Hey guys,
I will be a freshmen this fall at UC Davis for Materials Engineering! I wanted to know more about those LOWKEY classes that can help in completing my breadth requirements and also help me in completing the requirements for GE. Example: “Take the Introduction to Screen Writing class cause it can help you satisfy your Arts and Humanities credit”
Anthropology 2 (ANT2) – Cultural Anthropology (4 units)
Learn about anthropological methods, kinships, gender, and politics in different societies all over the world. This class is a triple dip, because it fulfills Social-Science, Diversity, and Writing GEs. Midterms are all multiple-choice and there is one term paper. The downside to this is that you will have a discussion class.
Asian American Studies 1 (ASA1) – Historical Experiences of Asian Americans (4 units)
Triple-Dip Class! It fulfills Social-Science, Diversity, and Writing GEs. Grading are based on the multiple-choice midterm and final, along with one term paper. You will have a discussion class too. ASA1 teaches you about the lives of Asian Americans in the United states from the time period of the 1840s to the present.
Comparative Literature 25 (COM 25) – Ethnic Minority Writers in World Literature
Read short stories from different ethnic writers all over the world and learn about the challenges they face for being an ethnic minority. This is a lecture and in-class discussion type of class. It fulfills the GEs for Arts and Humanities, Diversity, and Writing.
Environmental Toxicology 10 (ETX10) – Introduction to Environmental Toxicology (3 units)
The class is structured with multiple choice midterms and a final. You’ll learn about hazardous plants, the effects they have on humans, and how they affect the environment. This fulfills the Science and Engineering GE.
Food Science and Technology 10 (FST 10) – Food Science, Folklore and Health (3 units)
This class is taught by two Professors and it fulfills the Science Engineering or Social Science GE. What’s even better is you don’t even need to buy the book in order to pass the class! The midterms are all multiple-choice and there’s no written final. FST10 is about food preservatives, food safety, organic food, and nutritional enhancement.
Human Development 12 (HDE12) – Human Sexuality (3 units)
This class fulfills the Diversity GE. HDE12 is about sexual responses, and everything else that relates to human sexuality like sexual orientations, contraceptives, and disease. Beware that the Professor may show a film of a woman giving birth!
Nutrition 10 (NUT 10) – Discoveries and Concepts in Nutrition (3 units)
This class fulfills your Science and Engineering GE and is taught by Professor Applegate. She gives tons of extra credit and free food during lecture and review sessions. She is easy to talk to and best of all, this class teaches you about the nutrients and food and how that can help increase or decrease your risk of certain cancers. Beware that you will have to purchase her book which costs about $80.00
^ Quite a few of those are pretty popular GEs (ANT 2, FST 10, HDE 12, NUT 10), but they’re all good suggestions. The classes also tend to be pretty big, so you have a good shot at getting into them first quarter if you want to take them.
My go-to recommendation is any of the RST 1 series. There’s the general RST 1 that’s an introduction to world religions, then there’s RST 1A-H (I think) covering world religions with respect to specific aspects of the religions. For instance, RST 1C focuses on sacrifice, RST 1F focuses on religion today, etc. You can get an idea from looking at the course title. These classes are good for AH and writing experience, a few of them count towards world cultures, and RST 1 and 1F count towards domestic diversity.
I personally took RST 1F freshman year both out of interest and to finish my diversity requirement. It was a great class, and it counted towards writing experience despite not having any writing outside of class. We had essay and short answer questions on the exams, but they weren’t difficult at all. I took RST 1 this past fall as a fun elective because I had a free space, and it was a great class. The writing wasn’t hard. We had weekly reading responses (choose 7 out of 10 to do) and a mandatory final response in lieu of a midterm or final. We also had a short paper (~4 pages) in the middle of the quarter.
Thanks for the response guys it was really helpful! Do these courses have prerequisites or are they all introductions courses?
There shouldn’t be any prerequisites for any of these. That’s the point of freshman classes, isn’t it? 
AWESOME!!! last question I promise where is the link to all of the classes