Amin, Samir  

FSN 121 has always been known to be hard to get an A in. They recently switched the teacher to this guy, and he made it very easy to get an A in the class. Was he good at teaching? Not really. He kind of just rambles on and on at 7 in the morning. There is a lot of material in this class.. it is overwhelming because the tests are very specific. At the beginning of the quarter you get assigned readings which are SUPER long and SUPER dry. I stopped reading after the second week and found that I never really needed to know the material for any of the assessments. The class is composed of attendance, (if you go to lecture you get 10 points, for a total of 190 points), lab attendance (10 for each lab, total 90 points), online quizzes (70 points), 2 easy projects (80 points), a midterm (100 points) and a final (200 points). Go to every lecture and lab!! ten points a piece is worth it! This quarter he made the quizzes online, and even gave 2 attempts. The midterm was very specific, and required a lot of memorization. Everyone was freaking out about the final too because its cumulative and again a lot of info. The night before the final he sent us an email saying we could uses our notes (and our laptop with our notes), and the textbook. Would have definitely failed the final without it. He is usually a nice guy and you can tell he didn't want us to stress over this class too much. He made it as easy as possible this quarter, but i heard he changes things around each quarter. Although this professor is generally a pretty nice guy, he has a real temper. He's a different person in lab, and comes across as an arrogant chef. Several times he yelled louder than I could possibly describe at either one student, or a small group of students. It was intimidating, and extremely demeaning. The lab is fun but sometimes disorganized, and he gets mad if your group screws up or doesn't know everything he knows about cooking. He does fun chocolate, cheese, cake tastings and really wants us to enjoy the lab. It just would have been better if the students weren't so afraid of the fact that he could lose his temper at any moment. I would recommend this professor, i hated the class just because the material was so boring, but with a heavy load of classes, Amin made the course a breath of fresh air.

This class is extremely boring first of all. Dr. Amin makes immature jokes that are both annoying and unnessary. He decided to treat this class like a junior high class and gave us ten pop quizzes throughout the quarter like we were a class of 12 year olds. We had not 1, not 2, but 3 midterms that were basically back to back and also a waste of time. He acts like he knows everything about cooking but he clearly just has a huge ego. The class isn't terrible but it is extremely boring, long, and hard to sit through. Oh yeah and Dr. Amin stop being such a god damn baby about your foot. You are fine. No one is pitying you when you decide that your foot hurts bad enough (when nothin even happened to you) that you devise to break out your old crutches and ask for attention. Grow up you are like 50.

Honestly, Dr. Amin really is not that bad. If you pay attention in lecture or at least go over power points with an open mind the class is easy to handle and he doesn't ask a lot. Some people think his ego is large and his jokes aren't funny but it is called DRY humor for a reason people. Learn sarcastic jokes. And for goodness sakes, the man has developed countless amazing foods (such as the Hummus and Chocolate Ganache from Trader Joe's) so yes, I say he is allowed to think highly of himself. While he may not have all the answers in the world, as no professor does, he certainly knows a lot about food. Sure, his lectures aren't the most interesting and sometimes I, as a nutrition major, wonder why in the world I should know that a 13 week old chicken is called a "Broiler/Fryer", it is a class that will answer a lot of your questions like, "why are carrots so orange?" or "why do proteins denature?" For you FSN majors out there, you have to take the class anyway, so just keep an open mind and have fun! For those wondering if this should be your elective, ask yourself if you enjoy learning fun facts about food and if you like making/eating food. Yes, you get to make and eat food in lab. Good food. So don't listen to the negative things people have to say about this class, trust me, you will be just fine.

Dr. Amin brings lots of culinary and professional experience which helps enhance his lectures. There is a lot of material to cover, so there is a lot of information to know for each of the midterms. The readings are long, and there are maybe only 2 out of the 100 questions on the midterm from the book, so I did not find it worth it to read the book. Most of the information on the exams comes from lecture material. The exams are not difficult if you take the time to memorize the items he wants you to know from the study guide. Labs are fun, and you get to make a variety of dishes. If you come to class, go to lab, and go over the lecture notes in detail, you will do well in this class.

Samir Amin's class is not hard. Yes, the lectures can by dry, and he posts his slides on polylearn, but if you show up to lectures and take notes on what he says, It's pretty easy to do well. We had two midterms and I'm getting ready to take the final right now. I started studying for each midterm the night before and got an 84 and an 86. He cracks really bad jokes which don't go over well (especially at 7:40 am). The only bad thing I would say about this class is that he doesn't quite have the test creating abilities to go along with the material he presents. I am usually able to recall or recognize everything on tests (If I don't know the answer I at least remember having seen it before), but there were a few questions on the midterms that I know he never talked about. But what's a question or two out of 150? In lab, he's pretty absent. It's not that hard to follow a recipe, especially when you have three hours to make a main, carb and vegetable. In lecture, he'll occasionally say "this will be on the midterm" and it always is. He's also super understanding. My friend slept through the first hour and 15 minutes of class and showed up with 15 minutes left of class. Amin said not to worry about it and that she would be allowed to take the test an hour before our lab. Before his 6 hour lab block. Pretty understanding if you ask me.

