Hello Everyone,

I am looking into what to take as an elective in second year and I am interested in maybe taking one of the political science courses at mac. There are quite a few offered this year, D03, F03, H03, I03, J03, M03, O03.............

I was just wondering if anyone has taken any of these courses and has any advice/reviews of them!!

Thanks so much!!

I took 2I03 and I loved it. The prof is amazing-he cares about the students and his lectures are enjoyable to the point that I never noticed time passing in his classes (a big deal for me since I'm usually a huge clock watcher ) The course material is super interesting and so is the textbook-I'm keeping mine just because I liked certain chapters that much lol. If global politics is something that interests you definitely check this course out.
Also, its not hard to do well in. The midterm basucally guages whether you were paying attention, the exam is fair, and I enjoyed writing the main essay for the course. Tutorial was good too.

2I03 was my least favourite and my lowest mark (B). The course focuses on theories (Realism/Idealism etc. etc.) so I didn't find myself that interested, however, a lot of people in my tutorial really really enjoyed it.

2F03 and 2D03 were really good, they focused on Canadian politics and went hand in hand. The course material was extremely easy (10 + in both). The exam for 2D03 was essay style, and you had the question(s) before hand. The exam for 2F03 was short answer, and you knew where the questions came from but not all of them.

If you look at the syllabus for the courses you're interested in you'll get a better idea about whether it's for you or not.. as they usually tell you what the marking is made up of (participation, essays, midterm, exam style)

2M03 was my least favourite class of the bunch. A lot of jargon, and very little context. I dropped it.

2O03 is actually a six unit class, so it's 2O06. If you are interested in applying philosophy to politics, you might enjoy this one. A lot of reading, but minimum workload (two term papers and an exam). You get to learn about some cool thinkers like Machiavelli, Marx, and Plato.

I wouldn't suggest 2O06 unless you're really into theory, because that's all this class is. The assignment workload is light, but the readings are heavy. IMO you need to be good at theory to really excel in this class.

I took 2I03 way back with another professor, but the course is the same. I think the description on the Undergrad Calendar is kind of misleading. Like KN1991 said, it's also based on theories. I didn't hate the class, but keep in mind that you'll be talking about theories and how they mesh/clash in global politics, and NOT necessarily about the political institutions/government types in different countries.

2J03 is exactly what the title says - it's about the economy. It's still a Pol Sci course, but I remember my friends hating that class because of how heavy the econ stuff was. Not to the extent that you will need to bring a calculator to class or anything, but there is some crossover with what you might learn in a first year econ class.

2XX3 is good if you're interested in the developing world. This is basically the opposite of 2I03. You will talk about "This country has this political structure, and this is how it works with this country", etc. From what I remember, it's very little theory. Just keep in mind that it's politics of the developing world. There is pretty much no talk of developed countries, even for comparisons and things like that.