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.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS GE. It may not be the class with the least workload since you're expected to submit a response to a prompt about the week's lectures every week (10 assignments total). However, you can resubmit all of them for a better grade so it's not that stressful or intimidating once you get used to it. Professor Duthie is an incredibly amazing lecturer and well-versed in Japanese history. He was also really considerate of the circumstances and he and the TAs offered late submissions with no penalties as long as you let them know. Overall, it has been one of the most interesting history GEs I've taken. The only downside I could see from this is that going to lecture is necessary to get an A so you really do have to go (sections are optional though).

I also recommend taking the course with TA Suong, she grades within a day of the deadline with feedback and is super lenient. Her sections also basically tell you what to write about and her notes are really helpful and detailed.

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Torquil was a great professor and I enjoyed watching his presentations and reading the selected text. The TA I got, on the other hand, was super strict with grading and because of that, I ended up getting a B in the class despite understanding all of the course material. Simply writing over the word count was enough to ding points off my paper even though it added to the quality.

I had an extremely good experience in this class. Professor Duthie was a good lecturer and made the material very interesting and easy to understand. I also had an awesome TA, who broke down the weekly assignments very well. There were 10 assignments in this class and they were all the same format. I actually mostly struggled with going over the word count. Overall though, I enjoyed this class and would take it again, as well as recommend it to anyone else. I took this as a GE via zoom.

Pretty easy GE, would recommend. The structure of the lectures/class was really clear and easy to follow. There's a 500-700 word essay (almost) each week for a total of 10. I'd recommend writing these after discussion because the TA covers the main points that you should aim to discuss in your essay. My only criticism is that the topics felt the same each week, just for a different time period. "Discuss the political, economic, military, social, cultural aspect of ______" It felt dry by the end. I did like how we could choose the topic of the last essay from the TA recorded lectures since there was more variety and unique topics.

Taking this class in Fall 2020 during the infamous COVID-19 pandemic, this class is one of the easiest GE classes to take! Seriously, ALL you have to do is write one essay per week (500-700 word) for a total of 10 essays per semester and that's it! You even get to rewrite essays for a better grade (and the better grade will always be chosen, so there is no harm in resubmitting it). The remote lectures are very interesting because of the professor's clarity and occasional humor/sidenotes, especially if you have any interest in Japanese history (I mean, aren't you curious about why samurais came into rise of society, why did Japanese literary culture like mange or anime became popular worldwide, and such?)! As long as you can write fairly decent essays and you understand what the professor is saying, then you're 80% golden (just make sure you learn how to weave lecture information into essays, which the TAs will help guide you). Speaking of TAs, they are very helpful if you don't know where to get started, since they hint to you ideas that need to be discussed (and the deadline of the essays are about 9-12 hours after your Friday TA discussion, so you can technically go to Discussion section and then start writing the essay and still turn it in time). Overall, this class was very enjoyable, low-stressed (even though I am actually a terrible writer), and easy class. Also big thank you to my TA Thai (she was an amazing person :) ) You can essentially earn 5 unit credits for a relatively low-workload environment, so take it if you care about Japanese civilization or to get it for your GE.

My favorite class I've taken at UCLA! Duthie is a great lecturer and very understanding professor I hurt my hand near finals and he let me take an incomplete. I learned so much and even considered an Asian minor after this course even though I'm a stem major. The course load isn't bad at all: weekly 250 write ups on the weekly readings (which aren't bad and super interesting), one midterm (I remember it had ID sections and a section in which you were given a text excerpt and you had to give the title, author, year, and brief significance), and one non-cumulative final (same length/format as midterm). Section attendance is mandatory and worth it because you learn the significance of the readings you will be tested on, lecture wasn't mandatory but interesting and helpful for ID (Duthie is a great lecturer and I loved his accent), reading/ buying the book wasn't useful. In conclusion, 10/10 class very doable but memorization heavy which I personally like.

Easy class that just requires a lot of memorization. Go to test bank to look at previous midterms -- it's almost the same midterm every year.

The class is overall easy. Attending lectures and sections is helpful.