Monday, March 3, 1997
Students enjoy diversity, new content gained while fulfilling
requirementsBy Toni Dimayuga
Daily Bruin Contributor
It’s that time again.
Students all over campus can be seen thumbing through the
Schedule of Classes and calling URSA to sign up for Spring Quarter
classes.
Besides looking for something to just fulfill requirements, some
students tend to choose certain classes for reasons ranging from
fun professors to an easy A.
Classes that fulfill general education requirements and
upper-division electives tend to have high enrollment, said Jane
Crawford, director of Letters and Science Counseling Service.
"Often it’s because the class presents new material not taught
in high school," she explained. She added that in general, students
are interested in the diverse nature of these courses.
Crawford said that popular GE courses include Linguistics 1,
Musicology 135, Film and Television 106A and the Math 3 and 31
series.
Other factors influence which classes make the grade with
students and which don’t. Helen Choo, a third-year psychology
transfer student said that her Psychology 127, Abnormal Psychology,
is popular among psychology students because of the subject
matter.
"You get to understand all the people with mental and
psychological problems," she said.
Although many students hear about and choose to take certain
classes through word of mouth, some, like first-year economics
student Jennifer Lee, get lucky.
Lee took Anthropology 7 last quarter and expected the class to
be popular because of the easy and intriguing subject of Human
Evolution. She recalled that students were consistent in attending
 the room was packed with people at almost every lecture.
"The professor kind of made it interesting … he had a good
sense of humor and it was fun to see pictures of various primates,"
she said.
This quarter Lee is taking another popular class Â
Molecular and Cell Biology 40, AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted
Diseases.
"I needed to fill a GE and I just went by a friend’s advice. I
just said, ‘Oh well, I’ll give this class a try’ Â and I’m
liking it," she said.
Lee found the class to be intimidating at first because of its
size and the tendency of the professor to "jump into things."
Lee is not the only student who enjoyed taking MCB 40.
Third-year history student Monica Aguirre took the course last year
and said one of the aspects which made the class interesting was
the required community service.
"I like getting involved because I like helping the community.
It made me feel good," she said.
However, Aguirre noticed that many students would not attend
class because it was easy and stressed the importance of going to
lecture.
"I think more students should take it seriously and actually go
to lecture because you’ll learn a lot of important things," she
said.
Lee believes that one of the main reasons students find MCB 40
interesting is its application to real life.
"It’s not a total science-based class. It also deals with the
sociological and psychological aspect of things, which makes it
more interesting to people," she said.
Overall presentation is a factor that some professors, such as
Michael Suman, who teaches Communications Studies 10, Introduction
to Communication Studies, have attributed to their class’s
popularity.
"Before I came the class was taught for 17 years by campus
legend Jeff Cole. He was an extremely gifted teacher. He had a
knack at informing students in a very engaging and entertaining
way. … I have attempted to follow in his tradition.
"I try to give many real-life examples to help the students
understand the material, and to allow them to relate it to their
lives and experiences. I also try to inject a healthy dose of humor
into my lectures."
Despite eliciting peals of laughter from students, Suman
emphasized that his Communications 10 class is not just a fun and
easy course.
"It’s important to note that my class does have intellectual
integrity," he said. "It’s known as a rigorous class, one that’s
hard to get a good grade in."