JAPAN 50
Japanese Civilization
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Knowledge of Japanese not required. Survey of development of Japanese culture and its relationship to Asiatic mainland. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
1 of 2
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2016 - Professor Carter is a wonderful professor for this course and always has well-organized lecture slides. If you take this class you cannot expect to not do any reading and get an A. It is basically a history course so the textbook becomes your best friend. Carter's exams were not extremely difficult but there is no curve in the class so you just have to do your best. Participation is important in discussion and made up at least 20% of your grade. There were also weekly "write abouts" where students would have to answer a question about the weekly readings in a kind of brain storm way. Overall, not a hard course but don't slack off on reading
Winter 2016 - Professor Carter is a wonderful professor for this course and always has well-organized lecture slides. If you take this class you cannot expect to not do any reading and get an A. It is basically a history course so the textbook becomes your best friend. Carter's exams were not extremely difficult but there is no curve in the class so you just have to do your best. Participation is important in discussion and made up at least 20% of your grade. There were also weekly "write abouts" where students would have to answer a question about the weekly readings in a kind of brain storm way. Overall, not a hard course but don't slack off on reading
AD
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - This class was overall a really good intro to GE here at UCLA and I would def recommend to other incoming freshmen. There is only 2 papers and a quiz every unit. I would say that the quizzes were very stupid because it was basically quoting his lectures. He said this was to counteract Chat GBT, but a lot of the students did not like this (including me) as it felt like it wasn't really testing your knowledge on the material. Overall, the professor was really nice and approachable. One thing I didn't like was that his office hours were all held on Zoom which was hella awkard. But he was cool. I feel I didn't learn anything though, but I got through it. You will know the names of random Japanese periods which is nice. I was watching the Studio Ghibli movie and it referenced an era and I was like omg! i know that! but yeah that's about it.
Fall 2023 - This class was overall a really good intro to GE here at UCLA and I would def recommend to other incoming freshmen. There is only 2 papers and a quiz every unit. I would say that the quizzes were very stupid because it was basically quoting his lectures. He said this was to counteract Chat GBT, but a lot of the students did not like this (including me) as it felt like it wasn't really testing your knowledge on the material. Overall, the professor was really nice and approachable. One thing I didn't like was that his office hours were all held on Zoom which was hella awkard. But he was cool. I feel I didn't learn anything though, but I got through it. You will know the names of random Japanese periods which is nice. I was watching the Studio Ghibli movie and it referenced an era and I was like omg! i know that! but yeah that's about it.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - Overall an interesting and easy GE. Midterm- 40% Final-40% Discussion Participation- 10% Weekly Discussion Prompts- 10% There was also a 3 pt extra credit opportunity towards the end of the quarter as well. The exams are pretty simple because the long/short responses are based on the weekly discussion questions and the rest of the exam is matching quotes with readings. No textbooks required, just do the readings diligently and make sure you can answer all the discussion questions. There are no essays or long writing assignments, so this class is ideal for people like me who dislike writing. Lectures are powerpoint and the slides go by too fast to even take a picture. No worries-- the lectures are useful, but more like supplements to the readings. I think that it's totally possible to not attend a single lecture and get a 100% in the class. Professor Ishida did take attendance once though. Best part of the class is the entertaining and relevant films.
Spring 2018 - Overall an interesting and easy GE. Midterm- 40% Final-40% Discussion Participation- 10% Weekly Discussion Prompts- 10% There was also a 3 pt extra credit opportunity towards the end of the quarter as well. The exams are pretty simple because the long/short responses are based on the weekly discussion questions and the rest of the exam is matching quotes with readings. No textbooks required, just do the readings diligently and make sure you can answer all the discussion questions. There are no essays or long writing assignments, so this class is ideal for people like me who dislike writing. Lectures are powerpoint and the slides go by too fast to even take a picture. No worries-- the lectures are useful, but more like supplements to the readings. I think that it's totally possible to not attend a single lecture and get a 100% in the class. Professor Ishida did take attendance once though. Best part of the class is the entertaining and relevant films.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - This class was not the easiest GE but it was still fairly easy. We had a reading response every week, graded on content. There were no papers, but this was made up for with the essay section and short answer portions of the midterm and final. The final luckily was not cumulative, it just contained material after the midterm to the end of week 10, which was good because there is a lot of content in the textbook which made this not the easiest GE. The slides were not posted, so you have to take your own thorough notes. Professor Kanesaka was passionate about the material and delivered decent lectures. We also got to watch a few snippets of anime if you're into that.
Fall 2019 - This class was not the easiest GE but it was still fairly easy. We had a reading response every week, graded on content. There were no papers, but this was made up for with the essay section and short answer portions of the midterm and final. The final luckily was not cumulative, it just contained material after the midterm to the end of week 10, which was good because there is a lot of content in the textbook which made this not the easiest GE. The slides were not posted, so you have to take your own thorough notes. Professor Kanesaka was passionate about the material and delivered decent lectures. We also got to watch a few snippets of anime if you're into that.
1 of 2
