I guess the pros and cons of this class can be summarized by the following:

--The professor cares and you will learn A LOT about Islam

Now normally, a class where you learn a lot, and where the professor cares is a good thing. In many ways for this class, it is a good thing: the professor responds to emails, the professor has engaging lectures, and the course modules are very well designed. Furthermore, I learned more about Islam than I ever imagined I would have. Regardless of your experience with Islam, you WILL learn about things you will have no idea that existed. This class really opened my eyes about what Islam is and isn't.

That said, the professor acts as if this class is the only class we're taking. The workload makes engineering upper-divs look like cakewalks. During a typical week, you will be assigned 80 or so pages, and you WILL be tested on them. One week, I was assigned 160 pages of reading. Yes, that's right, 160 pages of dense reading, that ranges from really engaging to mind-numbingly boring. You will also need to acquire Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World and An Introduction to Muhammad. Those books are NOT listed as required books, but they are.

Exams are generally not too bad, but you will have 3 of them, weighted equally. You will be given a study guide for each of them, and exams are short response. Fortunately, the study guide has questions that will be on the exam, and since they're open note you can really prepare for them. Modules are also graded on correctness, and discussion sections are mandatory, with participation graded. Discussion sessions do cover tested materials. Like most GEs, the discussions were well organized (Azeem Malik was an awesome TA). Apparently, there's some extra credit, but never needed it; my grade was never seriously in jeopardy.

In normal years, there is a final paper required for this class. Fortunately, due to COVID, it was made optional (no-harm), but I imagine it would be hard to do

Maybe if we were on the semester system, the class would not be as bad. Then again, Dr. Sayeed would probably use the extra time to pile on even more work. Regardless, we're on the quarter system. so the class has horrible amounts of work.

But if you are really interested about Islam, and have a lot of time on your hands, this class actually teaches you a lot.

This class and professor Sayeed are excellent. The lectures (and weekly readings) are consistently interesting and the professors always leave sufficient time at the end of class to answer questions. Also, having multiple professors teach the course means there are many more office hours than typical courses, making it easier to attend, ask questions, and get to know the professors.
Unlike what my high school teachers warned of, the professors care about the individual students in the class and actively respond to student feedback. In my class, we mentioned that the workload was too much and the professors responded and decreased it to a manageable level.
The TAs are really exceptional; they are easy to talk to, extremely knowledgeable, reachable outside of class/discussion, and are accommodating of personal issues.
I highly recommend this class to STEM students looking for GEs. The cluster covers a wide variety of subjects and methodologies, letting you focus on the things you enjoy doing. Also, it forces you to get accustomed to reading peer-reviewed academic papers, which is a good skill to have if interested in doing research of any kind, including STEM research.

Prof. Sayeed is very intelligent and engaging. However, there were a few things about this class that I didn't like...

1. She doesn't allow any form of technology in class (so all notes must be handwritten) and only posts a few of the slides from lecture. Because I'm a slow writer, I ended up missing a lot of the information and couldn't refer back to most of the slides because they weren't available. :(
2. The tests were very inconsistent! The first one was incredibly easy and the last two were pretty hard. They include fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and multiple choice reading comprehension questions.

The breakdown is as follows: 3 midterms, 0 finals, 1 six-page paper, and participation points for showing up to discussion. There are a lot of readings (which I didn't really do) and there was 1 pop-quiz that was just factored into participation. We also got one 5-point extra credit assignment and study guides for all of the midterms.

Overall, I feel like I learned meaningful information and liked the class material. It was stressful at times but if you study enough for the exams you should get at least an A-. The paper was also graded really generously so that's a plus!

I absolutely loved the Global Islam Cluster and Professor Sayeed! We learned about Islam from a wide variety of disciplines and perspectives, and it was incredibly eye-opening and fulfilling to finally take a class without a highly Eurocentric curriculum (a big change from typical high school classes).

I honestly looked forward to attending every lecture, even with the many pains and annoyances of Zoom University. Each lecture was so engaging and informational -- the professors in this cluster really pushed us to think critically and with an open mind. Professor Sayeed (as well as all the entire Global Islam faculty) is clearly extremely passionate about what she teaches and is dedicated to student learning; don't be afraid to ask questions during class and office hours -- you may end up having a really great and thought-provoking discussion!

The workload was a bit heavy at times with all the readings (though I found each reading to be extremely interesting), but the instructors were always super accommodating and listened to student feedback about lessening the workload/moving deadlines.

Though this class is centered around the theme of Global Islam, everything I've learned is applicable to so many other aspects of my life; I'm extremely grateful to have gotten the ability to take this course!

