I really loved this class! Professor Thies is a super great lecturer and he has a dry sense of humor that I vibe with. It is possible to skip this class and just go based on the textbook, but I would not advise that just because the lectures are really good and help clarify things. Even if you do understand a topic from the reading, you come out with a new understanding afterward. There is no midterm or final; they are replaced by a couple of papers. They are like problem sets and I honestly enjoyed writing them! Admittedly, I pulled an all-nighter on the second paper and did not do super well on it and I still got an A. I would not recommend that because I did not think it was going to be like an 11-page paper. At the same time, I did not complete any of my papers more than 12 hours before the deadline. My TA Kevin Gatter Espinosa was the best! His slides during discussion were peppered with tasteful and relevant memes. He was also very approachable during office hours and helpful both in person and over email. Kevin always responded within an hour of me sending him an email with a couple of questions. I also like how he connected his own research to our lessons. I would highly recommend taking this class!

I saw that this class had bad reviews, but my logic was hey, how bad can it possibly be if I put in the work?
If you can push through a class that demands high effort for low learning value, you might be ok, but for me after the first two lectures I wasn't motivated to put in any effort.

I copy-pasted my course eval if you're looking for specifics. (Disclaimer: some of these things may have been solved/modified by the next time this course is offered.)
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This course + instructor was not effective for my learning. Here are 4 ways this course could be improved:

1. I think the low stakes reading quizzes were a good idea, however, I achieved the 60%+ mark on every quiz without reading. I liked gaining the points that way, but I thought I would let you know, since obviously the point was to get us to do the readings.

2. The two papers felt like busywork – taking screenshots and tracking down obscure, difficult to find details about certain governments is not learning. I spent more time doing this busywork than engaging with and writing about the material. Writing about the implications/effects of information/data is what learning is, not the busywork, so if you continue to instruct this course in the future I encourage you focus more on what students will get out of these writing activities, and significantly reduce the busywork portion.

3. After a near failing score on the first writing assignment, I discussed with my TA how I could do better next time. I found that in order to receive all the feedback I wanted, I would have to talk to every single TA in this course. By making it difficult to receive feedback on work, this directly inhibits learning from mistakes, which is necessary in perhaps the strictest graded class I have ever taken at UCLA. (I am in my second year and have taken three upper division courses.)

4. Generally, I was very confused by the grading in this class, but especially the participation grading. In any other class, I would have gotten an A in participation. I follow the participation instructions on the syllabus, yet I am not satisfied with my grade. If this class follows a curve system, why wasn't that information on the syllabus?

In conclusion, this course can be improved by fixing the reading quizzes, not having paper prompts that require hours of finding small details, making it so every TA has access to their students' entire grades on papers (so they can provide feedback on more than only the questions they graded), and putting what is expected of students, a grading rubric, and whether or not a curve is employed on the syllabus.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS FOR A GE. Readings are heavy week to week and the papers are even longer. If you do take this class, be sure to go above and beyond what is asked in the prompts for the three papers. These papers rely heavily on data analysis skills and require heavy attention to detail. Grading will be rough as Thies likes to rank everyone on a curve. Definitely will not take again.

I needed this class to declare as a poli-sci major, and wow I regret. Whack Professor. Good Professor, but absolutely unrealistic for a GE and lower-division workload. I was taking an upper div along with a writing 2 class and this class still beat the other two workloads. He has due-dates for an assignment that wasn't even during the days he was teaching lectures. Most of the weeks (like maybe 7/10), there was an assignment due Tue, Wed, Thurs. He does not allow the TA to discuss how to succeed in assignments in sections because apparently there's too much to cover and succeeding is a waste of time. (Idk mate be better at lectures then). ABSOLUTELY HATED THIS CLASS, save your mentality and get out while you can. This class will drain you. He also has a ridiculous way of getting feedback for your past work where you have to go to every single TA to know what you did wrong, SO YOU DON' T REALLY KNOW HOW TO IMPROVE. You're basically driving into this class blind. Had I not been too deep into the political science major, I would have left this major. Long readings up to 70 pages per lecture with short reading quizzes per lecture. Absolutely ridiculous. Expect to spend at least 5 hours a day in this class. His class is easy don't get me wrong, concepts are understandable, but the amount of readings, films, and research you have to do in order to complete an assignment (sometimes worth only 2%) is ridiculous. Readings are interesting but so redundant and can be summarized in two pages instead of sixty. Such basic common knowledge just with fancy terms. Also, his late submission policy is a**, not flexible at all. 20% off for just a second after a deadline. heartless. basically don't take this class, i thought i was able to do it despite reading the bruin walk reviews, but nope don't do it.

