These reviews are all over the place! It seems like there is a vendetta to get this Professor fired because the negative reviews are not what I experienced and I took this class during the same quarter as those keyboard warriors. They say the Professor called on the same 5 people, but I believe I counted 10 so maybe something isn't mathing. Even then, when she would ask a question, those students had the knowledge to share with the rest of us whereas the keyboard warriors stayed silent. (you know who you are and probably didn't do the readings until those discussion deadlines came up) The class was structured by giving you the selected chapters to read prior to attending lecture and share what you thought the main idea of these philosophers was. It's plain and simple, but yet these individuals have the gall to complain. Professor came to class and wanted an open discussion about it. Literally a seminar structured class. Is it her fault that only 5-10 people did the reading before class and the other 130 students didn't? You want her to walk you to your individual seat too???? I literally sat next to maybe a couple jocks and would hear them complain about how boring the class was, but would admit to not doing the reading. LMAO. UCLA recheck that admission process please because I know a bunch of brilliant students that would give anything to be in our position and learn from these professors. Some of these students possess soft mindsets, but they are excellent keyboard warriors. I read and cringed, especially reading that poem-like review. Whoever you are, you win clown of the quarter. Future students, her midterm and final were not as bad as these people say they are. You have three hours to complete the final, but have the physical copy of the book to use to answer the prompt of questions. IF YOU DO THE READINGS, EASY A. As a non Poli-sci major, I enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm of Professor Piano and found her lectures to be way more engaging than my major courses. I joined two weeks late and was able to catch up on the work. I felt like sticking up for this Professor because I can't imagine having these reviews early on and having to answer to the board about some negative reviews that my obnoxious peers left. They took the comment about failing in life to heart and I was not even bothered in the slightest when she said it. It was to motivate us to not repeat the same cliche statements and immerse ourselves more into the reading of Du Bois. UCLA board if you're reading this, the quality of this Professor is easily a 4-5, not a 2. If you read into everything, then you are just highly naive.

The only piece of advice I would give Professor Piano is to upload the recordings of class to Canvas. However, I think the attendance turnout would be low if she did so. Other than that, thank you Professor NP!

For the first couple weeks she kicked anyone out who was even a minute late to lecture. After that she started showing up late to lecture and occasionally would keep the students late.

The lectures were very unorganized with no clear direction. She would kind of just ramble about whatever the first question asked was. Her slides were completely unhelpful and she didn't post them anyway. She also often would not get through every slide or make every point she wanted because she would ramble the whole time.

She expects everyone to buy her exact copy of like 8 books (didn't buy a single one) then got marked down on my final because I had incorrect formatting due to having the wrong version of the textbook.

The final also consists of three written responses which you get three hours to complete. She expects you to find quotes for the essays within this time frame and cite them perfectly to the exact format she wants (which was Chicago I believe). This just takes away from the already limited time you get to write the essays.

She also multiple times told the class we were all bad writers (after only reading like three peoples responses) and she didn't have confidence in us for the final.

Also got marked down to a 92 on participation for no clear reason. Attended every discussion and actively spoke and participated in all of them so not really sure how I could've gained more points. Maybe should've gone to office hours but idk. I don't really think office hours should be required for a full participation grade but maybe that's just me.

Piano is a difficult professor to review because as on the one hand, you want to understand that she is new to teaching, yet she is approaching lecturing as if she's Aristotle reincarnate and we'll manage to grasp the course materials by reading between her lines. She lacks the infrastructure within the class to support students after confusing lectures with no clear direction or structured educational material. Every lecture felt anxiety-inducing and strange because she just talks loudly and passionately, yet you feel like she doesn't actually know what she believes when she poses questions and talks around student's substantive questions. Again, I respect her as a scholar and believe that she is very intelligent, but as a professor, propagating one's individual intelligence the way that Piano teaches is very counterproductive and as noted by the other reviews, not received very well. It's a shame this class was made so complicated because if it were a smaller seminar with more instructional support, it's super exciting to have such open-ended instruction. Something very surprising and gatekeeping about the course is the way she doesn't post lecture slides or final study materials. She will show them for a brief few minutes in lecture and that is basically all the instruction you will receive on the biggest chunks of grading in the class. The TAs were OK and were helpful, but Piano did seem like she wanted to prove that we were all dumb.

