Namrta Sharma | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Namrta Sharma PLCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/18/2025	The instructor is a first-year instructor, and I tried to keep that in mind during the headaches of this course, but it was really difficult to do so. I really recommend avoiding this professor for this class if possible. To her credit, I definitely think she is a very intelligent person with a lot of extremely relevant experience at a high level, and it was very enlightening to hear her insight on various policy areas throughout the course. However, there is simply too much wrong with how the class was run. For nearly all of the lectures, the slideshow and lecture were completely mismatched from what we were assigned to be reading from the textbook. Often, the lecture and textbook approached the same concept or policy area from completely different points, leading me to be very confused by the lectures. I feel that important, foundational ideas like the policy cycle were not emphasized and clarified enough, especially given that there are a lot of concepts in the course that are hard to differentiate. Assignments were moved and altered many times throughout the course. The quizzes had vast contrasts between very easy and very difficult questions, as well as many questions whose wording was so poor that neither I nor the TAs could grasp the meaning of it. This course is saved by the fact that it is very easy, being a foundational class, and all you need to do to succeed in the class is keep pace with the textbook.
Namrta Sharma PLCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2025	While she obviously cares about her students, this course definitely felt more self-taught if anything, and this is coming from a student who had never missed a single lecture. The textbook WILL become your primary resource for learning the material. Self study will bring you a long way. The guest speakers were a nice addition throughout the semester, but failed to add much to the material we were learning itself. If planning to take PLCY100 with her, be ready to pace yourself if you want a good grade. With this being said, the tests are not super challenging so if you can review your material you will do perfectly fine in this class.
Namrta Sharma PLCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/05/2025	Really sweet person, but you could definitely tell she was a first year teacher. Her class was not hard at all though and as long as you look at the slides you will be fine for quizzes. A lot of people skip lecture (no attendance taken) and even as someone who went every time I can agree that it wasn't necessary to go. We had 5 quizzes and you could drop two at the end of the semester. We had a midterm and then just a project as our final. Really never had homework only a few assignments throughout the semester that correlated with our final project. I would recommend taking PLCY100 with her but I do not know how great of a professor she would have been if the course material was actually difficult.

Namrta Sharma
PLCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/18/2025

The instructor is a first-year instructor, and I tried to keep that in mind during the headaches of this course, but it was really difficult to do so. I really recommend avoiding this professor for this class if possible. To her credit, I definitely think she is a very intelligent person with a lot of extremely relevant experience at a high level, and it was very enlightening to hear her insight on various policy areas throughout the course. However, there is simply too much wrong with how the class was run. For nearly all of the lectures, the slideshow and lecture were completely mismatched from what we were assigned to be reading from the textbook. Often, the lecture and textbook approached the same concept or policy area from completely different points, leading me to be very confused by the lectures. I feel that important, foundational ideas like the policy cycle were not emphasized and clarified enough, especially given that there are a lot of concepts in the course that are hard to differentiate. Assignments were moved and altered many times throughout the course. The quizzes had vast contrasts between very easy and very difficult questions, as well as many questions whose wording was so poor that neither I nor the TAs could grasp the meaning of it. This course is saved by the fact that it is very easy, being a foundational class, and all you need to do to succeed in the class is keep pace with the textbook.

Namrta Sharma
PLCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/08/2025

While she obviously cares about her students, this course definitely felt more self-taught if anything, and this is coming from a student who had never missed a single lecture. The textbook WILL become your primary resource for learning the material. Self study will bring you a long way. The guest speakers were a nice addition throughout the semester, but failed to add much to the material we were learning itself. If planning to take PLCY100 with her, be ready to pace yourself if you want a good grade. With this being said, the tests are not super challenging so if you can review your material you will do perfectly fine in this class.

Namrta Sharma
PLCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/05/2025

Really sweet person, but you could definitely tell she was a first year teacher. Her class was not hard at all though and as long as you look at the slides you will be fine for quizzes. A lot of people skip lecture (no attendance taken) and even as someone who went every time I can agree that it wasn't necessary to go. We had 5 quizzes and you could drop two at the end of the semester. We had a midterm and then just a project as our final. Really never had homework only a few assignments throughout the semester that correlated with our final project. I would recommend taking PLCY100 with her but I do not know how great of a professor she would have been if the course material was actually difficult.