The content is interesting once you get into it and a great skill to have in criticising world politics, but if you don't want 80 page readings every week, and a fuck tone of concepts to get your head around don't do it. Every week is a bombardment of new ideas that i have never heard of, and they expect you to pick it up quickly. Penny and Will do not know how to teach, they talk super academic in lectures and half the words that come out of their mouths i have never heard of. They also make questions super hard and everything hard in general. The weightings are also really bad - 50% for 1 assignment, 50% for 1 exam, so if you fuck up one your fucked.. Also with exam, you can't bring any material in so you are supposed to know all concepts well, plus examples to demonstrate, plus evidence from scholars quotes/ideas ect, and their fancy ass names to reference in the exam... Pretty much, if your not a nerd and have a life and have to work don't do this subject, because its a lot of work

THE WORST COURSE I HAVE DONE. For a first year subject, the content is extremely difficult. I took the subject in my third year as an elective, expecting interesting debate and content...however it is based on theory alone, with hardly any mention of any contemporary IR topics. Stephen was nice, but not very engaging as a tutor and the tutorials are a waste of time, with no one having done the readings and able to participate. Perhaps people would actually do the readings if they weren't 40000 pages long and dry as anything.

This subject is shit!

Average subject overall. The lecturer and tudor Penny was literally the worst tudor I've ever had, the way she spoke and engaged with the class was just horrendous.

A very well taught course. It is a crash course in IR theory, which is highly necessary for further study in the field.

Challenging course with a heavy theory focus at times quite slow going but rewarding.

Despite the fact that the course can be interesting at times, this course is not well taught at all. Penny's voice is un-tolerable (sorry) and not well suited for a Year 1 student

Have to agree with poster below. Is somewhat interesting though can be hard to grasp. Very theoretical. Not ideally suited to to first year students despite being an introductory course. Hard to cope without copious amounts of study and without prior knowledge. Readings are around 60 pages of academic articles per week. Lectures rarely ever cover all the content presented. And though this isn't nice or relevant to subject, Penny's voice and speed of talking is so irritating that it is almost impossible to watch lectures online.

Possibly one of the worst subjects ever, made worse by the fact that one of the lecturers cough*penny*cough is so unpalatable and intolerable it's not funny

Interesting subject, just not excellently taught. Do your readings and be on top of your final project to really succeed