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She's very unclear about the assignments, so unclear you won't know how to do them. She also uses the syllabus to the point of not telling students about an assignment at ALL. She's terrible.

one of the worst classes i had at umass. She rambled on about absolutely nothing at all. Mandatory attendance is a joke seeing as we don't talk about anything special ever, umass should either fire her or cut this class from the requirements. AWFUL but you have to take it, avoid MJ she sucks

Awful teacher. Constantly disagrees with the assigned textbook, and tends to ramble a lot. Uses a rubric to grade essays, but grading is still highly inconsistent. Very condescending towards students both in and out of class.

Peterson is by far the worst professor I have had at UMass. The lecture is a joke; virtually no one is paying attention by the 30 minute mark. Print out the syllabus and staple it somewhere you will look everyday, assignments are assigned arbitrarily. The only good news is she is fairly lenient for late assignments. Avoid, if at all possible.

One of the worst professors I've had on campus. She was extremely condescending when I spoke to her outside of class and not helpful at all. I was more frustrated after talking to her than I was before. The lectures also suck, will NOT recommend to anyone.

I would rather gnaw my own foot off than take her class again.

basically she is unclear, condescending to students, and rude.

She thinks obscure facts are common knowledge leaving every one confused. assignments unclear. papers are hard and trick questions in her geo quizzes. just do yourself a favor and dont take this

Probably the worst class I've ever taken. Assignments don't make sense. Grading is nonsense. Not even an actual polisci class.

She doesn't tell you when assignments are due and she never gives anyone a decent grade. If you are thinking that your GPA is too high and you want to do a lot of work and still have it go down then by all means take her class.

No clear grading criteria and she seems to change how she grades things based on her mood. Her syllabus says that you don't need outside information for decision memos but if you don't use outside info you get an 80 and if you do you get a 98. She is often scatterbrained and doesn't know how to teach or communicate. She is often rude as well.

Not clear with instructions, rude to students, and an unfair grader. I would never recommend a class with her unless you want to work hard and see your GPA fall anyway. Only time I ever got below an A in my major and I worked really hard.

Don't take a class with her

She expects you to know things without having actually taught them. Writing papers for her is a total guessing game because if you don't talk about this one thing that she wanted but never taught you then you get at most a B. DON'T TAKE HER CLASS!

She acts like shes better than everyone else. She absolutely botched the switch to online learning because she isn't tech savvy enough to have lectures online so she switched to a format that makes the students essentially have to teach themselves and then gives a ridiculous final essay that no one knows what to say because none of it was covered

don't even know what to say about her because this class made no sense. had potential to be interesting but all she does is ramble and read off a slide and her "online" format is literally a joke, i hope the TA's are understanding of that when it comes to grading the final

I've only had her for a month and already wish I didn't. Her lectures are the most boring things I have ever had to go through. She assigns these tests 2 or 3 times a semester, and the instructions are so unclear, even having studied for it, I have to guess because I'm not sure what she's asking. If you see her name, just run the other way.

Worst teacher I have had so far. Her lectures are long, boring, and don't pertain to world politics for the first month. Don't bother showing up to the lectures they are recorded and don't matter anyways. Doing the readings don't even matter for her quizzes and essays are graded harshly depending on your TA. I regret not dropping this class.

This class was taken as gen ed. I had more reading for this class (that wasn't really relevant to any essays or quizzes) than all other classes combined. Lectures are boring and slow and don't make sense in the context of assignments. So much useless work. No consistency in grading criteria, will change throughout the assignment. Don't take it.

This class was a disaster and a half. Essays and learning check ins had barely anything to do with the material learned in class, all she did was read off the slides, and we basically had to teach ourselves with the amount of readings assigned. Don't take unless you want to lose your sanity by reading 120 pages every 2 days. Discussions are okay.

hours of assigned readings. lectures are so boring and tedious. only grades are essays, 2 quizzes, and final exam (2 essays timed). prep for final is just writing 6 outlines (essays) for her to select 2 at random. discussions are unhelpful and only attendance credit. first half of the class didn't even cover political science/international politics

Run away. Worst professor I have ever had. Lectures are useless, discussions are graded on attendance and participation but have nothing to do with the class and are a waste of time. TA's hate the professor as well and constantly say how bad she is. Haven't learned a single thing in this class.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS unless you want to stand back and watch an unfeeling professor take a wrecking ball to your GPA. Only take Pass/Fail. This prof. will exchange pleasantries with you while failing to respond to your actual questions, and then fail you without an explanation. Lectures are unfocused and rambly & prof. is an awful communicator.

Lectures are really boring, and the work you get can be hard to do because of how the information in the lectures is shared. I would not recommend this class, especially as a gen ed.

Lectures consist of her dryly reading off the slides, thankfully attendance is not mandatory for lectures. Weekly essays starting in the middle of the semester. Assigns an insane amount of irrelevant, mostly skippable readings. Two buggy online quizzes, clearly does not value your time but takes her sweet time grading.