I'm like deadass so confused by the other negative reviews. This class was not by any means as difficult as the others are making it out to be. It was very obvious she genuinely cared about our learning and comprehension of the material. She constantly engaged with the class and made the lecture super immersive. Yes, she didn't like it when students would come in late but like that does not hinder your ability to do well in the class at all. The grades are based on attendance, a short midterm paper and a very simple short answer final exam that most students received As on. I would definitely recommend this class to any political science majors who are interested in theory and philosophy, honestly a very doable easy G.E. class, plus the lectures go by so quick.

I have never left a bruinwalk review before, but I felt the need to stick up for this class. PLEASE do not let the negative reviews for polsci 10 and Professor Piano scare you off. This class was amazing, and for those who took the time out of their day to write the unnecessarily harsh reviews, grow up. It is true that the lectures can go fast, and that there is no set structure to them, but for me, this was a pro as it allowed students to formulate their own thoughts and bounce them off both Professor Piano and other students. Most of the people leaving bad reviews just want classes that spoon feed you all of the information and professors that treat you like high schoolers. This class helps teach you how to think for yourself, and it is classes like this that made me want to come to UCLA in the first place. I HIGHLY recommend.

As many other reviews have said, Piano was not the best professor. She was pretentious and seemed to look down on UCLA and the students, comparing it to her alma mater. She made very harsh comments about our work, which contributed to the poor learning environment she was creating. While I would not exactly recommend this class, this class was very interesting and challenged me the most compared to other Polisci prerequisites.

From my experience with her teaching style, I found her need to be clearer in teaching the material, slurring her words or mumbling, but overall, hard to follow. She was, at times, engaging, passionate, and knowledgeable about the material. I wouldn't say she is the most approachable person, especially after the first impression where she told students who barely arrived late (the first weeks of class) to leave very rudely. This happened after she said something about not wanting to treat us as children, which gave the opposite impression. For the lectures, she could have helped to answer questions. If anything, it would always confuse me. For example, she would say, “That answer would suffice for now,” or “We can spend a whole quarter just answering that question.” This was weird since the lecture style was like a “Socratic seminar,” but only a few people would participate. She would never fully talk about what she intended to discuss for the lecture, contributing to her unorganized lecturing style.

Throughout the rest of the quarter, I think she tried to make up for the unapproachable vibe she was giving many of us by discussing pop-culture references; however, for me, it didn't take away from the fact that she was still not a good professor, and would belittle her students.

As for the TAs, mine was very helpful; however, mine did grade harshly for the participation despite lacking clear expectations for participation on the course or section syllabus.

Course Material:
In the first week or two of class, I remember her saying that we needed to have the exact physical texts of the books and that we had a student read out of them a few times. She also cold-called on a student to read. After this, I didn't find it super necessary, and some of the text could be found online, e.g., the Leviathan is on Sparknotes for free with lots of helpful summary/analysis. She also doesn't post lecture slides; however, I didn't find them helpful, and sometimes she would have blank or inaccurate slides. Sparknotes would probably do the same if not a better job, as it is more organized and helpful than her lectures.

Grading rubric:
Weekly Reading Assignment 25%: 250 words, use ~ 2 quotes in own words preferred; not graded very strict
Midterm Paper 25%: 1200 - 1300 words, some were comparative prompts
Final Exam 30%: SAQ, Critical Reading Excerpt, and Evaluative Essay; 500 words each
Attendance and Participation 20%: ask TA for expectations on participation/go to OH, as some may grade more strictly than others

TLDR:
- although passionate and sometimes engaging, not the best lecturer and speaks negatively about students' work without advice or guidance on how to do better or well
- use sparknotes and course hero for readings, especially if you miss a lecture or don't want to go
- lecture is not required; discussion is
- if you're in AAP, take advantage of PLF!! Emma was amazing
- attend TA office hours for any help and to help with your participation grade
- also, I think she said something about changing how she will be doing exams next time for this class, so use this info for the grading rubric as a guide, but it can be very different than what it actually will be
- this class will also help you build some foundation in political theory, especially if you plan on concentrating on it or taking any political theory courses!! I would recommend it for these students in particular, and hopefully, Piano's teaching methods will improve for future courses :)

