Professor Arbabzadah was so so nice and she would always give us chocolate. The only work the whole quarter was just three speeches that need to be memorized but that was it! Basically just a public speaking class and it was fun!

I highly recommend this class.
Professor Arbabzadah is very passionate about what she teaches her students. This class was very engaging, and she is a very kind, understanding professor, but you can't just change your speech time unless you have a doctor's note. The class is made up of 3 speeches, a 30-second, 5-minute, and 8-minute speech, along with outlines and in-class participation. She will always start class talking about something she feels is important and doesn't care so much for grading, and says, "it's just a comms 1 class." She cares about you learning how to communicate effectively. Overall, I recommend this class as a way to learn to public speak with more confidence, and as long as you put in some effort, you should be fine getting an A. Last thing I'll say: trying to remember a 5- or even 8-minute speech is actually very, very difficult, so please don't procrastinate on practicing.

I really enjoyed Professor Arbabzadah's class, her ability as a professor goes way beyong the realm of merely educating students but her compassionate and caring nature make her an ideal leader in the Communications Department. She is a wonderful person to be around and a wonderful instructor to learn from. I would rate her class higher if I could

Very easy class. Didn't show up for many of the lectures and the exams were very easy. Not sure how I received an A-, and when I asked about it to the professor she was unclear about the reasoning. Overall, the class didn't require much effort at all.

She was nice if you are on her good side -- there is DEFINITELY favoritism. This one poor girl in my class totally got verbally bullied for several by the professor after her first presentation, that she "didn't follow instructions," it was "ungradable," etc...when in reality I genuinely thought it was a very good presentation. There were certainly students who did worse and didn't prepare and didn't receive that kind of treatment. Furthermore, some students clearly were doing other homework during the class, but only certain students would be called out for not paying enough attention. The favoritism really, really bothered me. She was helpful and nice if she liked you. I wasn't necessarily on her bad side but I felt very bad for the people who were.

I feel as though I came in eager to learn the ins and outs of true American conspiracy theories and I was left with a bunch of conspiratorial mush about theorists. Not quite sure how this class is an upper-division offering, or an offering at all. She has a disdain for AI, and thanks to a student in her prior class that got caught for cheating, our tests were in person and closed note. A midterm and a final, with both weighing equally in your final grade is tough especially when lectures and parameters for what we were going to be tested on was unclear. I honestly don't know if I would've been better off skipping lecture than going, but she did drill us that students who didn't come would fail. I signed up for this for the seemingly interesting material, and take home exams, so if you're on my same wave length AVOID! OR if you're up for the challenge, enroll. Either way I am glad to have finished the course with some sanity left, but I do get trauma when "anomaly" or "karl popper" is mentioned.

really sweet professor. only hard part is you have to memorize your speeches and present them to the class. but you can make them on anything.