He is really knowledgeable about food but needs some work when lecturing and writing exams. The lab portion is fun in this class but the lecture was bland. There was a lot of simply reading from the slides. I also felt it was a disorganized class in general and I was unsure of what was required. He uses wiley plus but I only bought it because there were assignments, I didn't find it helpful at all. There seems to be a big disconnect on what he lectures on and tests on. It seems like he is pulling questions out of thin air on the exam. The time spent in class on topics is not proportionate to the questions given on the exam.

Amin was very knowledgable about cooking and was good at giving practical information in lecture. He make you get Wiley plus I only went on it twice because there were assignments, it was definitely not worth the price. The 2 Midterms were not great their are some questions that just came out of no where.

It was difficult to pay attention and stay awake because 1) the class was in the morning and 2) the structure of the lectures aren't very interactive (mostly just reading off of slides). Even though I didn't want to go to lecture most of the time, they were helpful because he asks questions on the test about lecture that aren't on the slides.

This professor is a gooooooober. samir's lectures are super dry and boring because he reads off the slides and also cracks AWFUL jokes all class long which no one laughs at. The first midterm was a slap in the face because I was acing the class and then got a C+... I went to his office hours and I went over the test and i only got his T/F questions wrong. Because his tests are so so so terribly written. "Mature turkeys are primarily bought by restaurants" is not an acceptable t/f question tf? Thank GOD I went to his office hours after the midterm because most of the t/f questions on the final were taken from the midterm and i just memorized them. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten the B+ final and baaarely scraped by the class with an A. Surprising because I thought this class was an easy A! Anyways, another time he sucked is I went into his office hours I asked him to explain a part of the e portfolio website assignment given at the end of the quarter and he couldn't !!! just told me to do the alternative option and make a linkedin profile instead. like thanks for advising me to take the much easier route but but??? you should be able to explain your own assignment. also, this guy is a schmuck in lecture but a mean old man in lab. kinda scary!

Overall this class is extremely dry, especially at 7:40 in the morning. Dr. Amin doesn't stray far off from the powerpoint slides and spends way too much time lecturing on portions of the class that are never on the tests and pretty irrelevant to the course (i.e the difference between round and flat fish). While it is clear he is extremely knowledgeable, he doesn't present the information in an exciting or scintillating way. Beware, you need a 95 or above to get an A in this class and the tests are very poorly written. The true or false are confusing and the questions extremely specific (i.e what is the age of a young turkey?). I would recommend studying the polylearn quizzes because I can almost guarantee that he just reuses those on the midterm and final. Finally, in the lab I found it difficult to approach him because of his rude and condescending attitude.

Amin's 121 is a 7:40 class, where you listen to the man read off the slides with a bit of bland excitement on his end. The lecture slides are very bland, but cover a lot of information that most likely you already know from a food service job (by having to take a food safe course) and common sense, and information that you will probably never use in your life unless you're becoming a chef. The lab is pretty fun because you get to eat the food, but if you have any food allergies/restrictions he doesn't really give a shit. None of the food is healthy, besides MAYBEEE the hummus, pita, and falafel dish, but even that is super oily and will leave you feeling stuffed (but I will admit it's super yummy!) You make everything from scratch, so it is interesting if you like to cook at all. There are quizlets online to study with for the midterms and final, so getting an A should be fairly straightforward. Also, each class if there isn't enough attendance, he offers a "socrative quiz" for extra credit for the students there, where he might ask you what day it is or what color is the sky or whatever just to reward you for coming to the bland lecture. Amin is also very opinionated when it comes to eating meat and gluten and dairy and gelatin, etc. so if you ask about vegan options or gluten-free options, he will probably shut you down. Not the healthiest of men:) but he is nice if you pay attention and seem interested!

Dr. Amin is truly a good guy. He is a nice, chill dude who just wants to help people learn. the lab for this class was one of the best labs I've ever taken! It's basically a cooking class, but less guided. People who give this guy a bad review probably didn't try at all (which is super lame, all you have to do is show up and he will tell you when something is going to be on the test!), or gave him attitude. He is great!!

Way to easy of a class, extremely dry material that is outdated. The issues presented were not very contemporary for it being a class based on that. I hope he changes the course soon. Classroom attendance was down from 40 like 10-15 during the middle of the quarter. Going to class never felt more like a chore and was pretty much inconsequential. Pretty much regret it each day. That being said he’s a good cook, is bomb in the kitchen, and the lab is fun.

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