FREN 4585

There aren’t many classes that I can say with certainty that I hated. This is one of them. I think Professor Lyu is very nice and smart and means well, but I found her assignment instructions and the message of the class to be exceedingly vague. This both made it boring to listen to and frustrating when trying to do assignments, because especially towards the end I felt as though there wasn’t much more to say. All we really did every class was go around and say “this text says this… so that’s interesting” which definitely was not because of anyone’s inability to perform a strong analysis. It was such weird, meta, honestly pointless material, and I was surprised we went as long as we did avoiding awkward silence given the complete void of opportunity for a “so what.” For reference, the topic was how we perceive animals, and we did a mix of nature documentaries and some readings that were usually philosophy. Maybe that’s more fun if it’s more your thing, but everyone I talked to in the class about it similarly struggled to enjoy it. The work load is objectively pretty manageable, but I think for me I just got so sick of it by the last month that even a reading that wasn’t that long was excruciating. If it’s the only class that fits in your schedule, you’ll be fine, but I wouldn’t recommend it.