This nutrition course takes the win for its relevance to our everyday lives
As the pandemic has raged on in the last 14 months, many UC Davis students have had to take their general education classes through an online format. Even when there’s not a pandemic, general education classes can be time-consuming and difficult to get through, often without real-world applications. So why not actually learn how to read the back of a food label and take the class voted best to take online in 2021 by 54.9%?
For the first time ever, Nutrition 10: Discoveries and Concepts in Nutrition (NUT 10) has taken home the prized title of best class to take online at UC Davis. It has previously been voted as the best general education class to take in 2017 and 2018.
Taught remotely by Dr. Liz Applegate and Professor Debbie Fetter, NUT 10 attempts to teach students about viewing nutrition as a science that can be easily taken from the classroom to their very own kitchens. It also tries to educate students on the basic principles and historical developments of nutrition and food as well as the science of what we put into our mouths. In essence, it’s a light, 3-unit course that you can use to better your everyday health and understanding of nutrition.
Janelle Ho, a fourth-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior major who is currently taking the class this Spring Quarter, said, “NUT 10 has taught me important nutritional facts that debunk various social media nutrition myths and advertisements.”
“NUT 10 was the first class I took at Davis where I really felt like the material I was learning was useful,” said Malika Haji, a second-year managerial economics major, who took the class in the spring of 2020. “I’m not a STEM person at all, but I thought learning the science behind diet and the foods we eat was actually really interesting,”
The appeal to Haji is that “the class is also set up in a way where even if you’re not a STEM or nutrition major you can still easily grasp the concepts and understand the basics.”
For students, NUT 10 is an ideal class to take online because it had previously been offered in a virtual format in 2018 known as Nutrition 10V. In its online format, it had the same number of exams as its in-person counterpart and just as many extra credit opportunities. The difference was that students could learn at their own pace at their own time.
“NUT 10 has been taught online for quite some time now and so the course is extremely organized [because] assignments, quizzes and other deadlines are outlined within the course modules,” Ho said.
Haji shares that sentiment. “[NUT 10] is great because [of] the way [that] Dr. Fetter has the class setup that makes it easy to follow along on your own time. There are no surprises with the course, you know exactly what to expect each week and what you need to get done, which I always appreciated.”
“I have always seen nutritional labels that outline DV percentages, but I have never understood how to interpret the numbers, but after learning about DV in NUT 10, I now share my new knowledge with my family and friends,” Ho said.
It’s clear that this course has real-world value, and whether you take it in-person or online, it’ll be worth your while.
Written by: Muhammad Tariq — features@theaggie.org
