This quarter of the food cluster was a real drag. That's not to say it's difficult, because it isn't. It's actually mind-numbingly easy. Like, imagine a class where you learn all the content in the first five weeks then spend 15 more weeks reiterating the same points in a progressively more boring fashion. To be fair, Dr. O'Shea only taught the first five weeks of this quarter; Professor Jay was in charge for the latter half, touching on some novel concepts (if you never took AP Environmental Science, which I did) but only for a few minutes at a time before she moved to the next thing. While Professor Jay's lectures were very fast-paced and covered way more material than you could be expected to remember, Dr. O'Shea's were as close to brain rot as college lectures can get. She would use a maximum of 10 slides (usually more like five) and reiterate the same points every lecture with a slightly different overarching theme related to problems in the food system (we had already learned about these in the first quarter!). Oh, and every other lecture had us split into groups and do a discussion or activity, so it's advised that you attend lectures. Honestly, though, you could probably still do the activities before they're due by not going to class.

The grading is almost identical to the first quarter, save for a slightly modified final project that has a portion in which you address someone involved in food policy about your food policy solution. Additionally, half of the online, open-note, multiple-choice quizzes are replaced with a couple of paragraphs that discuss what you learned from readings and lectures (these are for Dr. O'Shea's weeks). Don't stress about the grades. Just do the work with some semblance of quality and you're essentially guaranteed an A.

Okay, I would end here, but I have to mention the "labs" from this quarter. They still make up 16% of the grade. One lab literally was just going to the library and taking pictures of books. I'm serious.

If you liked the first quarter of this cluster, you may like this one. But if you were getting bored in any way, be warned: you don't even have to think in this second quarter. Take it if you need science GEs that are an easy A, but if you genuinely want to explore interesting scientific topics, you could do better than this book-picture-taking class.

Dr. O'Shea is god awful. She made every single class miserable and was genuinely unenjoyable to be around.

Her phD is in dance. Dance! She's wildly unqualified to be teaching about food science in any scientific way, which is why her lectures are all rooted in social justice and emotions instead of science and facts. Her lectures shared information widely available online and I found each lecture to be eerily similar to the one before. There was no logical progression of curriculum. She could talk for the entire lecture and flaunted her expertise, but was largely unconvincing when it came to advocating for her knowledge or experience. Every other cluster professor, through all their faults, has done research and advanced study in the field of food science in some way, even if it wasn't the foundation of their phd thesis. I cannot say the same for Dr. O'Shea.

Her class structure was horrific. She artificially forced collaboration in a lecture hall environment that made me dread class every Tuesday and Thursday. She defies the logic and structure of a college class (meaning the division of lectures and discussions) and forced every meeting of the class to be discussion-based. She forced her students to climb all over the lecture hall to divide into discussion group, which is not accessible. And all learning had to happen in groups, which wasted everybody's time, especially those of us who had any ounce of intellect. The groups were far too large to be facilitate discussion, and in a lecture hall setting we can't even face each other to discuss if we wanted. Her insistence that we maintain a forced discussion about an unmoving topic was coupled with unbelievably drawn-out discussion timings, meaning that it was impossible to maintain conversation for as long as she wanted, notwithstanding the utter lack of complexity or depth to the topics at hand. And yet her commitment to this broken system is a testament to her lack of experience and inadequacy when it comes to teaching.

The curriculum was truly bad. Redlining took an entire lecture to discuss when I learned the concept at least 5 years ago, and in the entire 75 minutes she added next to no value. The concepts were simplistic, could easily be summarized in 2 minutes, and were a waste of my time. Every other cluster professor's assigned readings came from UN reports, scientific research papers, and other academic sources. Dr. O'Shea assigned readings from consumer books that were informational and educational but far removed from the scale and quality of her peers' choices. For comparison. oday's lecture from Dr. Jay is explaining the chemical processes that lead to nitrogen fixing and how the food system contributes to algal bloom and oceanic dead zones. We analyze figures, statistics, and earn the life SCIENCE GE attached to this quarter. Dr. O'Shea probably could not balance a chemical equation if her life depended on it.

Dr. O'Shea is kind, emotionally intelligent, sensitive, and genuinely passionate about the food system. However, she's a clown of an academic, a poor teacher at best, and was consistently the least favorite part of my week. I learned next to nothing and consider myself worse off for the experience. Stop making students talk to each other in lecture when discussion sections already exist. And in a world of misinformation and lobbying against food system reform, you should really try to root more of your curriculum in actual science and facts instead of compassion and social justice.

This class was great! It is actually engaging, and the work isn't busywork. I actually learned a lot from this class, although some of the quizzes may be difficult. However, the professors and TA's do their best to ensure that you succeed in the class. Additionally, there wasn't a midterm and the final was just an essay on a topic we chose. I highly recommend taking this cluster.

O'Shea was a great and optimistic professor! She created a space where open dialogue was encouraged, and productive disagreement was embraced. Her system of explaining the situation one class, then allowing us to brainstorm solutions the next, allowed us to sink our teeth into these issues in an incredibly personal and insightful way.