Took 121poli sci this semester. Whether you are taking this for credit or gen ed I do not recommend. Lectures are useless to attend to as they have nothing to do with any of the exams. No consistency with grading at all on any of the essays. Do not take this class unless you want to listen to lectures that are practically useless and a gpa tanker.

Lectures had nothing to do with assignments or quizzes. Essay questions were worded weirdly and had many people confused on what they were asking until we would go over it in discussion sections. Would not recommend taking this class.

Professor Peterson gave pointless lectures and the learning checks and essay prompts had little to do with the class materials. I did not learn a single thing in the class and my TA was horrible with leading discussions.

i learned more from the class's snap groupchat than i did the lectures or discussions

Her lectures are mainly just her rambling and so far most of the readings assigned have little to do with our papers. She also gave me attitude on an email. Also she tends to make things due at 5:00 pm instead of midnight so keep that in mind.

Most of the material in lectures is not on the quizzes or papers and was quite confusing. Very few things are graded in this class; for it to be a 100-level class and be this annoying is ridiculous. Not a very engaging class and would not recommend taking it at all.

terrible

the learning checks have very difficult questions for a 100 level course. some of the stuff we review in lecture doesnt even matter and isnt on the learning check or essays. Also hard deadlines for the essays.

Horrible lecturer, literally impossible to stay engaged throughout the class. Essays were relatively easy but learning checks were beyond difficult and had little to nothing to do with the material learned in class. Pointless to attend lectures after a certain point in the semester.

They gave rambling lectures, often unrelated to the material, quizzes that had little to do with in-class material or the many long readings, and writing assignments that were unreasonably unclear and had an absurd grading scheme. I have twice in my life felt a professor was an active detriment to my education, and this is one such case.

Take a different class

They gave rambling lectures often unrelated to course material, hard quizzes unrelated to lecture material or any of the long reading assignments, and writing assignments with unreasonably unclear expectations and absurd grading schemes. I have twice in my life felt a professor was an active detriment to my education, and this is one such case.

The POLISCI121 final has 6 essay topics, 2 of which she assigns you last minute. I luckily had the time to spend 2 entire days writing 6 essays so I could submit them in advance, and luckily the 2 essay topics she chose were ones I already had written. Her class had so much excessive readings with far too much detail to remember for the quizzes.

The worst lecturer I have ever heard, she is being paid to rant about things she wants to talk about, rarely involved with class topic. Essay's are sent out two days before due date and she doesn't give warnings for them in lecture. Readings are all over the place. Someone got a 16 on an essay in that class, extremely hard grading.

Her quizzes and essay prompts are terribly written and her assignments are busywork related to her favorite contemporary political issues. Her lectures are disorganized and she rambles constantly. The class isn't very hard but I didn't enjoy anything about the way she teaches.

She talks about how she wrote the (very boring) slides the night before class, and the content nothing to do with essays that you are assigned. It takes years to get assignments graded and she doesn't acknowledge how much students are struggling. Without previous background or strong essay skills, I would have failed this class.

I couldn't tell you one thing I learned this semester. Her lectures were useless, and I could not follow a word she said. Content had nothing to do with any of the quizzes and beware of these. They tank your grade and the "History Quiz" is based off of nothing she's taught and is formatted so weird. I learned more from my TA, honestly.

DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS. The amount of reading is insane, especially considering it's a 100-level class. I gave up attending lectures after week 4 because I was genuinely drained from attending them. The quizzes have little to do with the material, but the lowest one is dropped. Little notice was given for essays. Honestly learned more from my TA.

This class was a lot. It had way too much readings that were not worth my time. Everyone failed the history quiz because it was based on random stuff not from lecture or reading, The assignments are also graded extremely late. The final was bit ridiculous as we had to prep for 6 essays just to have 2 randomly selected the day of and written in 2 hr

Lectures were draining and a waste of time. The class had potential to be interesting and insightful, but everything felt disorganized and disconnected from each other. The quizzes were based on random readings that were unrelated to what we learned in lecture. The essays weren't difficult, but only because I had a good basis in writing.

Gives very little information on what they're looking for in the assignments. Quizzes have nothing to do with what is discussed in the lecture. Grading is also tough.

The Professor was ok, and my other friends did well, but the TA I had was the worst. Not only does she grade harshly, but she would also beg for participation, and when you do, she would say "fine". She would also mock me, not respond to emails, and when I asked her questions, she would treat me as if I were an idiot and not answer the question.

believe these reviews. I made the mistake of not believing them. I have nothing against the professor; she is kinda helpful IF you reach out to her. multiple readings every day of the week all of which are at least 10+ pages long. Really tough grader, and participation matters. For the sake of your mental health, don't take this class. just awful.