There was A LOT of content in this class. Everything within the textbooks, lectures, and additional readings was fair game on the midterm. The average was okay on the midterm but he gave a very demeaning speech about how he was disappointed with the midterm grades (which was in person and closed notes). The grade distribution was 20% attendance and participation, 20% country assignments (these were 4 one page assignments about a country of your choosing and were pretty easy and had averages in the 90-100%), 20% midterm, and 30% final. After the midterm, he took a poll and the class decided to have the final be online and open note. The final was super long for the time period given, but it was a lot better when open note as long as you did a good job of preparing the material. Overall, Homola is a very nice person, and a great professor who is very knowledgable, just the sheer amount of content made this course difficult.

I liked this class a lot despite not really having much interest in IR or comparative politics. Prof. Homola lectures in a way that really helps to understand the concepts and he genuinely wants you to do well in the class. In my opinion there was a perfect amount of work:reading & if you didn't do great on one assignment/test you could still do well. There are 4 "Country Assignments", basically a sustained investigation on one country broken up into very loosely graded essays (I got a 10/10 on all 4 and never spent more that 3 hours on them). There is a midterm and final, our midterm was closed note & in person with a monitored browser - our class did not do well - so he offered to give the final in a class-picked format, which was on BruinLearn and open-note). Honestly I didn't find either test to be particularly difficult, got a B on the midterm and A on the final, you just need to review and understand the major concepts of the class-especially anything gone over in heavy detail or the assignments. Sections were mainly review of lecture, but tied in specific readings - I never did a single one of these readings and kept up fine. Overall, this class was not graded strict or too much of a workload, but I actually learned a lot about the topics discussed.