i was initially very interested in housing policy prior to taking this class which is kind of why i pursued a public affairs minor, but honestly this course turned me off of housing policy mostly because i always felt severely behind since every single person seemed to have a background in it..... class discussions made me so nervous LOL everyone always gave super sophisticated responses!! objectively it's an interesting topic but the 3 hour lecture was such a snooze that i felt bored every week. it's not the easiest class but not the hardest either. most assignments were easy participation points and the biggest assignments were the policy memo and group presentation. if you have a grasp on the most prevalent housing programs in the u.s. and have a good group you should do fine on both. i really struggled on the policy memo but it's pretty doable and i got a good grade. honestly don't take it if you're not seriously interested in housing policy

The class material was not connected to the assignments at all. While the lectures themselves were interesting and the professor did an okay job with that, the assignments were very poorly designed and arbitrarily graded. All of the assignments were graded by the TA (as per usual for most lower divs), but the TAs, at least for my section, did not provide any sort of rubric or information on how grading would occur. Rather, they just assigned grades without any explanation. I heard from several other students in the course that they spoke with their TAs at length about assignments, trying to perfect them before submitting only to receive a B with no explanation. Something similar happened to me as well in a few of these assignments. The class just seemed to be badly organized in my opinion and the professor was not really open or available to making the class more accessible. Would not recommend the course to anyone with this professor, or especially the TA Niamh.

Professor Crane seems an excellent professor, but the class feels solely meant to force internship experience on students rather than serve any purpose itself. The project and internship are good for a resume or job interview for most people, but for some it does not serve any benefit and they are still forced into it. Having this as an elective course may make more sense, but I understand why it is required. I suppose the main thing is having lectures or class content that serves a purpose other than to describe assignments we have likely done in other classes, or not have them be part of the course grade. This capstone is a tricky thing to format, and I think it currently is acceptable, but somehow feels extremely bad to both good and bad students.

In PA 70, there is an inherent disjunction between the lectures and the assignments. The lectures focus on persuasive/informative techniques, but your entire grade is based on a few essays (two Op-Eds, an issue summary, and a policy memo for the final), as well as discussion attendance and presentation. I found lectures dry and not engaging. You can choose to write about any topic, so I learned more about my one issue than anything else.