grade: H1 :) my absolute favourite subject this semester. i cannot sing its praises enough. i showed up to every lecture, every tutorial, and did every reading solely because the content was just SO FUN and interesting! gonzalo is genuinely goated, a lot of my love for this subject is bc of him. the marking was very fair, i found it quite lenient in fact, and the assignments were a breeze, scored quite well on everything! if you’ve got any interest in IR or modern politics in general, this is the subject for you. (there’s a textbook; don’t waste your money, it’s available for free online). it was essentially structured into three blocks: history, theory and then application of the theory to contemporary world order/modern issues. while the first three weeks might be a bit slow, it quickly picks up and the rest of the semester is great content. even the theory isn’t dull bc it’s intermixed with a lot of application and critical thinking. the readings are definitely a bit long, but even if you skip a few, the tutorials cover the content quite well so you’ll get the gist of it in no time. i lucked out in my tutorial with a great group of people, and it was essentially a big yap session. it was the class i looked forward to the most every week bc it was so engaging and the discussions would inevitably shift to real world/current political situations and everyone would have new and interesting viewpoints to contribute. it’s always difficult to score well in an arts or essay-based subject but in terms of assessments: the quizzes are quite easy, i’d looked forward to doing the essay bc the topic i picked was something i wanted to research on, and the final on-campus exam was sooo chill it was a pleasant surprise. my tips for studying are THOROUGHLY read up on the theories (traditional - the big three, non-traditional, ethical/normative) so you have the knowledge to explain them, analyse them and apply them to a real-world issue. learn the basics of history and brush up on the transnational issues taught in the last few weeks and that should be enough. i CANNOT recommend it enough :)

really enjoyed this subject, though i slacked off a lot after the mid-sem break. got a high h1 - engaged with readings a lot (again, particularly in the first half of sem, but because this covered the key theories it gave me a good foundation), and the content was genuinely super interesting. went to most of the lectures in-person - gonzalo is super engaging, and i really liked claire and her way of explaining things too. my tutor was apparently quite harsh on some classmates when marking our essays, but i got a low h1 for that. i think if you can get yourself a bit invested and interested in this subject, you'll do well.

I really enjoyed this subject! Great lecturers, and the content was interesting. There is a lot of content and readings to keep up with but if you put the work in you can do well. Highly recommend

I really loved this subject as an introduction to politics. The content was a lot, but it was quite engaging. I found it quite hard to score highly on the subject, but don't let that stop you from taking this subject. The tutorials were super helpful and useful and helped me with understanding the assignments. I also really enjoyed the readings, and they were helpful in letting me decide whether to major in Politics or not. It was quite stressful to keep up with the lecturers but other than that it was fire.

Too much content with too little time, the concepts could be explained in more detail. Assignments are also quite hard, I do not recommend this to anyone if you are not planning to major in politics.

Great introductory subject, but definitely designed for a introduction for those thinking to major. Tutorials are super helpful and I definitely think a good tutor will help you a lot with the readings. Subject is split into history - theory - and issues (current events), which gives a good introduction for wider study and specialisation into either.

Interesting content, but there is a lot of it for a relatively short amount of time. Recommend for people planning to major in politics. Definitely do the readings as there are a lot of theoretical concepts! My tutor was really nice.

A lot of content to keep track of so I would advise continual revision to maintain an understanding. I found it very interesting and the tutes were relatively engaging but I would say that it is kind of hard to do well in the subject unless you engage really well with readings. Overall but there is probably more work involved than other classes and I would not consider it a WAM booster, but I would still recommend! This is also coming from someone who did not do a single reading.

The content for this subject was really theoretical with few real world applications. There was a lot of work every week with there being 2 lectures on different topics and 2-3 readings. The readings were really heavy readings and difficult to process and read, therefore requiring a lot of effort and time to read them. The tutorials often discuss the readings in detail, so it is definitely not a subject where you can skip the readings. The assignments were okay to do, I personally had some difficulty with structuring the essays, but this was easily resolved with asking my tutor for help. The tutorial discussions are interesting and engaging and I found that my tutor gave us a variety of activities to do throughout the semester ranging from debates, brainstorms, critical comparisons and group discussion. I found that the take-home exam was quite easy to do, they give you a reasonable amount of time to do it and the structure of 2 short answer questions and a short essay was do able, if you pick questions that play to your strengths in the subject. If you are not from a politics background, some of the concepts and theories can be quite abstract, and they start to blend together after a while. The textbook was useful in achieving a base understanding of different concepts. Do not buy the textbook, it can be found online for free with a little bit of googling. Unless you are taking this subject as a requirement for your major/minor I wouldn't recommend it as it was content-heavy and hard to score well on the assignments, but overall not too bad.

Recommended only for those who major in politics, otherwise your WAM could be ruined. This is the lowest score among my four subjects this semester. I studied very hard but only got 72 (H2B). You can learn a lot from this subject and there’s a lot of content.