I guess the pros and cons of this class can be summarized by the following:

--The professor cares and you will learn A LOT about Islam

Now normally, a class where you learn a lot, and where the professor cares is a good thing. In many ways for this class, it is a good thing: the professor responds to emails, the professor has engaging lectures, and the course modules are very well designed. Furthermore, I learned more about Islam than I ever imagined I would have. Regardless of your experience with Islam, you WILL learn about things you will have no idea that existed. This class really opened my eyes about what Islam is and isn't.

That said, the professor acts as if this class is the only class we're taking. The workload makes engineering upper-divs look like cakewalks. During a typical week, you will be assigned 80 or so pages, and you WILL be tested on them. One week, I was assigned 160 pages of reading. Yes, that's right, 160 pages of dense reading, that ranges from really engaging to mind-numbingly boring. You will also need to acquire Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World and An Introduction to Muhammad. Those books are NOT listed as required books, but they are.

Exams are generally not too bad, but you will have 3 of them, weighted equally. You will be given a study guide for each of them, and exams are short response. Fortunately, the study guide has questions that will be on the exam. Modules are also graded on correctness, and discussion sections are mandatory, with participation graded. Discussion sessions do cover tested materials.

In normal years, there is a final paper required for this class. Fortunately, due to COVID, it was made optional (no-harm), but I imagine it would be hard to do

Maybe if we were on the semester system, the class would not be as bad. Unfortunately, we're on the quarter system. so the class has horrible amounts of work.

But if you are really interested about Islam, and have a lot of time on your hands, this class actually teaches you a lot.

I am going to keep it real with all of you, there is not one person who I know that took this class and loved it. For all of my LS majors, I am still deciding whether this class is worth the extra GE credits. For other humanities majors I advise against taking this class unless you're really into learning about Islam.

I believe this class has potential but right now it is a little bit of a boring, confusing mess. The faculty involved in Global Islam are all very understanding and are really good at getting back to you. However, I found a lot of their instruction as vague. You are required to do about 3 hours of reading a week which is not fun because they are long and dense, but you have to read them and pay attention in class because you never know what will be asked on the weekly quizzes. The topic is very broad and although the professors try to centralize on the 4 "big themes", a lot of the information is random and doesn't exactly follow a pattern. Although I do like the professors as people, they somehow make the topic extremely boring. The research and writing specialists are nice, but are also not very helpful with the assignments.

The grading structure is based on 6 things. Attendance 10%, Participation 10%, Weekly Quizzes 20%, Response Paper 25%, Final Paper 20%, CoCurricular Activity 5%. The lowest quiz grade is dropped. There are 4 prompts for the response papers, you only have to do 3 of them, 500-600 words each. Final paper, 5-6 pages max, is broken down into 5 sections including related questions, articles, thesis and outline, revised thesis and outline, and final draft. I had a really difficult time figuring out what the paper needed. The directions and rubric were unclear and vague. The cocurricular is just a 2-3 hr activity you do outside of class and you have to write a 2 page response on it. The key to doing well in this class is building a good relationship with you TA, doing all the assignments, and participating in discussion. Your TA is your grader for everything so questions or details on assignments should be reviewed by them.

It is not inherently a difficult class, it is just a lot of work and it is not very fun. I do appreciate that faculty and staff are all a really nice and passionate about what they do but the structure and clarity needs a lot of work. Just prepare your friends and roommates for complaining about how much you dislike the class. I hope this helps.

This class was asynchronous when I took it. There were no tests or midterms. Each week focused on a different module that we had to complete, and the modules consisted of video lectures, short quizzes that you have unlimited attempts at, and discussion posts. As long as you do all of these, you'll get full points. The final paper isn't based on course material, so you don't even really have to understand lectures and stuff to do the final paper. The paper has you choose from three different topics, and there are sources PROVIDED for you to use. So just read the sources thoroughly and you'll be fine. Super easy GE.

Very good class. Organized and interesting. Format was asynchronous with a module to complete each week. That format really worked for me, and the material was interesting rather than stressful. Prof Sayeed seems like a very knowledgeable and nice person.

I made the mistake and took this class as a first-year freshman for my first quarter at UCLA. IT WAS SUPER TOUGH. She gave us a super long study guide of terms that would be on the midterm and final. You had to go to lecture to get the information. Her slides were posted, but she mentioned key things that were not on the slides. The final was super hard because she made us do a 7 page essay and an in-class final. It was a challenging course, but I would take it again because I did leave the class with a firmer grasp on Islam and its followers. Amazing professor, just a really challenging class. Also, I had Evan as a TA and he was amazing. If you're looking for an easy GE, don't do this. If you really are interested in Islam and want to be challenged, Professor Sayeed is your professor!

Islam in the West with Professor Sayeed was one of my favorite classes at UCLA. Her lectures are very engaging and thought-provoking. The discussion sections are also fun; I had a lot of meaningful discussions with my TA and classmates. By taking this class, you will be one step ahead of everyone else in understanding issues regarding Muslims in the West.