First of all, Trager is incredibly knowledgeable professor as well as a very kind person. He’s always willing to help and will gladly answer any student questions to the best of his ability in office hours

Second, his lecture style was simply not for me. He asks an open ended question about every 30 seconds, forcing you to think about the issue. This sounds good in practice but doesn’t work as well as I believe he thinks it does as he’s never able to correct students that may be misunderstanding.

He’s a funny guy but his tone and style when speaking make it pretty easy to doze off, even when he’s talking about something interesting.

Now onto content. The class is based around about a dozen or so IR theories proposed by different authors in the assigned readings.

While the theories themselves aren’t the hardest to master, there is a ridiculous amount of them and readings tend anywhere from 30-100 pages a class.

His lectures often don’t cover the actual theories, and only vaguely cover the topic the theories discuss. I know I’m making it sound kind of vague, but just know that lecture attendance isn’t really needed to do well in the class as a result

It’ll come down almost entirely to your TA to help you understand the material. Both the TAs for my class were wonderful, but it’s obviously a gamble in future sessions.

Grades are determined by:

Short multiple choice weekly quizzes in section (typically very very easy and you should get 100% if you do the readings)

Group project- make a presentation using survey data given during class. Not the hardest project and TAs typically give out 95s-99s if you do everything on the syllabus.

Participation

Midterm and Final- covers the theories in detail. Short answers and long essay. Final is cumulative. Pretty difficult and take a long time to study for.

Overall, I’d say this was a pretty good class. It was definitely difficult but if you put the time in you can get a good grade. Not the hardest poli sci class at UCLA material wise but definitely a pretty huge workload for readings and a ton of material

I don't want to judge the professor based on anything other than him as a lecture, since that was our relationship and what I know him as. So please don't take this personally. With that said, the class was one of the worse ones I've experienced at UCLA. First, the lectures. The lectures managed to somehow be too slow and yet too fast. I think this was because the professor talks very very slowly, and especially on material that doesn't matter. He often goes on these historical examples that I think are tangents, but they can't really be tangents because that's pretty much all he talks about? Then, on the really important parts, he just reads from the PowerPoint and then skips to the next page, where we don't have enough time to copy it down. This would be fine if the PPTs were uploaded online, but then there's another problem. The powerpoints were uploaded online but they are always broken and the structure messed up. Often times they aren't even the powerpoints from class, either missing many pages or have pages on there that weren't even presented in class. The course material was also a bit all over the place. After attending every lecture before the midterm, I was so confused as to what we were learning. At the end of the quarter now I can't really tell you what the course is. (and it's not that I'm not learning or trying, I got an A+ on my midterm). It just seems that the professor is not aware of these shortcomings and half-forces people to go to class. He doesn't really force you, since there are no grades associated with lecture participation, but at the very start of the quarter, he says that people should come to class, and he is so not accommodating for people who want to watch the lecture at a later time. I think watching the lectures online would be so much better because his lectures in person are just so confusing. If we were allowed to slow down the lecture in places that need to be slow and fast forward in places that aren't necessary that would make the class so much better. But to get the recordings to class, you have to email your TA for every lecture you want and get the link and PASSCODE to the lecture. (I can't stop thinking about how I need a password to watch something that I already pay a shit ton of money for) Honestly, many of the times that I went to lecture I just thought that it was a waste of time, to a point where I just didn't go to class anymore towards the end of the quarter because it just wasn't worth it. I think that if the professor wants people going to class, he should make going to class enticing rather than forcing people to go by not providing the lectures (in a "no questions asked" way). I'm sure the professor is a great researcher in the field, but he is just not a good lecturer. And the thing is, as a student, I don't get to see the side of Dr. Trager being a leading person in the field, I only see the side of him teaching students, and it is not great.

Trager is a nice guy, but the TAs honestly do the heavy lifting of actual teaching, and that is only if you go to office hours. This class is honestly very unclear, and the reading is very intensive each week. It's the reading that you have to read over and over to understand something. The final is cumulative, so that's a LOT of theories you have to memorize to their respective authors. In addition, if you don't know much about history, like having the entirety of WW1 and WW2 in extreme detail, this class will be much harder for you. The people that seemed to excelled in this class were the people who are history buffs. Also, if you're shy of participating, don't take this class, because participation is mandatory for a grade during section. Also, the section moves extremely fast, topic to topic wise.

I’ve taken the following courses with Trager PS 20 (A) / PS 129 (+A) / PS 139 (A) and I’ve loved all three courses. PS 20 is a lower div so its work based lots of briefs. PS 129 extends the material you learn in PS 20, it’s based on a midterm, a final and a survey project. PS 139, which is a small seminar like course, is based on two research papers, which are combined for the final 15-20 pages long.

