in this class, your entire grade is based on 10 500-700 word assignments (pretty much synthesis essays) due every friday on that week's content. these are super reasonable to do and if you need help figuring out which things are important to include, discussions are on friday so ur ta can help u out (once u get used to it/if u are rly opposed to friday discussions they aren't actually mandatory so dw ab showing up). u can also do revisions for all of them but ull probably get used to it after like 3. lectures are recorded and honestly i prefer doing them online so i can watch on a faster speed. professor is super knowledgable and is a pretty interesting lecturer (he always includes some cool tidbits that are obviously too niche to include in the assignment but still fun to learn ab) but also bc of that his slides aren't the clearest. this makes sense tho bc the assignment is for u to determine how to weave a cohesive narrative from the information he gives u. one of my favorite things ab the professor is how he manages to articulate historical nuances -- history isn't clear cut but he takes that into account so u get a well rounded view of the situation. would love to take another class w him fs

This class is hard now but when I took it it was really easy. Would not recommend anymore :/

This class is one of the three classes that I have taken at UCLA and I already know this is going to be one of the easiest things I take in my four years here. The class consists of two boring ass lectures that I payed maybe 20% attention to just to copy down what it says on the slides, and one discussion every week where your TA tells you exactly what to write on the weekly assignments. These weekly assignments are 500-700 words on some topic from that week's lectures. There are no finals or midterms. During those weeks there aren't even lectures, discussions, or regular assignments. Rather, there are revisions that you can do on your past 4 assignments to bring your grade up. I maybe spent 5 minutes MAX on each revision and at least received at least a 5% bump in my grade. Now, I don't go to lectures and just copy down the zoom slides. I make sure to go to discussions, but I didn't have one last week and the assignment was still absolutely light work. Take this class because it's easy. It is most definitely not interesting considering the amount of people asleep during this teacher's boring ass lectures that might as well be a wikipedia article put onto slides.

You don't really need the textbook, you just need to take notes on the slides, but the lectures are all recorded, so you can do that all asynchronously.

This was a pretty easy and straightforward class. An essay (500-700 words) each week over the lecture material. The professor seems to have a genuine interest in the content and is a decent lecturer. Would definitely take to satisfy the GE requirement.

I took this class for a GE and overall it was very very easy. There were no exams and all we had to do each week was write a long response answer to a prompt every week with 500-700 words. They weren't essays and the prompts were always very straightforward (basically just summarize that weeks lectures) and only took a few hours to complete give or take depending on how fast you write.

That being said, your grade/experience in this class depends entirely on the TA you have. My TA, Victoria, was amazing and every week our discussion sections were basically summing up the main points of that weeks lectures. She gave us a blank note sheet/diagram to fill out as we went over each point and then on top of that at the end of every discussion she gave us the same exact note sheet with all the notes pre-typed just in case we missed anything while writing...which we never did because it was all written on the board. This meant that I never had to attend lecture and I would just write my responses based purely off the notes from discussion and I pretty much always got 94+ on the writing assignments. However I know some of the other TAs graded harder and people were still able to get A's they just had to work a little more for it. Also, even if you score bad on an assignment you can rewrite it so overall very very low stress class and highly recommend to anyone.

If you are contemplating taking this class with Duthie let me put it short for you TAKE THIS CLASS.
As an incoming STEM freshman having no clue what they are doing and having absolutely zero writing skills, this class was the only thing keeping my GPA and my sanity together. If this class was in person I would have made sure to buckle up on the drive to school and use my turn signals all the time.
Homework wise the class only has a weekly 500-700 word essay based on the content of the week. Personally I never once opened the textbook, the class lectures and slides proved sufficient. But i will strongly advise that you attend the discussion where the TAs will give you practically an outline of how to write your essays. With this if you at least give yourself two hours and some knowledge of the topic you can get a A on every essay.
Most important part, NO MIDTERM AND FINAL. Instead of tests the Professor uses these weeks to allow for revision and regrading of the weekly essays.
If I had to take any class at ucla ever again it most definitely will be this one hands down. Shout out to TA Yueying.

Great GE especially if you're interested in Japanese history! Super interesting. Even if you're not interested in Japanese history, still one of the easiest GE I took. No midterm, no final, just an essay every week that you can rewrite for better grades.

The professor’s lectures were really engaging, you can tell that he enjoys teaching. I wish we could’ve gone deeper into the material, but there just wasn’t enough time to do so. I had TA Suong and she was the best, super nice, encouraged participation in a way that didn’t make things awkward, and very understanding about everything going on. Definitely recommend this class, it’s super easy and fun.

This class is an easy and interesting GE!
Professor Duthie is GOAT. I don't know how his class will be like during normal time, but during covid time, we only have 10 weekly assignments to write about the topic discussed in that week. No quiz or exam. We can also revise the assignments and resubmit. TA's discussions are really helpful, since your TA grades your assignment. TA goes over the topic and explains how to write the assignment for each week. Since I got other tough classes, this class literally saves my life. I didn't have time to read the textbook and just watched recorded lectures and attended discussions, but this didn't affect the grade of my assignments at all. So if no time to go over the textbook, lecture + discussion is enough.