Dr. Hayes is incredible and I recommend taking him for this course or any course he teaches! Despite remote learning and never seeing his face during his lectures, Dr. Hayes is an engaging and great lecturer who brings in a lot of outside context and analogies to bring it back to Buddhism and his lecture. I found that really helpful since some things he brings up may be confusing, but he knows how to break it down to make it digestible, which is a skill not many professors had.

Your TA will be responsible for majority of your grading, except Dr. Hayes will be grading 1-2 bigger assignments/examinations. There will be a paper your TA will help guide you to write throughout the quarter and it's pretty vague in terms of what it asks. Make sure it you just follow the rubric and pick a topic that you're actually interested in within the parameters of the assignment and you will be fine. There will be one peer-editing assignment in the middle of the quarter, but that was graded based on completion rather than the grade that you gave the person, if that makes sense.

Discussions focus on the writing aspect of this course and gear you to make sure that you're writing at a collegiate level. Some participation is required. Classes focus on the actual course content of Buddhism and it was always a delight with Dr. Hayes! Obvi, this was delivered in lecture videos with a powerpoint (not live-streamed).

It's been about two quarters since I've taken this class and I still think about some of the Buddhist teachings and dharmas that were taught. Regardless, it was such an interesting course that I've taken a lot of and applied it into my life! Take this course! Put in the work and you will be satisfied with the grade you get.