Professor spews the most neoliberal, pro-capitalist, pro-colonial approach to international development that I have ever heard. TA Daniel Carnahan was really self absorbed and graded way harder than the other TAs- if you have him switch out.

Posner lectures really well and his explanations make even the more complex readings very digestible (highly recommend going to lecture first before doing the readings for this reason). There were no required textbooks which was really nice. All readings are posted and there's a decent amount some weeks, but it's never unmanageable.

I thought that the exams were really fair. The midterm was a take-home essay answering a prompt which asks you to draw on material from throughout the course. The other portion was just answering a few ID terms in class, and all potential ID terms are given ahead of time. The final was similar, except it was all in class and there was an additional portion of FRQs.

I was a little concerned going into this class because I had Jacques as my TA and saw the negative reviews about him from previous quarters, but Jacques was a great TA this quarter! He had us work together during discussions to identify key points of readings, help each other with ID terms before exams, and he'd give us exam pointers as well as detailed explanations about more difficult concepts.

Overall highly recommend this class - workload and exams are reasonable and the material itself is super interesting.

I wasn't initially sure I would like the class because I was not the most interested in the subject, but Posner does a great job of breaking extremely complex subject matters down to make them understandable. The grade consisted of a midterm (half of it was term ID's, the other half was a take-home essay, it was worth 1/2 of the final grade), a final (35% of grade, all in person), and discussion participation (15%). The tests were intimidating initially but as long as you study the terms he gives you ahead of time, they should be a breeze.

This class was okay at best. Prof. Posner caught COVID and the class was administered on ZOOM. As my fellow peers have stated, the TA you end up with matters, as they are the ones who will grade your midterm and final exam. My advice for you: Avoid TA Jacques Courbe at all costs. He graded us quite harshly in comparison to other TAs. On top of that, he was clearly unprepared for much of the discussion sections. It is ironic that he expected us, the students, to be on top of the weekly readings, yet he himself clearly wasn't. He literally BS'd the summary of many readings during sections -- so much for quality education. Jacques, if you are reading this, DO BETTER. We the students can sense whenever you BS, too, just sayin'.

Two midterms - exam & take home paper (25% each), final exam - but due to Covid it was a take home final (35%). and discussion (15%). My TA did not assign any class work, but graded based on attendance & participation. Professor Posner is an engaging lecturer and the material is easy to digest, he does include a lot of graphs and data in his slides. Posner does hand out study guides prior to each midterm and final. Originally, he did not record lectures, just posted slides, but once he got Covid himself and Covid cases increased, he finally made that decision to record and post it on Bruin Learn. Overall, if you put the work into studying for the exams and attend discussion, it's easy to get a good grade.

I thought the class itself was fine. But your grade depends entirely on your TA. My TA, Jacques, graded very harshly compared to the other three. Super unfair.

Really reasonable testing and workload. Never did the readings and got through the course well. Pretty basic overview of all of the concepts but interesting and pretty easy to follow along to what he's saying. Would recommend taking if you don't want to do busywork and prefer timed tests/essays.

This class's topic was interesting, but the number of readings and the dry lectures made it hard to sit through. the class consisted of two midterms (one in class and one take-home essay) and one final. it was a relatively easy class if you put the work in.

Oh man this class was the best. I enrolled in it as a 4th class initially because it was one of the only ps upperdivs come second pass and because the grade distribution looked great (tbh I didn't even know what political economy of development meant). I was not expecting the class to be so academically rewarding. Prof Posner is an engaging lecturer who clearly an expert in his field and ready to body any questions people threw at him mid lecture. You have to take pretty extensive notes because his slides aren't very informative (just pictures) so make sure you go to class or have a good note taking friend. My TA was fantastic and set the bar high right out of the gate which made discussions in section really interesting. The class was a lot of work and the midterm and final were difficult in that they required you to retain a lot of info but I don't think I've learned more from a class at UCLA than this one. TLDR: take this class if you want to learn more about the world and feel educated, but be prepared to work. Posner is great and so are his TAs; highly recommend

Oh man this class was the best. I enrolled in it as a 4th class initially because it was one of the only ps upperdivs come second pass and because the grade distribution looked great (tbh I didn't even know what political economy of development meant). I was not expecting the class to be so academically rewarding. Prof Posner is an engaging lecturer who clearly an expert in his field and ready to body any questions people threw at him mid lecture. You have to take pretty extensive notes because his slides aren't very informative (just pictures) so make sure you go to class or have a good note taking friend. My TA was fantastic and set the bar high right out of the gate which made discussions in section really interesting. The class was a lot of work and the midterm and final were difficult in that they required you to retain a lot of info but I don't think I've learned more from a class at UCLA than this one. TLDR: take this class if you want to learn more about the world and feel educated, but be prepared to work. Posner is great and so are his TAs; highly recommend