Although I was a poli sci major when I took this class, I found the topics extremely boring. The online quizzes were fairly easy but the essays were a pain to complete

This was a pretty badly organized and arbitrarily graded GE, but maybe this is because I went to just 2 lectures, did none of the reading, and switched into the class late. Due to this, I missed the first 2 daily quizzes and Thies didn't let me take them even though they were online and I wasn't even enrolled in the class at the time they were assigned. So to summarize, I did practically nothing for this class, was still able to reason out the answers for the daily quizzes to do well enough in them and the essays to get a B+ in the class. I did all of this as a freshman stats major who had no background in poli sci, so if you are trying to choose this class, don't worry about having knowledge on the topic coming in. On top of this, I did well on 3/4 of the essays (took me around 6-8 hours each), and the one essay I didn't do well on was complete bs. Basically I submitted the assignment, with a lot of quotes to help explain my points, and then thies sent out an email (after the assignment was due) saying that he didn't want people quoting on the assignment, and docked points for it, although he said nothing about it before the essay was actually due, which is why I got a 72 on that one. I got a 91 on the final essay, which I wrote in a day with no real knowledge of poli sci. So overall, for the amount of work I put in, this class was extremely easy, and if not for arbitrary and disorganized grading on the essays, I feel like I would have gotten even better. In my opinion, this is an extremely easy GE, but the irrational and seemingly random grading on essays makes it possible for smart students who do the work to still get screwed. The fact that there were no written tests (just essays) made it a fairly doable and a very minimal workload.

The textbook in this class is GREAT. I almost never went to lecture because the book was all I needed. That being said, I would have preferred tests over the essays we were given. We had short online quizzes each week on the assigned readings which helped force myself to learn something. The essays are extremely difficult and in my honest opinion, arbitrarily graded. They were very focused on using political science data tools and connecting PS50 topics to the data results. Easy enough, huh? Nope. Each essay took me between 17 and 23 hours (other friends took MUCH longer). An A is pure luck.

Professor Thies is very knowledgeable about the information required for this course. However, it was difficult to follow along during lecture because the slides did not necessarily correspond to whatever he was lecturing about. Furthermore, many of the powerpoint slides were graphs and tables... so how do you write notes on that? But nevertheless you still have to attend lecture because if you don't, you can miss key information.

Reading was tedious. There was a lot. As a political science major myself, I did not mind the content, but for many non-poli sci majors, it can come across as extremely dull and uninteresting. Plus, there are weekly quizzes for the readings ... so you have to do them. I would recommend doing ALL the readings for this class. Don't skip.

There was no midterm for the class. There are several "papers" but those are pretty straightforward. The final was a final paper, not an actual exam.

Overall the class is not bad at all, it's more of a matter of what you want in a class that you are paying for. If you are okay with a lot of reading on the institutions of government, with weekly quizzes, with no midterms, and with not-so-fun-or-clear lecturing, then this might be the class for you.

Despite some reviews, I personally really enjoyed this class. Professor Thies isn't the most teddy bear professor out there, and his humour is overwhelmingly sarcastic. I will not deny, there have been some emails where I felt really frustrated at his sarcasm which I felt was uncalled for. However, that being said, I think this class is a really good introduction into some of the most fundamental concepts in Political Science such as political institutions, political parties, democracy. non-democracy, economic development etc. The readings were long, and you have to do them to do the mandatory quizzes online, however, they are very simple as long as you put in the time to read the material. Assignments lacked a clear relation to the actual material, however, they were interesting to do. That being said, it was tedious. Professor Thies is not the best lecturer out there, however, the readings cover the concepts in a very cohesive (albeit somewhat biased) way, so lectures aren't the most essential. Overall, I really enjoyed this class.

