I don't see how anyone would willingly take this course. It is super basic knowledge explained in less-than-optimal ways which just makes it confusing most of the time. The readings say a whole lot about almost nothing at all, but are presented in a way that makes the stuff theyre saying out to be some groundbreaking new discoveries. Lots of tedious work. Most of the time I wasn't actually thinking about the content of my submission but rather how I would be able to present the stuff in a way that both complied to the weird rubrics and guidelines but also wouldn't make my TA hate grading it. (My TA was pretty chill but not the case for everyone). We've had one group presentation so far and while my group was one of the first to present, the topic was also dead easy so there was minim...read more

I learned most of the stuff they're having us read about in like 2nd grade. Having a bunch of white people tell us about economic/racial opression and issues in third world countries is a little.. ehhh... at best. Maybe if you were in GRS or something you would be a little more invested in what the course is teaching, but I feel like if you're in GRS your knowledge level would be even higher which would make this course even more rudimentary and boring. My friends in FNH (where this course is arguably also applicable) have also found it to be a pain. There were tutorial activities sometimes that just *did not work well* because of the online setting I was in. No one really knew other people outside of our groups so it was just awkward being in breakout rooms and having to discuss topics...read more

The professors aren't evil. They're just suuuper boring. My TA was nice but some of my friends had TAs that were really strict/stuck up about grading. If any of the instructors are reading this somehow, PLEASE restructure the course. I'm sure there are much better ways to convey this information that I'm sure is important to our learning *somehow* that has become totally lost and overshadowed by the way the material is taught.

I mean if you're in LFS, you don't really have a choice. Just hope you have a chill TA and good group for your tutorials I guess. If you don't have to take this course DO NOT TAKE IT. The "GPA boost" is not worth the mind-numbing boredom presented by this course, in my opinion. The "labs" are just 1 hour 30 minute time periods that they have you block off of your schedule for you to do group works. They aren't facilitated by any of the instructors in any way. I've only ever used my lab time once voluntarily to meet my group for the first time in person and another to have a 1-on-1 required chat with my TA that lasted maybe about five minutes. Outside of those two meetings, lab time is basically free time. Otherwise, all parts of the class are super boring so I suggest NOT putting all the...read more

Boring, left-wing/socialism-oriented course. If you don't agree with their opinions, most TA's won't give you a good grade (even if you are diplomatic & respectful. I found a lot of the TA's to be emotionally driven in their opinions... although they try to call them "facts"). The dairy and ubc farm tour was fun! Be prepared for group projects, weekly quizzes, and papers. It's an annoying course required for most degrees offered through LFS, so just bite the bullet.

You can't really study for this course. Just show up to the lectures & tutorials and regurgitate whatever socialist agenda they lecture at you.

This is a bad course. Objectively, this is a bad course. The material is incomprehensible, dry, and unclear. Everything is based on either group projects, or 10-minute quizzes in readings that can be up to FOURTY PAGES LONG. William seems to try his best to be interesting and woke and whatever other synonym there is for cool and hip with the kids, but none of that could ever remedy the course content and delivery. Assignments are vague and unhelpful. If you have a good group, I'm sure your experience will be better, but otherwise maybe just blow your brains out, you'd probably be happier. Every single rubric mentions a terrible writing scheme that makes no sense, and they never even explain what it is. The only thing that keeps me going is the possibility of the dairy farm tour.

Boring Bad Useless I don't think i'll ever use anything i'm reading about in this class.

Rambles on and on for 1.5 hours, doesn't answer questions in a straightforward manner.

If possible, just change your major. drop out, change universities. Avoid this class at all costs.

I hate this course so much. It is the most pointless, boring and useless class I have ever attended. Not sure if it was like this for everyone, but my TA marked everything so unreasonably. Even when I put hours of effort into assignments, I always got slightly above average - always around 75 ish. Especially relevant during the reflective essays. They took marks off because apparently I did not get the right message of the unit? It was a reflective essay about what I felt not what you thought you taught me.

