Five easy classes to fill your spring 2024 semester

Looking for one more low-difficulty class to round out your next semester? For the spring 2024 semester, The Daily Pennsylvanian compiled a  list of interesting classes with past difficulty ratings of less than two, according to Penn Course Review. 

CIMS 3203: The Animation Of Disney

For all proud Disney adults, The Animation of Disney embarks on a study of The Walt Disney Company. Visiting lecturer Linda Simensky will teach the course on Mondays from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. 

The course — with a difficulty of 1.2 — will cover the biography and philosophy of Walt Disney, Disney’s early films, the impact of the acquisition of Pixar, and recent innovations like live-action remakes and Disney+. 

Simensky is head of animation and scripted content for Duolingo. Previously, her roles included serving as an executive at PBS, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network, where she oversaw the production of "The Powerpuff Girls" and helped launch "Rugrats" and "Hey Arnold!," among other series.

CIMS 2021: Romantic Comedy

Are you a rom-com lover? Romantic Comedy is a course that explores the sub-categories and qualities of romantic comedies. Taught by Undergraduate Chair of Cinema & Media Studies Meta Mazaj, this course is rated a 1.8 difficulty. The course will be taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. 

This course will show several different films, including "How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days" and "Her,' in order to "analyze the moods and swings, the successes and failures of love in romantic comedy." The course’s syllabus proposes the question: “We may know what it is like to fall in love, but how do movies tell us what it is like?”

MGMT 2480: How to be the Boss

If you’re looking for a 0.5 credit class, How to be the Boss will fulfill that credit and teach you what it means to be a supervisor. The class will be taught by Wharton George W. Taylor Professor of Management and Director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources Peter Cappelli on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12 to 1:30 p.m. 

With a difficulty of 1.7, this class will study what a supervisor is and what challenges they face, especially when becoming a supervisor for the first time. “Stepping into a supervisor position is challenging, exceptionally so the first time. That time comes relatively soon for Wharton grads,” the course syllabus reads.

AFRC 0116: American Race: A Philadelphia Story

A returning course, American Race: A Philadelphia Story will be taught by Fariha Khan and Fernando Chang-Muy every Tuesday and Thursday from 12 to 1:30 p.m.

Ranked a difficulty of 1.6 in Penn Course Review, this class engages in conversations about race with a multidisciplinary approach and brings in guest speakers from local Philadelphia community organizations. This year, the class is a Penn Global Seminar, culminating in a trip to Greece. 

Khan, Co-Director of Penn’s Asian American Studies program, and Chang-Muy, Thomas O’Boyle Adjunct Professor of Law at Penn Carey Law, co-taught the course for the first time last spring. The course is also cross-listed in the departments of Asian American Studies, Africana Studies, Latin American & Latinx Studies, Sociology, South Asia Studies, and Urban Studies.

EALC 2251: Demonic Women in Japanese Fiction 

Lecturer in Japanese Studies Kathryn Hemmann will teach the brand new course Demonic Women in Japanese Fiction every Tuesday and Thursday from 1:45 to 3:15 p.m. this spring semester. 

The class will cover the paranormal to understand the cultural themes "underlying the literary trope of demonic women in Japan." While this is the first time the course will be taught, Hemmann is ranked with an average difficulty of 1.1 and a workload of 1.3 across seven different sections, according to Penn Course Review.

Hemmann is an author of essays studying Japanese fiction, graphic novels, and video games. Their research interests lie in Japanese console-based role-playing games like the "Legend of Zelda", "Final Fantasy", and "Pokémon" series.