PLIR 3400

Professor Owen is a great lecturer, and discussions are fairly easy to partake in. The tests are not hard if you've attended class and understand the readings.

Professor Owen is awesome. Really smart, engaging, and presents material fairly and evenly (which is pretty impressive given the current political climate). The course basically presents the main foreign policy theories (this class is VERY theory-based) and applies historical examples. There is a LOT of reading, and if you want to do really well you should probably do all of it.
The only real issue I have with the course is that the final exam expected a little too much that was possible for students. It basically asked us to apply theories to major foreign policy questions (many of which had just occurred in 2017... so it is hard to judge even for seasoned scholars), look at advantages, drawbacks, etc. It was frustrating to me because this was essentially the same question as the 12 page research paper we had just turned in and that took *weeks* of research, writing, planning, and meeting with TAs. I think the questions were a little unfair and graded a bit harshly.
Other than that, great class... highly recommend if you're at all interested in foreign policy.