The course really emphasizes group work and ends up giving you a group mark as a whole, not acknowledging your individual work. I think this is unfair as most of the times my group members did not put in as much work as others. They also have very specific expectations for assignments but super vague rubric guidelines. Then they take marks off for not including things that were not mentioned in the assignment details. The content itself was super disengaging and the only time I was interested was when we covered animal welfare. But that was only one week of this year long course. It is also ridiculous how this is a required course in LFS since it is only really applicable to the major FNH, so most of us will end up coming out with nothing useful in the future. Unless you count those awkw...read more

Will Valley had a lot to say about nothing. He talked for a long time about the same easy to understand concept which made lectures really hard to listen to. I don't have anything against him personally but I know he made this course which warrants the fact that I do not like him. Matt Mitchell was chill, nothing else to really say about him.

The required readings are basically only there to refer to when you do your reflective essays. But be careful since you might not have taken away the right meaning behind the words! Or whatever that means. Count yourself lucky if your TA is a fair marker since most are not from what I have heard. Unless you are a philosophy or English major, you will have a hard time understanding what they want from you and end up sounding too scientific. (I actually got docked marks since I used too many big words???). My advice: Pray that this course will not be mandatory anymore.

This is the worst academic experience I have had to date. A ridiculously unnecessary and (despite its full-year length and 200-level rating) bafflingly shallow examination of the topic of food insecurity. Grading is almost entirely dependent on the competence and fairness of your TA, at least some of which are woefully amateur. There is not a single fellow student that I have engaged with in that class who has expressed even the slightest positive sentiment for this dumpster fire of a course.

While the topics being covered could be aptly summarized by your average third-grader, the weekly, "required" readings are often 10-20 pages in length. I say "required" in quotes, because in order to ace the individual and group quizzes, all you have to do is read through them and pick the answers that don't seem ridiculous. The entire curriculum is essentially going over relatively simple ideas such as the benefits of interdisciplinary cooperation, corporate greed & the tendency for large-scale consolidation, the fact that climate change is real, and the fact that people are indeed food insecure. None of these topics are explored in any meaningful detail. Multiple weeks were devoted the analysis of what felt like a single-panel comic of blind men touching an elephant and imagining differ...read more

The course profs (mine was taught by 4, who took turns) seem like solid folks. I'm sure they'd be lovely people to grab a coffee with and talk about farming, but they are woefully inept educators. The vast majority of the class feels like you are tuning in to a badly-recorded podcast by people who are demonstrably out of touch with the reality that poor people, especially young poor people, exist in. The surprise that wracks them when looking at data about food insecurity in Vancouver is acutely reproached by the hundreds of black zoom screens of students who, if you're like me, are budgeting just to know how many meals I need to skip this week in order to keep paying tuition. These profs are apparently experts in the field, but you wouldn't know it by the way they speak about the content...read more

The fact that this course is mandatory is a testament to the failure of educational institutions to deliver on the hollow promises they've sold you throughout your entire adolescent life. I recommend you re-examine the goals with which you are approaching your education and consider either changing programs, changing institutions, or taking up a hobby that can keep you entertained for at least 3 hours a week of lectures and discussion if all you want to do is get through this course so you can apply to med. If it wasn't so easy to pass without trying, I would recommend some kind of violent revolution in the spirit of something ****** and French. But in all seriousness, consider BCIT if you're looking for a good job. Otherwise, best of luck to you. This will be a rough go.

This class sucked, lots of time-waster activities and material that isn't really relevant to my degree at all (despite it being a mandatory course). The worst thing for me was it made course scheduling an absolute nightmare, it is only offered at one time, lasts the entire year and the lab + tutorial + lecture are all back to back which gives you a five hour immovable block for the entirety of the year.

Put time into checking out your TA beforehand because your performance in this class is going to be almost entirely determined by them, I got extremely lucky and had a very fair TA that I loved so I did pretty well! Beyond that, pray you get a good group otherwise you had better be prepared to carry big time if you wanna do alright.

*Remote Learning due to COVID* Mandatory course for LFS students spans over two terms. Despite the heavy workload, sad to say that I haven't learned anything at all from the course. The class is exhausting - the lecture, tutorial, and lab portion are on the same day and take up 5 hours. I would do CHEM233 10x times rather than this class. Let that sink in. Extremely dissatisfied with the supply and management unit. A Sauder guest lecturer forces his political opinions as facts. My favorite units would be the BC Dairy Farm Virtual Tour and Nutrition/Food Science. Before the lecture: 2-3 readings per week: at least 8 pages of fluff before the assigned reading makes a (barely understandable) point. Lectures: Asynchronous lectures for 30-60mins, followed by a synchronous lecture for 3...read more

Fewer readings.