Everyone loves Guhin, and he's a really sweet person and a caring, welcoming professor. However, I have to say as far as explaining the actual subject matter, I didn't find him that helpful. The lectures were a little too focused on his ideas and thoughts about the theorists and reading, rather helping students to understand the arguments of each theorist. You could come away from a lecture knowing Guhin's ideas and passions more than with a breakdown of the theory or argument, which is bad because later you have to write a lot of papers about that argument. TAs are helpful to a point with that but it's a crapshoot whether you get a helpful TA or not. In any case be prepared to read a lot and DO NOT get behind on reading.

He definitely cares about his students. The class went through a rough start, as he gave us super hard readings, but once the class gave him feedback the class was actually really doable and I was able to learn a lot from it. He is also funny. If just want the A it is doable, but not easy at all. If you really just want to learn I highly recommend.

This professor is THE best professor that I have had while at UCLA. He is the first professor at UCLA that I have had that genuinely cares about his students and their mental health. His lectures are very entertaining as he loves to make jokes and are also very engaging. He talks fast, so you have to pay attention in lecture but overall the course load and material is very manageable. I also highly recommend going to his office hours. I found them to be very beneficial to my understanding of the material and enjoyed discussing different theorists with him. 10/10 recommend this course.

Theory is not my favorite, but Soc 102 w Guhin was not too bad. Guhin is really smart and an engaging lecturer, and my favorite parts of the lectures would be when he connected the class content with current political events/real life examples applicable to college life. However, as other reviews have mentioned, I didnt feel like I got a clear understanding of what each theorist was arguing, which made studying for the final tricky. I thought i had a good grasp on the content week by week because of the quizzes every lecture, but the cumulative final wasnt it. He requires handwritten notes and talks quick so i recommend taking the best notes possible during lecture, and then watching it back to fill in what ur missing.

Honestly thought this class was easy at first, but I was wrong he has mandatory lectures twice a week that you can not miss because he gives a quiz every lecture. He missed so many classes and was so unorganized, there is also no midterm which might sound good but then there is a cumulative final that is actual hell there's so much to memorize.

Professor is really funny, makes dad jokes, the 3 quizzes are fair as long as you know the main arguments for the theorists. There are 2 papers you can basically write about any theorists from the class. Recommend!

Super cool fiat lux! Would definitely recommend if you're interested in philosophizing about education in a small(er) group setting. Not gonna lie, 20 students was still too big for me to feel comfortable participating (at least at the time), but I still had a great time listening to everyone's discussions around the readings.

The course structure was a simple reading selection each week, with Prof. Guhin leading the discussion but letting anyone chime in with their thoughts. We covered a bunch of different thinkers from Plato to modern with different philosophies about the purpose of education. It was particularly helpful for me at a time when I wasn't really understanding the colossal and increasingly capital-focused education system I found myself thrust into at UCLA and, although I still think our modern education is deeply flawed (but that's a different story), the class certainly helped with my understanding of where we are.

Of course, everyone will get something different out of it; it's a humanities course. Take this and/or as many other small classes as you can, they're some of the best educational experiences you'll have at this huge school!

Lectures are recorded (not required to attend), there are 3 quizzes throughout the quarter that tests if you have read them, but if you go over the powerpoints and listen to his lecture a couple of times you should be ok. I ended up not reading the readings and still did ok on the quizzes. There are also 2 essays that you have to write on a theorist and how ChatGPT analyzed the theorist wrong. All very straightforward. There are also questionnaires that are basically free points for you to get if you do them.

Professor Guhin is very passionate about sociology and has very engaging lectures. He really cares about his student's mental health, makes jokes (be prepared for dad jokes!), and he's very approachable and kind. The study guides were a bit difficult in my opinion and sometimes during lecture, he placed more emphasis on his own thoughts about the sociologist in question. The tests were a bit tricky in my opinion, but maybe I should have taken better notes. If you take this class, take thorough notes and stay on track with the readings!

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.