Professor Huhtamo is great, I did not have an issue with him, it was the actual course content. His 3 hour lectures are very tough to sit through, but the break in between is nice and long enough to grab a coffee from the library. There are readings every week that introduce you to the topics being discussed in lecture, 3 random pop quizzes based 30% on the readings, and 70% from last week's lecture. Our final was a research essay that used 5 sources from the reading, so I'd say it was important for that. If you are not into design or reading super deep into design choices, you'll most likely find this class to be very boring. Attendance is taken by QR code during the break, although sometimes they'll switch it up to ensure everybody stays the whole time. If you just do the work, and at least skim through the readings you'll be fine.

This is an incredibly easy GE but you will 100% not learn a single thing that has bearing on real life. Most of the material is theoretical and the professor's lectures are not engaging whatsoever. You have to buy the textbook for the assignments, but even as somebody who read every single reading, I didn't learn a single thing. There are three pop quizzes, four event reports, a midterm, and a final, which can be done in a group. The grading is extremely lenient and there are multiple extra credit opportunities that cover you even if you fail the pop quizzes, which are stupidly specific. It's a fine class that does the job with very little work but it's a waste of time

I absolutely hated this class. As someone who is not interested in design and art in general and took this class as a GE, I would never in a million years recommend this class to anyone else. While the workload in this class was very minimal (just weekly readings + two essays), there are three pop quizzes (lowest grade dropped) that are so difficult and literally impossible to do well on. He also presents one question at a time for them on the board, which you get 60 secs to answer before he switches to the next question. This makes it kind of difficult to go back and change your answers or even think about them for a little bit. They are not intuitive AT ALL even if you do the readings. Even with the dense readings, the questions are almost always on the most niche things that are impossible to remember when the weekly readings are 60 pages MINIMUM. To put this into perspective, the average on the first pop quiz this quarter was a 5/10. Also, attendance is mandatory, which for a THREE hour lecture at 9 am on a Friday is absolutely horrendous. If you end up missing one of the pop quizzes, you basically just get a zero because you need to have accommodations to be able to make it up. Literally almost every person in the back of the class is either asleep or not paying attention. The professor is very knowledgeable but could double as a sleep machine. This quarter's midterm was a 1200-word essay on SMELL, which to say was an actual waste of time would be an understatement. On top of all that, you are required to attend 4 design events, most of which are always off-campus. Attending the events is not that bad, but in order to get extra credit to make up your grade drop by the pop quizzes, you need to attend FOUR more events to get a letter grade up. On top of all of that, the TA's seemed to be kind of disconnected in their grading policy or what they are expecting for the essays. The TA's would send different announcements a couple of times a week clarifying different things about the midterm essay that indicated that the initial explanation of the assignment wasn't clear. Every single time I am in this class, I regret ever taking this class wish I could go back and take any other class but this. Lastly, keep in mind that the textbook that you are required to buy is like forty dollars and cannot be found online.

I have really enjoyed this class so far as it is really easy and there are not many assignments. However, I feel like the context in the readings and lectures have a lot of examples and are a little hard to comprehend. The lectures are also very long on a Friday morning which is very hard some days. Overall, the class does not assign much homework besides for the one reading a week, however when spread out, it is pretty easy. This class could also get boring as it is from 9:00-11:50 and goes over a lot of examples.

DESMA 10 has to be one of the easiest classes I've taken at UCLA. The entire class was structured off 3 components a midterm paper a final paper, which was a group assignment, and attendance. The only thing that made this class a bitch was that class was 3 hours on Fridays at 9 am, which sucked after thirsty Thursday. The class was boring asf lowkey and I would tune it out every week. The midterm was kinda cool because you had to just wander around campus and find abnormal design characteristics while quoting the readings. The final was very easy as well as it was a group assignment involving critiquing design again. Overall, a very easy class.

