Professor Johns seems so approachable and makes the subject matter seem so straightforward and easy in class, but she (or her TA, I'm not sure) is a ruthless grader. For a class where there is not always a clear right or wrong answer, it was surprising that even after filling up the entire page for short answers that it would be given 0/10 points. The weekly quizzes on the case studies are easy points, and that might depend on which TA you get. The exams are curved tremendously though. The final exam was quickly turned into a take-home assignment consisting of 4 short answer questions, with "no clear right or wrong answer" and I spent hours doing it and still got a 66%, which was curved to 83%. In the end I got a B+ (the first ever non-A in my time at UCLA). Also, she sent out quite an insensitive email regarding too many people asking for help/extensions in response to COVID-19, which threw a lot of students off. Take this class at your own risk.

This class was brutal! I loved the content but omfg, her exams. Her TAs literally told us that she wrote them in a specific way to mark down as many people as possible. Her midterm was significantly easier than the final.

LECTURES
She doesn't record lectures or post her slides online. She doesn't cover all of the chapter material in the lecture, so she expects you to read and study the textbook after she's done. She usually hints at exam questions during lectures (some are red herrings, though).

MIDTERM EXAM
The midterm was significantly easier than the final. With that being said, it wasn't easy at all. You need to cover every line of the chapter, every vocabulary term on the sheets, and every case study for section to have a fighting chance at a good grade. She included an extra credit question at the end worth 5 points. The questions were worth so many marks: one short answer was worth 12/50 marks.

FINAL EXAM
The final was genuinely hellish. She had questions about things never covered in the lectures and only found in a tiny table in the chapter. The exam was literally made to deflate grades and keep a low average. I don't understand how it was fair, but that's just her style, I guess.

DISCUSSION SECTION
We had to read cases and answer a 3 question quiz every week. You could miss one quiz. Section was the least offensive part of the class.

OVERALL
I loved the material covered, but the way the class was graded and structured just killed it for me. If you think you can devote most of your time to this, then I would recommend it. I wouldn't encourage you to take this class unless you're ready to listen to her spout her often offensive political opinions and face her excruciating exams...

Very easy class, the textbook isn't really even needed as long as you go to lecture. Free points from weekly quizzes and midterm/final are both extremely easy, took most people around 1/3 - 1/2 of the total time. Johns is quite funny and hated on unnecessarily

I am not sure why Johns is even teaching a course on World Politics if she cannot remain unbiased. She explicitly said "I love Israel" in lecture -- not that her opinion on this matters to me, but bluntly taking a side in the middle of class gives away her bias and also made a lot of students I knew in the class uncomfortable.

I believe this is why she doesn't record her lectures or post any of her lecture slides, because half of the content is her personal opinion and many times incorrect.

If you do not read historical and political accounts on your own time, you will leave this class misinformed and brainwashed by Johns' politics. Only take this class if you want to be indoctrinated.

While I agree with other reviews that have said some rather unpleasant things about Professor Johns, the class itself is not hard. It is true that the professor does not post lecture slides (if you need them that bad, go to office hours with a TA) or study guides (again, ask your TA to cover things you don't understand in section), the class is pretty straightforward. As long as you do your job as a student and attend class, and read the assigned book, I think you should be fine.
You are assigned reading quizzes for every chapter you cover (open note).
The midterm/final is MCQ and then SAQ. While she will say to be brief, DO NOT BE BRIEF. She will make you underestimate the exam and reassure you that it is a breeze. ITS NOT it's UCLA, you will need to study. You do not have to write long paragraphs, but ensure you are using the right vocabulary and answering the questions fully. I recommend studying the vocab so you can try your best to hit all the "key terms" she asks TAs to look for.
I don't believe that Professor Johns is mean or thrives from watching students fail. She is old school. She believes that her only job is to teach and go home. You definitely have to pull your weight. Go to class, read the book, study, and you will be fine.

While this class is manageable in workload, it is clear Professor Johns is the kind of teacher that does not want her students to succeed. The content of the class is interesting and relevant, yet Johns teaches it in the most frustrating way possible. Although her exam questions aren’t inherently difficult, she instructs TAs to grade them with such extreme specificity that anything except for textbook definitions are penalized. This led to the midterm class average being a D, which is absurd for a class with mostly straightforward content. Not only that, but Johns makes basic resources entirely inaccessible. She refuses to posts lecture slides online and doesn’t even provide them to the TAs, leaving both students and TAs totally lost. This class is doable if you keep up with the reading and attend every single lecture, but Johns’ grading and teaching styles make a very interesting class unnecessarily demoralizing.

