Comments:PSC 3345 - Making American Foreign Policy with Dr. Alley was very informative. It’s obvious that Dr. Alley enjoys the topic and we spend the first part of the class talking about current foreign policy news and how to understand it. The class is discussion based, so make sure to do your readings, or it will be obvious. However, most of your grade only comes from the 3 papers and presentation. The only thing to note is that he values detail and is kind of nitpicky in his essay grading. The class average was usually a B or A- for essays, which surprised and kind of forced me to spend a lot of time adding detail and answering all of the prompts. If you’re detail oriented and engage with the readings, you’ll be fine!  - Grade In Class:A

Comments:2315 - While I don’t have as big of a vendetta against Professor Alley as some of my peers do, I am frustrated with the class as a whole. I have no doubt that Professor Alley is knowledgeable in IR and that he is a great scholar, but his teaching abilities were subpar. He engaged in an inverted classroom style, which meant watching lecture videos at home on top of an already lengthy reading load. I’ve always found inverted classrooms to be unfavorable, but in a subject as challenging as International Politics it felt at times impossible to grasp the concepts fully. This became extra daunting when added to the fact that we had almost daily quizzes over the readings and videos that were designed, in my opinion, unfairly. While I finished the class with a passing grade, I think the class is set up to make the subject much harder than it needs to be. If I had to guess, I would assume Professor Alley allocates a large amount of his time to his own personal research and studies, which in the end presented as minimal effort to his students learning. This is his first year teaching at Baylor and I believe his first time teaching the class in this style too, so I hope he learned from this semester and changes the way he does things for his future classes to benefits the student’s learning and understanding more. Overall, I think Professor Alley is a really smart and nice man, but is a really difficult professor to learn from. If you can take a different professor with better reviews I would advise it, but if you can’t then just be aware that you will be putting a lot of effort into this class in order to make a good grade. It’s not impossible, just difficult.  - Grade In Class:A

Comments:2315 - Contrary to other reviews on here, I think Dr. Alley is a really great professor. FUNDIP used to be considered a 3000 polysci class until recently. THIS COURSE IS A WEED OUT COURSE. This was his first semester teaching at Baylor, so his syllabus was extremely flexible due to seeing how students performed. He changed his syllabus after the drop date, and my grade went from an 82 to a 94 in seconds because he raised his quiz grades for the students who stuck it out. If you plan to go to law school or any post grad program, the amount of work and difficulty of this class was a little less than, but matched the workload of a typical law school course. If you are up for a challenge and are wanting to walk away actually learning the content, then take this class. If you want just an easy passing grade, don't.  - Grade In Class:A

Comments:PSC 2315 - Extremely difficult readings and so many quizzes based directly on the readings. The grading system for the quizzes is also absurd; you can get either a 0, 40, 80, or 100. It is a flipped class, so 90% of the work is homework. Some of the in-class activities are kind of fun though.  - Grade In Class:B

Comments:PSC 2315 - I cannot express how much I dislike this man, so I will simply state a few facts for if you choose to take his class. You will be assigned around 100 pages per class to read. This man will not lecture you, instead he will put videos of himself standing in front of a missile on canvas. His quizzes are obscene. They are two questions free response, which he will only grant you a 0, 40, 70, or 100. There will be maybe one or two of you that will receive a 100, and it’s not because you’re right, or thorough, or even did the reading, it’s because you’re his favorite. The rest of you he will give a 40 or a 70 for him not being able to understand the very topic he feigns teaching. He does not follow his syllabus. He does not know how to speak without the frequent usage of “um.” It will take him 10 minutes to not answer your questions. On top of that, he will proceed to shame you. Publicly. If you claim to be confused by his quizzes. He will not offer you help. He has 2 hours a week of office hours, so schedule your classes around his schedule. Oh, and he will determine your grade for major assignment based on a computer generator that he has openly admitted will not work in your favor. The one time it did he decided not to take that simulation for a grade. If one group gets a 100, one group will have to get a 0. So you better pray that the computer doesn’t label you as Austria-Hungary, or your grade is automatically tanked. I think he is a bad professor. Nope not professor, I’m sorry, professor’s assistant. I think he is biased, lazy, and unfair to his students. He claims to not be able to meet with his students more often because he is writing a very important paper. So my final thought, or more so speculation, is if he just sits in his office all day keying in the word “um.” Assistant Professor Alley, your move.  - Grade In Class:D

Comments:PSC 2315 - His class is like a shock therapy. At first you kind of get screwed over by his quizzes but once you learn how to do them they are not awful. The class is flipped which may take some adjustment however his online videos that he posts are very helpful and if you go to his office hours you will do fine. He is very reasonable if you get to talk to him and the actually classes themselves are a lot of fun as you just basically goof off doing simulations. Its not the easiest class, but he is not a dick about it and it is his first semester teaching and he has already gotten a bit better.All in all I think you should take his class, however I would not expect it to be a walk in the park.  - Grade In Class:A

Comments:2315 - DO NOT TAKE PROF ALLEY! On his daily quizzes(over 100+ page readings) you can essentially receive only a 30,70, or 100. Hardly any student ever receives a 100. On top of the readings, you have to watch the lectures at home before every class and take notes before class. In class, you will perform simulations where your grade relies on a random number generator that will never perform in your favor, after which you have to write an essay that will never be at an A level for him. For a fundamentals class, he is completely unrealistic with his 'teachings' and reading assignments. You will struggle in this class and almost never understand what is going on.  - Grade In Class:D