapo made time to discuss current events/whatever the class wanted to ask about within the realm of the course content. With the election, inaugration, impeachment, insurrection all happening during the class, Csapo's lectures were extremely relevant and salient.

Professor Csapo is very engaged in this course. As a kind and consideration Professor, I found that this course was effective in teaching about the Constitution, institutions, and how policy is shaped by them. Even in the face of the having a difficult personal issues during the pandemic, Professor Csapo was helpful during lecture and when you met with her during office hours. I was expecting the course to be disorganized based on the previous reviews; however, that is far from the case. She had set deadlines for when assignments were due and very open to extensions if students needed them. Grading was based on weekly assignments (2 one for the course material and the other was a for credit assignment), policy proposal, two quizzes, and a final exam.

Maybe it was because it was her first year teaching this class, but overall this class was a MESS! Professor Csapo was very nice and probably had very good intentions for her students, yet her organization, clarity, and commitment to her students lagged throughout the entire quarter.

The class consists of lectures (optional w/ slides posted online although like 2 weeks late), discussion section participation, a term long research project (including a portion where you have to interview an expert in the policy field you are researching), an essay final, and three homework assignments. Her grading breakdown was a little funky with the homework assignments totaling 35% but the research project only worth 30%.

She would always come to class late (always with her coffee so we know why), fails o communicate with students or the TAs via email, and often got on long tangents in lecture only to go through four slides before class was over. Id recommend skipping lecture except for the last week when she does a large review which is helpful.

Her final (due to COVID) was transitioned online and included two essay prompts that were due in an hour and a half. Reasonable and open note which is a plus. The homework assignments were easy, but time consuming (busy work) and the research project had a lot of components that were not fully explained or integrated well into the course.

Overall, be prepared to be left in the dark if you take this class with her. The content is largely a review of AP Gov/APUSH so its not too hard at all and some topics (gerrymandering, impeachment, reforming the constitution) are somewhat interesting. At least the TAs are understanding of Prof. Csapo's lack of communication so just make sure you have a good relationship with them.

Professor Csapo is a really nice person but I learned absolutely nothing in this class. She would come into lectures 15 minutes late and then let us out 15 minutes and I stopped going to lecture altogether after Week 3. She tried really hard to make the class engaging but it was a review of AP Government and, overall, I was actually more productive by not going to lecture. The assignments are pretty easy and she was pretty lenient with the whole COVID situation as well. There is no required textbook and no midterm so your grade is solely based on your assignments that your TA grades.