I LOVED this course as it provided a fresh perspective on the sentient nature of animals and shed light on the meat processing industry. Professor Arvind was an exceptional instructor, displaying genuine enthusiasm for the subject that significantly enhanced his teaching style. However, I would caution against enrolling in this class if the topic doesn't align with your interests, as it demands a substantial amount of extra work and readings.

I took this fiat lux because I was interested in the subject and I loved it! The assigned readings were genuinely interesting (coming from someone who usually doesn’t like reading but does have interest in this topic) and changed a lot of my perspectives. Class is a lot more fun when you participate in the discussion, and if you don’t the instructor would call on you to speak anyways. The workload wasn’t much, just reading and then writing a 250 word response and posting it in a discussion post on canvas. The readings could get a bit long for a fiat lux in my opinion, but it would be easy to skim and still write a response, although it's much more interesting when you read.

The Fiat Lux was really enjoyable. Readings selected were engaging and didn’t take too long to do and provided you were willing to engage with the very discursive format, the class was very approachable.

a good fiat lux freshmen seminar class if ur interested in animal rights and welfare. not worth taking if u r not interested in the previously mentioned topics as it is graded pass/fail as with all other fiat lux freshmen seminars and only counts 4 1 credit. workload was a bit heavy 4 1 credit imo with 40 page readings and accompanying 250 word reflection discussion posts typically assigned weekly 4 sunday night at 12:00 although late assignments were accepted. discussions were interesting although sometimes held over zoom which made total participation difficult 4 the prof 2 accomplish and somewhat dulled the content of the course. professor thomas is a super intelligent, thoughtful, and j generally interesting man although i sometimes felt as though he misinterpreted my comments when paraphrasing them 2 the class (undoubtedly unintentionally). i would take this course again if i cld, i found the somewhat scientific and analytical approach to such a topic usually coded in terms of morality and ethicality rly refreshing and fascinating and have no doubt i would learn more from repeating the class. in all honesty, however, i rarely completed the readings and wld usually skim a couple of paragraphs before producing my discussion comment which was almost always late. my apologies prof thomas and ty 4 a wonderful introduction 2 ucla!!