I'd recommend Masterpieces in World Literature. Turns out most professors don't really care if what you do is have a program read your readings to you. In fact, oftentimes it's a lot more convenient. You can get the readings done while you're doing something else. It's great. It's actually a really easy class.
Another class that I think is super great for Gen Ed is the Writing 150 class. Lots of freshmen take it their first year and I actually didn't have to take it because I got like an AP score that was enough to like replace that class, but I thought it was really cool because it showed me kind of how BYU wants you to write and what they look for generally speaking. Now every teacher in every class is going to obviously have different requirements or purposes for why you're writing, but it's a good class to kind of give you a general idea of the type of writing that is acceptable and wanted here at BYU. I also think that it's not too hard, usually the professors don't grade like crazy hard and the writing assignments are generally interesting, and so yeah I would highly recommend.
I highly recommend American Heritage. I know a lot of people try and find a way around it by taking a different class that fulfills that general or doing something in high school so they don't have to take it in college, but guys, American Heritage is such a good class. It is difficult, I will not lie, but if you put in the time and effort, if you go to TA review hours, if you study every day a little bit for this class, you will be totally fine. I'm just very passionate about this class because this may sound like a little bit cheesy, but it really did change my life. It kind of widened my perspective, helped me be more informed about how our country is run, because to be quite honest, I didn't know that before. And so I just think it's good for anyone who comes here to BYU. It will seriously change your outlook and your perspective, which I think is super beneficial.
My recommendation for this would probably be creating a good life because I was kind of scared to take it out first but it's been so good and It just is like you make kind of a life plan of like things you want to do and like activities you want to go To that you wouldn't normally go to it also is like a good like I don't know like the homework is really good because you watch videos and it's like How can you be more grateful this week or how can you be more happy this week? And it's kind of like a reflection of like how the week was and how you can be better
Being an accounting major at BYU, I always appreciated some of the non-core business classes. One of the ones I remember that actually it's interesting because I still can use some of it today was a humanities class where one of the things we learned was like how to identify Doric, Ionic, and like Corinthian columns, and so it's been kind of fun as we've sort of traveled in our lives since then that some of these things that I learned back in just basic GE classes at BYU still have been life enriching.
When it comes to general education classes, we all have to take them and I think my advice would be to try to take them earlier on because as you start getting more into your major, your classes will start getting harder and you'll have less time to be able to spend on these general education classes. So I think it's better to try to get them done earlier or at least try to make sure that you're taking some all throughout the beginning of your semesters in order to get them out of the way. And then the other thing is you can always just combine some that are actually more helpful for your class and for your major and so just kind of looking at which one would be more interesting is also something that you can try to look at.
A general I would recommend is for your art credit. Last semester I took film, introduction to film, and you did have to write a short essay every week but other than that you had like one reading quiz and it was super easy because it was open note and everything. And the final was pretty easy like super simple class you just have one lecture and then one lab each week and so that is one that I would definitely recommend. You just get to watch movies and talk about it basically. I mean there's more than that but lots of movies you get to watch, it's kind of fun.
I am taking a general card called Art History 202 right now and it is super sought after. I think the waitlist is like 160 people because it actually covers two generals in one, so I think it covers your civ credit and your art credit in one shot and it has been a very interesting and chill class thus far. I mean I have not finished it but it is super nice to be able to knock out two gen eds in one shot.
My recommendation for Gen Eds is to get a majority done by your junior year, but I think you should also keep it balanced with taking classes to explore majors. You definitely can get some of your Gen Eds done over like spring or summer term or even like your senior year, but I think it's really good to be able to focus on your major those last two years and Gen Eds kind of take away time from that. But yeah, I think it's really important to be taking classes freshman and sophomore year to help you explore the majors.
For my Civ credits, the first one I did, IHUME 201, which is like a lot of memorizing. The tests were pretty hard. I was like, oh my gosh. But then if you take IHUME 202, that covers Civ II and your letters credit. So it covered two GEs. And I was like, okay, awesome. I'll take it, even though the first one was hard. But I had, listen, Sydney Balliff. I don't know how long she'll be teaching at BYU. Hopefully she'll be there forever, but her class was awesome. Like hardly any homework. I felt like it was so applicable to my life. I am not humanities oriented at all, but I loved her class. Like no tests. You just wrote essays. It was like the midterm was an essay. The final was an essay and she didn't grade super harshly. Anyways, highly recommend taking class from her because it was one of my easier generals, but I loved it.
If you're looking for a good general ed class, I recommend taking dinosaurs. I took it in the spring and we went on a lot of field trips. We saw a lot. We went to a few museums. It's really awesome. You got to like look at actual fossils and see like the behind the scenes of like how they take care of fossils and such like that. Yeah, it's really fun. I really recommend it.
If you take American Heritage at the Salt Lake Center, I guess it's a lot easier and it's way better like content. I had a friend who took it at the Salt Lake Center and loved it, like it was one of her favorite classes. So, definitely recommend if you're super nervous about taking American Heritage, um, do that.
I took Creating a Good Life, which is EXDM, I think 201 or 100. It's just the intro class. It's super, super fun. It was probably one of my favorite classes I've taken here at BYU. I thought it was a lot about positive psychology and just creating a good life, which I thought was super interesting. It's hybrid, so it's half online, which is super nice if you like that. I think that it goes for like global experience or something like that, but I really liked it. I also have taken a few of my generals at Salt Lake Center, and they've been a lot easier than they are in Provo, so I really appreciate that. It's kind of annoying to go on the train, but it's worth it because I get an A, so yeah.
Take the easiest ones because it's so dumb taking a general that you don't get a good grade in.
If I had to recommend a general ed class, it would be Music 101. I took it of a live remote class and it was honestly pretty easy. If you have any type of knowledge about music, you do have to be able to like remember songs and know what they were called, but the professor does a pretty good job reviewing before the exam to tell you exactly what you need to know in the exams. The assignments are pretty straightforward and I would say it was a pretty easy way to get one of your general ed credits.