This class definitely wasn't the easiest poli sci class I've taken at ucla. You should go into this class with the mindset that it will be hard and that you will need to put in the work, especially for the exams. The exams are pretty tough. The questions are very straightforward but you will need to memorize a lot of the key terms from the glossary as well as the general concepts throughout the course. You won't be able to manage unless you have truly studied. The studying does pay off though, because there are not really any trick questions.
The content of the course is very interesting, and you get a clear overview of what international law truly is and it is very practical information to take into your daily life when listening to the news. We don't really get into the details of different treaties, but enough to have a general overview.
There is a weekly discussion in which there will be a 3/4 question quiz based on the case study assigned for that week. The case study closely ties into the concepts discussed in class and the questions on the quiz are very straightforward as well. Such as, name of the treaty, actors involved, what crimes did they commit, etc. Your participation in the discussion and your quiz scores will really help you if you are not as good of a test taker. It is a combined 30% of your grade, and the exams a total of 70%.
This class is not tricky in any way, you will simply need to put the work in. I highly recommend.

Only take this professor if you actually have to. She doesn't post her lecture slides so god forbid you have an 8am like I did. The professor if not very helpful and almost finds joy in her students not doing well. I say this because she makes seemingly simple questions for her exams and proceeds to grade the answers insanely harsh. As in, she could as for a definition and you answer can be describing the word pretty accurately, but since it didnt have a specific word used in the textbook, you are getting docked majority of the points on that answer. Majority of my class flunked the midterm to the point where she had to curve our grades almost 20% up. She's also zionist and very conservative. Hated hearing her spread misinformation and have such a clear and blatant bias that I stopped going to class. Honestly, use your TA's as much as possible because overall this lady is a huge weirdo and big trumpie.

do not take this class with professor johns. unfortunately i had no choice </3. i will preface by saying that although i did well, this class was still bs and so stressful for an intro level polisci class. her lectures are dry and bland and she's made a few problematic and insensitive comments that made people like myself feel uncomfy. first day of class she talked about how we get two free absences from discussion and nothing else because she doesnt like to do unexcused absences because she doesnt want to hear about your grandma dying (my grandma literally died a week before this--she couldnt have known this but it just shows how insensitive she is).

she doesnt record lectures or post slides, which was horrible because this class was at 8 am, and there were a few exam questions that were not from the book and she briefly discussed in lecture for 2 seconds. she disagrees with the book during lecture sometimes which can get quite confusing when reviewing for the midterm.

there was no clarity about the midterm. go to the cpo test bank and look at old tests to see the format. that's how i did so well. before the midterm she said to keep answers brief and theres no need to write a lot. but when we got grades back, the class did horrible because she had such unrealistic grading standards!! she was looking for excessively and unnecessarily specific wording that was verbatim from the lecture or book. points were docked if you didnt use the exact wording, even if you use synonyms or paraphrase. this is such a poor way to test students on their knowledge. luckily they offered regrades--and the tests are curved.

there's no homework assignments besides chapter reading quizzes that are open book and open note. they are all due on the day of the final so you have all quarter to do them. stay on track on readings! i think that played a big role in me doing well in this class. the readings can be quite long and convoluted though. go to section too and participate at least 3x. our ta's tried to help us as much as possible and you can tell they really felt for us.

please listen to other reviews about this class with johns. it is absolutely not worth your stress. youre better off taking it with min or ying.

Do not take this class. Please.
She doesn't record her lectures or share her slides, yet expects us to remember extremely specific examples we saw in lecture for like 30 seconds for the midterm/final. Questions on both the midterm and final were poorly worded and were pulled from outdated textbook material from older textbooks. She expects hyper-specific wording from our answers in the midterm and final; it's basically impossible to get a perfect score unless you memorize literally every detail in the textbook or lecture. Our TA, Josh, who was amazing, gave her a list of reasonable requests that we all had from the midterm, such as a study guide or practice final, or releasing the lecture slides, or just some sort of guidelines as to what her expectations are, and she basically ignored his request.

The class before our midterm she made it clear that we can keep our answers short and concise and we would get the points, yet when we got our scores back, the answer key answers were 4-5 long, complex sentences that we basically had to know word-for word or else we wouldn't get the points. She also made a very misogynistic comment during the class before the midterm, saying that "girls tend to go on and on and ramble more than boys" when making a point about keeping your answers precise. This is a professor who does not care about her students' well-being.