DESMA 10 with Huhtamo is the definition of an easy A. Just know that you will not learn anything valuable, unless you are really engaged and want to go into fashion or graphic design. I took this class during Fall quarter of my freshman year because I wanted to take an easy GE. Although it was easy and I got an A+, I honestly would've rather taken a slightly harder class that was actually enjoyable than this boring class. Huhtamo is a great person, but his lectures are sooo boring. It might just be because I am not a morning person and have a very short attention span, but waking up for the 3-hour long 9AM lectures killed me, especially as a freshman who rushed and partied a lot in the Fall.

Important things to know: Attendance is MANDATORY, there are 3 pop quizzes (hardest part of the class - textbook helps a lot but I got an A without ever reading it), a couple design "event" analyses, a couple design "special" analyses (I still don't know the difference between the events and specials), a midterm activity/paper, and one final group project/paper.
As you can see, most of the class consists of writing papers, and the TAs grade them very leniently, so it is easy to get an A on all of them. My only tip for this class is to go to class and be somewhat prepared for the pop quizzes.

This class is great to take as a GE. It was super easy, the only downside is that the classes are 3 hours long and are on Friday's. However, it's super easy to catch up, and the midterm and final are both easy as well. The weekly discussion posts are also pretty simple as well as interesting. I ended with an A+ and didn't struggle. Professor Huhtamo is also a great professor and is engaging.

This class was generally easy, but a pain to get through. I do not like the way Huhtamo runs this class. You can tell he is very knowledgeable, but I don't think his methods really prioritize learning. He pretty much reads word for word off the slides and also takes attendance. In a 300+ person college lecture. Everyone was pretty much zoned out or doing something else during those. The only reason people came was mostly to take the 3 pop quizzes he said he would be giving out. He also makes you pay for this "course reader" that is pretty much useless except to cite in the essays.
Breakdown of the class:
Midterm assignment (30%) - this was easy, a semiotic analysis about things around campus
Final assignment (40%) - also easy, group essay on designs we thought should be changed
Pop-up Quizzes (2 x 5% = 10%) - lowest score dropped, but you have no idea what to study for on these, tested on random facts from lectures and main points from readings
Two Desma 10 Specials (2 x 5 = 10%) - also easy; genuinely enjoyed these as you just write reflections on events and I went to DESMA and Art MFA exhibits
Two Design Events events (2 x 5 = 10%) - easy and interesting; reports on guest speakers. We had really interesting ones, including a tattoo artist and fashion designer
Blog (5 or more posts will raise final grade by one step) - easy reflections on a question about the lecture topics
I really liked my TA though; I had Aurora Mititelu. She was really helpful during office hours and graded reasonably.

Overall, easy and highly recommended.
If you need an easy Art GE or if you want to take a random class to boost your GPA, this is it.
The class is once a week for three hours. Professor Huhtamo is very understanding and overall a great professor. He has a slight accent and the topics he discusses can be... interesting... but I liked this class. There is lots of EXTRA CREDIT so it is easy to earn an A.

Rundown:
4 assignments: yes. FOUR. you attend four events (zooms that he will post) and write a page about each one of them
3 pop quizzes: lowest one dropped, pretty simple though
Midterm: an assignment (a short paper)
Final: group paper (1500 words spilt over a group of 1-5 people)

*Highlighting again: there are many chances to boost your grade by doing extra credit work

Professor Huhtamo's three-hour lectures were boring. Did not need to know much of anything from the PowerPoints in order to do the exams, though the material will show up on the quiz. Also, you need to pull from the readings in order to complete the midterm/final/quizzes. The readings, by the way, were very difficult to read and comprehend.

The grading was very lenient. Though due to the strike, none of the assignments were graded. Your grade was entirely reliant on one pop quiz, midterm, and final.

The lectures were awful. No one would go if not for the mandatory attendance, which would be taken around halfway through the class. When he realized people would leave right after attendance was taken, he moved attendance to the end of class. However this never happened since strike prevented us from going to class for the rest of the quarter.

This class drained me every Friday. Take it if you want a class with a light workload and an easy A to fulfill your GE requirements, but be prepared for that feeling of impending doom.