Professor Allen is a great guy and extremely knowledgeable about sustainability and Eastern religions. He was friendly, engaging, and happy to offer extra guidance if needed. Class is usually discussion-based, starting out with small groups and then reflecting on the readings as a group.

Most of your class grade is from three essays and participation. I found the essays to need a lot of brain power and research, but in a good way. I would have to really sit there and think about the concepts I learned in class - which was great! This class is not an easy A, but it's worth putting in the effort to succeed.

very interesting class to take, though a different format than i was originally expecting. class every week was just a discussion about the readings, with occasional small group discussions. we had reading assignments two times a week and two papers as well as a semester long "ascetic experiment" in the name of sustainability that we were to keep track of. as someone who gets nervous during discussions, it was hard for me to participate at times because the energy in the class was that of not messing up or wishy washy opinions and i was scared to sound stupid and end up being interrogated. that being said, this opened me up to a lot of parts of the sustainability conversation i wouldn't have looked into otherwise, so i still liked it!