Module review for PS2237: Introduction to International Relations

Taken AY2014/2015 Semester 2


PS2237: Introduction to International Relations

I’d already had misgivings regarding IR before taking this module, but I heard that the lecturer was a world-famous constructivist and therefore I took this module. I came to regret it, however, because I struggled with understanding the content and the copious amount of long readings that we had to digest.

The lecturer is very smart and funny, and is a generally cool guy. However, lectures felt like they were pitched at a higher level, and seemed to miss out important information that we were probably assumed to already know and understand. I was left feeling lost for a good part of the semester, and the readings themselves were difficult to get through and often difficult to understand or internalize. However, for this module, the readings are imperative to your understanding and foundation of IR, especially if you can’t follow the lectures. Let it not be said that the lecturer is not a flexible guy, though – he asked for our feedback, and decided that he would provide slides next time so that students would be able to follow his lectures better, and he even removed the readings that we feedbacked were boring and/or terrible.

He’s also a really nice guy, because he provides possible exam questions for both the midterms and finals, about 10-11 questions each. This allows you some time to prepare, and it is very advisable to split up the workload with some friends and prepare your answers together. He would also come up with very difficult questions as part of that question list, only to actually give the easier questions on the day itself. This saved my grade immensely, because I had no idea what was going on for topics such as the global commons, nuclear deterrence and the list goes on (I’m actually shocked at how little of the content I’m able to process). To be fair, I did understand somewhat, but it was next to impossible to write a decent essay on it, especially when the essay in question was so hard! Thankfully, those questions didn’t come out for the exams.

Assessment: There is tutorial participation (10%), midterms (20%), two 900-word essays (15% each) and finals (40%). This is really a lot of components for assessment.

We were required to do two 900-word essays out of four, over the span of the semester. He would provide this list of four at the very start, and provide deadlines for each so that the work would be more evenly spaced out. With that said, these essays were very closely linked to the readings, and you definitely need to do the relevant readings in order to make a decent attempt at writing these essays. It was extremely difficult to be so succinct, since 900 words isn’t actually a lot.

For midterms, he gave us the entire lecture slot to do one essay, which was great because that was more than enough time. I find that there is a tendency to do better for midterms if one writes more pages – if that means you write more actual, legit content (not fluffing). One must be careful to identify what the question is asking for though (for example, whether it’s talking about realism, liberalism, or both) because it’s easy to lose many marks in this area.

Workload: The workload was definitely heavy, and it’s impossible to read all the readings (although I think some ambitious students managed that). The earlier readings are quite foundational, however, and usually they’re discussed during tutorials, so you would do well to read them. This module was very torturous for me, because I strongly disliked IR, but on a whole, I must say that it eventually turned out okay.


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Module review for PS2237: Introduction to International Relations

Taken AY2014/2015 Semester 2


PS2237: Introduction to International Relations

I didn’t enjoy this mod that much, but it nevertheless provided a good foundation for future IR mods. I thought IR would be a bit more colourful with country case studies, but I was mistaken. The focus was on familiarization with the key theoretical concepts, so it can get a bit boring. The readings provided many examples, but I think we probably weren’t expected to know all of them in the exams. Demonstrating in-depth understanding of the theories seemed most important.

The lecturer was okay – very knowledgeable, funny and he uploads short summaries on IVLE. However, he goes very fast in lectures (and tends to ramble) so it may be difficult to follow at times.

Assessment
10%: tutorial participation
30%: two 900 word essays
25%: midterms
35%: finals

We were given four essay questions to choose from (due at different times), so that gave us the liberty to plan according to our own work schedules. You absolutely must read the relevant readings for the essays (one reason being you’ll need to cite). For the midterms, we were given a list of six possible questions to prepare beforehand; for the finals, twelve questions. Some of them were really, really hard and I hadn’t the slightest idea how to answer them. Luckily, the lecturer was tremendously kind when setting exam questions. For both the midterms and finals, he came up with the simplest and most direct questions from the lists. I’m sure everyone was very grateful.

Workload
I would say the workload for this mod is quite heavy. There were plenty of long readings to complete. While I don’t think it necessary to read them all, it’s good to read those you deem important. Or risk feeling completely lost during lectures and for the essays.

Studying for the finals was tough to say the least. There was a lot of content to cover, and the possible questions weren’t easy at all. It’s even worse when you’re desperate, and waste time trying to decide which topics to drop. On the bright side, final exam accounts for only 35% of your grade, so you don’t have all your eggs in one basket. Doing well for the CA will definitely help.


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