Dr Piano is the professor all hs teachers warn you about. Yes, she was very intimidating, a bit scattered, and liked to talk down to her students. If you don't take any of that personally, the class can be interesting. Honestly, I learned so much about these philosophers' ideas and have reevaluated how I think about the world countless times because of it. I never spoke with Piano and smiled at her when I walked in late. About half of what she said during lecture was useless to write because she is not good at explaining ideas ina cohesive straight thought. I just tried to keep track of vocab/big ideas. I didn't buy any of the books she "required" and didn't read more than 2 pages MAYBE of the reading. Instead, I would watch summary/analysis/lecture videos of the readings/philosophers, and I would find a pdf version of the reading to skim the parts I wanted to read for myself (or to find useful quotes, which I used for the midterm-- that's the only time u need to reference the readings). Read over your classmates' discussion posts!! Somebody will know what they're talkin ab. Spencer was the most helpful most understanding most knowledgeable TA I've had so far. The TAs actually gaf about you and your understanding. The actual assignments were few and fairly easy. Most challenging part of the class was getting over how pretentious the professor was. I respect how much she knows, but it's a shame she does not know how to communicate effectively. Also, the irony of people using philosophers' thoughts to shade Piano proves you do learn something from the class, regardless of how frustrating she is as a person (LMFAO). I'd be more than willing to share the pdfs/videos I used (dm me @2nahalfstrokes)

I've never written a bruinwalk review before but I honestly felt compelled after this quarter. All the above reviews are accurate in how she was about students' tardiness, technology usage, and comments made about our writing. She took an entire class telling us that our assignments were incorrect and we were the problem, but never fully explained the why. The thing that stood out the most to me, however, was how little it seemed that she actually cared about student learning. Life happens sometimes, so sometimes we'll be a minute or two late, and students shouldn't be pushed out of the classroom without hopes of a recording of the lecture for that. We asked her once to record the lecture, and she laughed at the group and said, "Good try." Her slides weren't organized or really prepared very far in advance (she actually admitted that to us at the start of the quarter!) so her lecture was her talking about the opinions she had on the text while also calling on the few people that dared to participate. Without a recording, it made understanding so much more difficult because we would be racing to take down everything she said with the hopes that it was important, key points of which got lost amongst the rambling. The midterm and final were both fairly straightforward so long as you did the reading, but the reading itself was so time-consuming that it took up most of my free time. Since I took this class out of necessity for my major, I would take it again simply because it was just a lot of busy work and not extraordinarily difficult, but it did make me realize that I would not concentrate in political theory. If I got anything out of this class, it was that.

Dr. Piano has changed my life forever. Unfortunately, it is for the worst. I have never seen a teacher or professor in my life get genuine enjoyment out of scaring her class like I did with Piano. From day one, she instilled a culture of fear into the class, and only a select few "glazers" would dare speak up to her to engage in discussion. As for the rest of us, she demanded that we buy hard copies of books and that we take hand-written notes, yet would never help out us students by refusing to record the lectures and post the slides. She expected us to understand the topics she was discussing like we had been studying them for a hundred years, and when people asked genuine questions she would laugh at them for their stupidity. Dr. Piano proved to be even more evil when she would complain about tardiness. Early on in the quarter, she would kick out students for arriving minutes to even seconds after the class was supposed to start. Meanwhile, she would start arriving late towards the end of the quarter, and then was furious when she did not finish covering the material and students would start packing up. The graded workload itself was not horrific: a weekly discussion post that was a minimum of 250 words, and then a few close readings to prepare for the final. However, she would assign hours worth of reading to complete for these discussion posts, and would get insulted when not every single person understood the content. Piano swamped and overwhelmed us, as after every lecture people would get up and mutually complain about their confusion. Her class took such a toll on me that my friends would sarcastically ask me "How was Piano?", and then I would rant about the insane lectures that became a common occurrence. From spewing the most random garbage to debating with the same five glazers every lecture, Dr. Piano had no control over her class whatsoever. This class was the death of me, and Piano was the grim reaper.
As Thomas Hobbes said, humans ARE naturally evil.

This class made me rethink my decision to major in Political Science every single day. The one day that lecture was canceled, I truly felt a huge amount of overwhelming happiness and that made me realize just how awful of a class this was and how awful of a prof piano was. I will never ever forget the names of the five individuals she called on every lecture because I truly will never understand how one can cry while reading political theory.