Trager is a really good professor, he is very knowledgeable, his classes are straightforward, not extremely difficult but do require work. With that said, Trager isn’t the most exciting lecturer. I can’t call him boring because it’s his calm tone that creates this effect, not the lecturing material or him as a professor. This is most evident when it comes to large lectures like PS 20 where he tries to engage the class, but the sheer size of the course makes this very difficult. In a small class like 139 his style is amazing and extremely engaging. There was never a dull moment in this class, hands down the best class I’ve taken so far.

I highly recommend him, he is a young professor and his ideas are intriguing compared to some of the older professors we have at UCLA. He does care about his students, and really makes them think. He wants students to question and analyze everything they learn. He has become one of my favorite professors, I highly recommend him.

I, too, don't understand why Trager's ratings are so low. He is quite possibly the most straightforward Poli Sci professor I've had at UCLA. His tests are not meant to trick or deceive you. If you've done the readings and attended class, you should be just fine.

I agree with the poster below me that Trager's engagement with students during lecture really is lost on some people. He always tries to involve the students in the lectures, and he really does value and appreciate that.

The readings were on the light side (no text!), just some articles. I actually really enjoyed reading the articles, because they were specific and interesting. In fact, I enjoyed Trager's classes so much that I took PS 20 and PS 129 with him one quarter after another.

Be warned about the week of the midterm, though, because the lecture after the midterm was actually part of the final exam, and I know that a lot of people couldn't answer that question since most students skip the lecture after the exam.

His voice and SUPER calm lecturing tone can also put you to sleep sometimes, as he is more carefully articulate than energetic, but generally I really enjoyed the class, and it even made me consider an IR concentration.

A lot of students in my class with Trager seemed very disengaged and disinterested. Trager is one of the few professors I've seen at UCLA that actually tries to engage students during lecture and to get people to participate; this was lost on most students. I think if people would put forth more of an effort Trager's ratings would be higher, as he is very intelligent, knowledgeable, and articulate. There was no text for this class; however, the articles posted on the website ought to be treated as the text and read just as thoroughly and with the same diligence as for any other class (possibly more so). The reading can be a little bit heavy during some weeks. I recommend reading it in advance and showing up to class with a basis for what will be discussed. The lectures are a very skeletal look at the material in the readings, and you won't get max value from the lecture if you wait until after to do the reading. To do well on the mid term and final requires a knowledge of the ideas laid out in the articles, familiarity with the historical events used to illustrate the concepts, and an understanding of the structure of the models. Missing the structure of the model and giving an overview of your understanding will probably earn you a mid-range B. Landing an A requires all three of the components listed above. Having said all of that, the concepts and theories covered are useful at further analysis of any political science discipline. Trager is a great guy, very open to helping students, and is entirely approachable. Take him.

It's not the WORST class in the world, but I don't recommend it. Trager is a nice guy, but he absolutely does not show ANY concern for the students. I can't count the number of times a student tried to ask him something after class and his response was ALWAYS "talk to the T.A." He does not encourage going to his office hours and instead directs you to the TA for almost everything. His lectures are basically him reading a powerpoint in a fairly low, dull tone, sure to put you to sleep. He has nothing to offer during lecture, except for his ability to read his own slides. The class consists of a midterm and a cumulative final. He provides a study guide for both and the exams pretty much consist of the exact same questions. You MUST read in order to pass this class because most of the questions on exams are from reading material, with questions from lecture thrown in as well. The reading is manageable but sometimes very dry. Section quizzes are fairly easy if you've done the reading. The final was the killer. The study guide was 30 questions (the same handed out for the midterm) and 30 new questions from the second half of the class. Both midterm and final consisted of 4-7 short answer questions, and then you have a choice from a few options for one essay. It took a LONG time to study because there was so much material. The content is not too hard, but exams cover a TON of material and are very time consuming to study for, and he is also VERY dull. I say take it if you have to, there are worse classes, but you're going to dislike the class, very boring.

Very unclear in his expectations and overall direction of the course. The course was war and diplomacy so you'd expect a course that dealt with such theories and used real world examples, but this guy reads off power point slides on IR theorist whose arguments are so inapplicable to real cases/history. I got so little out of this course and did 90% of the copious and dull text. I received a B+ in the course because it's just so tedious and uninspiring. Oh and this guy could not care less about what you get out of the course; there's no guidance, passion or concern in his teaching style.

Nice as he may be on a personal level, he's pretty bad as a teacher. Boring, dry, unclear, overly complicated lectures.

He is a very sweet guy! I liked him but my TA was a very harsh grader. the material itself is super difficult. a lot of reading and YOU NEED TO DO THE READINGS otherwise forget about getting a high grade. it was a difficult class but once you are done it feels nice since you have gained a lot of knowledge. My advice just try to get a NICE T.A.