PLAP 1010

Professor Ceaser is quite a dry lecturer. As others said, he tends to ramble and doesn't use slides or anything, so it's quite difficult to follow his point and pay attention for the whole class. Readings are relatively easy, as are the midterm and final, but I didn't leave feeling like I had really learned anything. It just felt like a rehashing of a high school government class. I had Anthony Sparacino as my TA. It was his first time teaching a section, and while he was a nice guy, discussions were awkward and pretty pointless. I would avoid taking this class with Ceaser if you can.

Ceaser is a very interesting man to talk to, and seems to have a genuine love for the subject matter. That being said, he tends to ramble during lecture.

VERY DRY. He's really nerdy cool and funny, but it goes often unappreciated because of how dry he is. Lectures are not worthwhile and wholesome. Textbook is informative and the way the course is structured is well done, just not how he teaches it. I'm currently sitting pretty at a B-. Not worthwhile.

The class is mostly focused on the history of American politics, not so much on contemporary politics. Professor Ceaser tends to ramble a bit and his lectures are confusing because he doesn't use Powerpoints. Going to lecture is necessary because everything is tested on exams. 1 midterm, 2 papers, 1 final. The midterm was very specific, and the final was also but to a lesser extent. Read EVERYTHING and understand it. Also, for your own sake, keep up with the readings and don't wait until the exam to read all of it...that's what I did, and I suffered through reading more than half of a textbook in 2 days. That being said, it's not too hard to do decently in this class (B+/A-). I would say it is pretty difficult to get an A though. The class is worthwhile if you've never taken a politics class before.

Do not take this class. Skip over it and take the more specific and interesting politics classes. This class is not fun, and it is a much more difficult abstract version of AP Gov.
The Professor is VERY smart, but lectures can easily get off topic and it is impossible to study for the midterm final because there is NO WAY to pick out what is important and what is not. The professor and the TAs give NO guidance whatsoever on how to study or prepare for the midterm or final.
Papers were not bad but your grade depends entirely on your TA.

The TA saved my life in this class. James Ceaser is very clearly knowledgable (he has a PhD from Harvard) but his lectures are quite unstructured and boring (there are no powerpoints). Also, because there is a lack of structure, it’s difficult to study for the exams, but the TAs in discussion definitely help. I wish this class was more “politics” focused. I thought this would be focused on policy and such, but it’s basically your IB HOA class. Take it if you want, but eh.

I came into UVA thinking I wanted to go into law/government, so I took this course. This course pretty much made me not interested in it at all, not sure if it was because of my TA or because how boring and hard the class was. This was my first C I have ever gotten. Tests were incredibly hard and the papers were graded pretty harshly. Again, this could've just been because of my TA (Nicholas Jacobs). I also feel like I never knew what to expect on exams. We were never really given a clear outline of what to really know about. They just threw a bunch of irrelevant knowledge at you pretty often.

While this course is just a foundational course in American politics, I found it really interesting. This first half of the course covers the basics (Founders, branches of government), it becomes more applicable to modern day politics as the course progresses. Professor Ceaser is a great lecturer. He sometimes goes on tangents, but he always talks about current politics and tries to keep the mood light while lecturing.
There was a lot of reading per week that was necessary for the discussion. The textbook information was usually went over in lecture, but reading it was helpful for the midterm and final. Primary sources were discussed in the discussion section. I had Kal Munis as a TA. His discussion section was very dry, but the powerpoints he did sometimes were great study guides. The questions he asked demanded that you read at least the primary sources and discuss them. Participation in and attending the discussion is part of your grade.
There were 2 papers. Both had multiple topic options and were graded fairly. Midterm was was pretty basic info if you attended lecture and did the readings. Final was a little harder than the midterm, but still pretty easy.

Okay so I really don't want to hate on this class because the material is pretty interesting and Ceaser is a really nice guy, but I want to caution anyone who wishes to take this course. Firstly, the academic structure of the class is as follows: two essays, a midterm, a final, and the addition of participation points awarded for active contribution during discussion. While this is not too bad, messing up any one assignment may result in an impossibility to raise your grade back up, so keep this in mind. The midterm wasn't TOO bad but it certainly wasn't great either, both papers are graded by your TA and unless you are really bad at writing you'll likely end up with between a C+ to an A on your papers, the final is both VERY specific and conceptual, but if you allow yourself enough time to study for it you should be fine. I can not stress this enough when I say you must read ALL OF THE MATERIAL if you wish to be successful in this class. Also an important point to note is the fact that you won't receive your first grade in this class until after the drop date, which for some people really hurt them and their GPA. Ceaser is the next person I want to talk about because while he is a nice and quirky guy, he also runs the most unstructured class I've ever been to in my entire class. Ceaser simply speaks to a lecture hall of a few hundred students and expects you to take notes on everything he says. There are no powerpoints, there are no online notes posted, and Ceaser will go on unnecessary tangents that make your notes confusing and unstructured as well. When I say Ceaser goes on tangents I don't mean he veers off talking about federalism for two minutes to talk about current affairs, instead he'll shift the conversation to aliens and peanut galleries for minutes at a time completely breaking everyone's train of thought. This class is essentially a far more difficult version of AP Gov with some ambiguity sprinkled in. I finished with a B+ because I re-read the entire textbook and all of the supplemental readings over the course of two weeks and did well on the final which helped raise the B average I had prior. Overall it is a very interesting class and would recommend it if you want to give yourself a challenge!

Overall, this course wasn't much different from AP Government, but Professor Ceaser tends to go on and a lot of tangents, sometimes rambling about nothing relating to the lecture for 20 minutes. This was still a really good class, but if you can take it with another professor, I would do so.