Professor Mai was such a sweet and kind professor. She's very intelligent and passionate — her lectures have been some of my favorite at UCLA. If you have an appreciation for good lectures, you will appreciate how beautiful they are. This class is half lecture and half discussion. The discussions were pretty slow at first and a couple of times some of us got into a breakout room and said, "ngl, didn't understand this reading." But they picked up a lot in the second half of the quarter as Professor Mai facilitated discussion a little bit more directly. The subject matter of Chinese Gardens is much more profound and rich in history than I could have ever imagined. I loved that Professor Mai really encouraged us to think poetically about gardens and to dig deep into the metaphors of our readings. One of the best syllabus' I have ever read. Saying goodbye at the end of class was actually emotional and the final week of project presentations was incredible. The material of this class is going to stick with me for a long time to come. Not to be missed!