I took the cluster course, but the courses clarity, workload, and "easiness" - depend on which instructor you have. Fall quarter is taught by Dr. Cleavland and Professor Jay. Professor Jay was all over the place with her instruction, and was probably the most difficult lecturer to grasp from all. Her quizzes were more difficult compared to all 3 other lecturers throughout the course. The slides were confusing, and she brought many guest lecturers, which kind of repeated the same thing. Her final project is actually a little fun, as you get to create your own online "website" style presentation (pretty chill tbh). Overall, she isn't the best lecturer herself, and probably had the most challenging "course" in comparison to the entire food cluster professors.

I loved this professor. She was very nice, reasonable, and engaging. She did a great job of connecting the lecture material to relevant things to students. For example, when we were learning about units and the effects of toxic gaseous CAFOs give off- like methane and ammonia- she showed us a n episode of Bill Nye the Science guy that SHE WAS IN. So cool. Her material was also great. Definetely take the class. She is one of my favorite professors at UCLA so far.

Dr. Jay is honestly the most helpful and caring professor in the entire department. I've learned so much in this course in the span of ten weeks. The class utilizes a flipped format which is honestly so much more useful because it turns the lecture into a discussion where everyone is engaged/learning about how to apply the concepts that are being taught. This will 100% be my favorite course in the department.

Professor Jay is the sweetest professor I have had while at UCLA. She deeply cares about the students and provides opportunities to learn and do research outside of class. The grade distribution was fair, and the length of the assignments were manageable. There could be better organization on Bruinlearn, and students often had to remind them to post certain assignment turn-in portals or notes. If you haven't taken CEE 154 with her previously, the class may be a little difficult but is still very reasonable to learn. I liked how this quarter she drew out a calendar during lecture outlining what would be covered in each class up to the final. The flipped classroom style integration and availability of the videos from the online section made the class accessible if you could not attend a given lecture. I am so fortunate I was able to take another class with her as an undergrad. She even brought vegan chocolate and donuts to class to thank us for a good quarter and to promote sustainable food and small businesses.

She's very knowledgeable in her field, but her lectures weren't very engaging and I wasn't a fan of the assignments. The "labs" she assigned were a lot of work and meant to teach us how to create a project by the end of the quarter, but everybody was confused about what was expected by week 10. It was fine, but I felt that I didn't learn much of the skills that we were supposed to pick up. The grading is lenient and the quizzes are easy. She brings on a few guest speakers, which are more interesting than the lectures

The Food Cluster is amazing - most manageable cluster workload wise (at least in the fall). Dr. Cleveland and Dr. Jay teach the first quarter, and both are great lecturers who set you up for success.

Jenny Jay is one of the best professors I’ve had and really cares about students’ learning, which is evident by her emphasis on prioritizing student experience in the class. I would say that taking this class without taking 153 first would be super challenging, but if you’ve taken 153, the concepts are really similar. Jenny Jay’s lectures sometimes can be a bit unclear, and she can be a bit all over the place in her lectures. But she does seem to truly care about student learning, so reaching out for help is never an issue.

Professor Jay is the sweetest professor I have had while at UCLA. She deeply cares about the students and provides opportunities to learn and do research outside of class. The grade distribution was fair, and the length of the assignments were manageable. There could be better organization on Bruinlearn, and an outline of what would be covered in lecture. However, the integration and availability of the videos from the online section made the class accessible if you could not attend a given lecture. I enjoyed being able to go into her lab to process samples, and felt like she was passionate about the integration of civil engineering and the community. I hope to take a class with her again in the future.

Professor Jay is very enthusiastic about the topic and attentive to our learning, but her classes are a bit disorganized. Homework are readings that are usually research papers and a detailed reflection about the reading. Her quizzes that we are supposed to take with no notes have questions that can only be answered if you memorized every single detail from her slides, almost like trivia. Her lectures and slides are decent but sometimes it is difficult to know what is the main idea we're supposed to take away. However, you can tell Professor Jay cares about whether you are learning or not because she is very thorough when you ask her questions. But it would be easier if she made the main idea of the lessons clearer in the lecture and slides with the quiz questions reflecting those.

This cluster in general was amazing. All of the material was actually engaging and interesting, and I have learned a lot so far. The professor's and TA's all really care about students understanding material rather than just caring about grades. The assignments for the class weren't that difficult, and they were actually fun to complete at times. This cluster has educated me on so many new things regarding food, sustainability, meat, etc... We also haven't had a midterm and the final tends to be just an essay with a topic that you have the ability to chose. I highly recommend taking this cluster as it is interesting and pretty simple. If you aren't a science major this will benefit you even more as it covers 3 science GE's, including the lab one.