To begin, I came in with a great interest in political science. I loved this major and even wanted to have a career related to this major. However, after taking this one course, I have decided to change my major. Taking this course made me utterly hate political science. I literally NEVER want to take this type of course AGAIN. The title might fool you by suggesting it has something to do with the study of different types of government globally. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. his explanation of the government types were brief and vague, and I understand the topic is pretty self explanatory. But this leads to him learning on and on about unnecessary things.
LECTURES:
He does have a slide presentation, but they usually have one word on them and he just rambles on often getting away from the point. His slides are also just countless slides of graphs showing trends. In my opinion, these graphs aren't entirely necessary. One graph will suffice, not 8. Sometimes he'd just leave one slide up the entire class and just talk till time ran out. His lectures were unorganized as you did not know for sure when he was just giving some introduction or if it was the actual class "lesson." Honestly, you don't need to attend because you don't miss anything that'll be of value to you. He says in the beginning of the quarter to not miss any classes unless you really need to and to let him know. You really don't even need to tell him because the class is so big. By the end of our quarter, I think less than half of the class even bothered to show up. I also felt he was condescending towards the front row of students who were brave enough to ask questions. He'd answer very sarcastically almost as if we should know the answer. Then he'd remark that he should make an exam for the syllabus because students don't pay attention, which I felt was rude, because I understood the reason the student asked the question; it was because the syllabus was worded very poorly and he was always updating it throughout the quarter.
READINGS:
The required text is really boring. The book is repetitive and just biased. I understand we live in the United States and all, but the author really doesn't elaborate too much on the other side. Democracy is all this author thinks is suitable for all countries. The author fails to deviate from his own beliefs and just clearly say the facts. Also, the author takes 30 pages to just come to the conclusion that democracy involves voting and personal liberties, etc. I don't need 30 pages for that, I could really do with a 1 page thing. Keeping it short and sweet would really be better. The chapters are about 40 pages of reading that come with additional readings that he will post on the weekly schedule. Honestly, I didn't read them because I didn't have to time to waste, but they were never really brought up or checked. The readings he gives towards the second half of class are 60 pages minimum and not part of the textbook. These are even worse.
QUIZZES:
Even though he says there are no exams or quizzes, the reading quizzes are tedious and confusing. Especially, if the reading was hard to follow. Sometimes the quizzes are difficult because it'll have very specific questions on details that perhaps you skimmed over. But as long as you pass with a 60% on them, at the end you'll get full 100% credit on it.
ASSIGNMENTS:
He gives 4 "assignments" throughout the quarter. I say that in quotations though because he gives assignments everyday day and mini essays too, but apparently this isn't real work to him. The 4 assignments are usually looking at graphs and interpreting data. Seems easy enough but as you may have guessed, it's NOT. I got a D- for an assignment which strikes me as odd because I'm literally telling you what is there and I can't make up anything. There's only one possible answer. He says he does the assignments before hand and it should only take 10 minutes for a part, but in actuality it takes hours like 6 hours, and that's to get a C. Of course it would be 10 minutes since he's answering, whatever he says is the answer must be correct. The papers are about 14 pages long. But he doesn't grade this. All the T.A.'s grade a section but you don't know who and you can't ask unless you go to your T.A.'s office hours and they can only help with what they graded. Other mini assignments included a video response to a video that was about 2-3 hours long. and you had to use subtitles because it wasn't in English. That assignment was only worth 2 points. There is also commentaries you do in response to articles that you post on the ccle website. He thinks he's giving us a break but fails to realize we are taking other classes that do require higher vigor like math and science.
DISCUSSIONS:
Participation counts so really talk. I didn't really understand the lectures but our T.A. Kevin Greico, get him, he's really helpful and nice, made it a bit clearer. The discussion is the only thing you should attend because they do check attendance because it's a smaller group.
TIME:
Professor Thies would often get upset with students getting there late. I understand why, but he should also remember that many have classes way on the other side of campus so time would be an issue. Nevertheless, they showed up, which is a big effort. He acted like he was so punctual on time, however, he was always going over the class time to continue. We could never finish on time because he rambled, not because he stopped class or anything. It wasn't even anything important, just graphs which were examples. Then he'd get upset if you tried to leave and continue repeating to stay seated because we were nearing the end, which was a lie because it NEVER ended! He didn't take into consideration that we might have classes to get to where time would be cutting it close. Perhaps professors like him, were the reason why the other students were getting to his class late.

Don' think I'm just ranting on about this because I got stuck with a terrible grade. I passed with a B. I wasn't too happy about it because I really did try to do every assignment to my best capability. But I thought I would end worse. Therefore, once again these are not opinions from someone scorned by a bad grade. This is merely a precaution and warning to NOT TAKE THIS CLASS( POLITICAL SCIENCE 50- INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE POLITICAL SCIENCE). I did not heed the warnings from past posts and I utterly regretted it. Don't make the same mistake. I had my major as political science and changed it to molecular cell and developmental biology. I felt that if I was going to suffer this much, might as well do a stem major. If you want to hate political science then by all means take this course. If you want to be happy and not depressed and angry for a quarter, that will feel like a lifetime, the DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS, or at least this professor.