This is for PS149: Trump's Predictable Win Deciphering 2018
Took this class over the summer. Overall it is not a hard class. Midterm 40%, Final 50%, Participation 10%. For the midterm and final, you have to submit questions potential questions on CCLE so that you're building a class study guide. Also submitting questions goes into your participation grade. If he picks your question for either the midterm or final, he gives you a bonus point. Most of the time he would pick questions straight from there-so if you just study off of that you're fine.
For readings, there is no textbook. The first week there were long scholarly articles, and after that it was online articles from NYT, WSJ, and FiveThirtyEight. Truthfully you don't need to do these readings because if someone writes a question about the reading, you can just go and find it.
He reads straight from the powerpoint slides. But you had to go to lecture because he had us get into groups and write our thoughts down and submit them for participation points. Shrode's lectures themselves were not that engaging.
Midterm was super easy (all of the questions were from the online study guide) so everyone did well (not surprising it's summer). So he decided to make the final more "involved" (as he put it), and wrote questions that took the bad and vague questions from the study guide and put them onto the final. He grades hard. He admits that, so he puts the grades onto a really weird and confusing curve.
Not a hard class, and required minimal effort.

Did not enjoy this class at all.

This review is for Economic Inequality in the US. I have always found this topic interesting and enjoyed the class as a whole.

I anticipate getting an A in this class. To this point, I have put in moderate effort. The reading is substantial, but not incomprehensible. I figure it is on par with what can be expected of any political science class. The midterm was demanding, but our reader seemed to be a lenient, though sporadically punitive.

The course material is interesting, but becomes increasingly redundant as the course drags on. Shrode is not the most interesting guy, but he is approachable and genuinely cares enough to set his students on the right path in terms of what he looks for on midterms and the paper.

I would take his class again. Very bright guy, consummate academic. Enjoys the political discourse.