Professor Ingenito is probably one of the most knowledgable professors in the department that I have encountered. His class is super fun and the workload is not too heavy if you dedicate a little bit of time to go over the poems after each lecture. He knows the answer to all your questions! I absolutely enjoyed taking this course and recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about the world of literature.

TAKE THIS CLASS!!!!! I am a first-year student and wanted to take some GEs. I'm a STEM major but I would totally take this class again.

Professor Ingenito: You will never find someone as sweet and as passionate as he is! He truly cares about his students and the way his face lights up is the most wholesome thing ever. All he wants is to share his passion for Persian literature with his students. He doesn't care about grades as long as he knows that you understand the materials. He constantly asks for feedback and is so adaptable to his teaching styles to make sure each of his students is doing well.

Workload: Each class he assigns us reading or two for the next lecture and they are so interesting. Most of the time I never read them, I just skimmed through right before class to get a general idea, but almost all of the readings he gave us were something I enjoyed reading. They cover the topics of gender, sex, and love related to Persian poets, their works, and the Iranian government. I basically spent like one hour of work a week on this class.

Grades: The only thing you have to do in this class is to upload a weekly report which is around 200-300 words minimum. All you do is write about what you learned within the past week. That's literally it. The midterm and final are short papers (1,500 words) and on both of them, he asks you to just write a paper connecting the readings that were assigned in the quarter. THAT'S IT!!!!!! It shows just how much he truly just wants you to understand the coursework and general ideas in this class. He also gives extra credit for showing up to lectures.

TAs: Both of the TAs are awesome and you can't go wrong with picking one.

General Takeaway- For my first quarter at UCLA, this was my favorite class. It was nice having a professor that actually knew my name and genuinely cared about me and how I was doing. I loved that this class wasn't so focused on grades, and in all honestly, that led to me learning more because I simply was engaged with learning rather than focusing on making sure I got a good grade. I learned so much from this course and it truly changed my perspective on lots of things.

I took Iranian 103A and 103B with Professor Ingenito. He is probably one of the most knowledgeable professors in the department. He is extremely lenient and caring. He always encourage students to come to his office hours. For lectures, he goes over meaning, grammar of the poems. There are some weekly reports which are easy. The class consisted of two exams which is translation of poem to English or modern Persian and it was from poems that we had gone over in the class. You don't need textbook for this class. I recommend taking his class. He is one of my favorite professor at UCLA.

Professor Ingenito is definitely one of the WORST professors I have taken at UCLA. He has clear favorites in the class and acts as if his students are doing well but gives them terrible grade. Too much work for a class like this. He does not want his students to do well and is not a nice guy. I dreaded going to his class and he was such a rude professor. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. You will think you are doing well and you end up with a B. Students would ask him questions and he would reply back in a sarcastic and rude way. Just don't take this class, I regretted it and it ruined my GPA.

I feel like ingenito posted the review below himself because nobody got an A+ in his class.... even people who got A's on everything got flat A's. He plays clear favorites, is rude when people enagage in class materials and is probably one of the most unhelpful teachers Ive had at ucla. He has a g-d complex for sure and thinks he knows everything about Iranian Poetry. Save your GPA. Not worth it and i didnt learn shit

Dont let the grading scale fool you. This professor is nuts. He was unclear, unhelpful and his grading is all off. He refuses to discuss your grades with you in person. He claimed half the class did badly on the final and gave half the class B's. He said he was tired of getting the easy teacher reputation so he did something about it last quarter and screwed everybody over. There are weekly assignments 500 words minimum, in class midterm exam, midterm paper 2500 words, final paper 1500 words. His class was the most boring class I have ever taken and everybody is on their laptops the whole time - literally nobody pays attention. His grading is horrible and he is horrible as a person as well. He does not care about his students and will trick you into thinking youre doing good by giving you good grades on the midterms but will then give you a horrible final grade. DO NOT RECCOMEND!! SAVE YOUR GPA

If you are looking for a very easy, low-workload GE, take this class. Ingenito is chill, but you will learn most of the content from the readings he assigns (about 2-3 research articles a week and/or website articles and media).

Okay so I took this class fall 2022 during the strike so I didn't finish out the year, but I still really enjoyed this class! I really appreciated how Professor Ingenito canceled class in solidarity with our striking TAs, iconic! This was a really fascinating class and I learned so much about medieval and modern Iranian history, art, and poetry through the lens of gender and sexuality! It was clear that Professor Ingenito really cared about this subject, and I had a great time! The workload was really light as well, just do the reading and come to class and you'll be fine! He's a really easy grader too :)

Professor Ingenito is so insightful, knowledgeable and helpful. Class was super manageable, we had a weekly report on the readings due each Monday graded only on completion. These were pretty easy but I HIGHLY suggest you actually put time into them because they are super helpful for your midterm and final which are essays that you have about a week to do. Overall light course load but the material is all really interesting and meaningful. I highly recommend!!!

As someone who did not come from an Iranian or Middle Eastern background, I thought this class was a nice introduction to Iranian culture. Though there were often times where I felt like an outsider, Professor Ingenito emphasized several times that everyone was welcome in this class. He had interactive lectures where he'd ask students to share their thoughts/ideas as he taught and was always open to answering questions. It was also really nice that we didn't have to buy any textbooks for this class.

Grade distribution:
10% attendance of lectures and discussions (I don't think attendance was ever taken at lectures though)
30% weekly reports (graded on completion & usually just asking us to share thoughts on the weekly assigned readings. The amount of reading was overwhelming at first, but fortunately they decreased a bit toward the end of the quarter. Some did fine by just skimming, but since I was unfamiliar with the subject material, I often had to read very carefully)
30% midterm essay
30% final essay
up to 7% extra credit by attending guest lectures via zoom and submitting a ~300 word reflection about it (1% per lecture attended)

About the midterm & final essays - the prompts were very broad but I personally found them pretty tough because we were required to incorporate every single reading we were assigned into them. Even though prof said that they would be graded leniently, the TAs did not really follow through with this. If it wasn't for the way participation and weekly reports were weighted, the grade distribution for this class would be much worse. Tbh my qualms with this class mostly came from my personal experiences during discussions and with my TA (Nora), but I'll leave those out of this review.

Overall, I would recommend this class if you're interested in learning about Iranian culture especially through gender and sexuality. The weighting of assignments means you don't have to do particularly well on the essays to get an A. I learned a lot and the way I view gender has changed.