My favorite class so far...
My favorite class at Cal so far is a class I had taken as a freshman: EPS 39A. It's a freshman/sophmore seminar that teaches students about California geology with weekly lectures and a 3 day camping trip! My camping group's theme was "Fire and Ice" and we got to basically look at glacial markings in Lake Tahoe (ice) and volcanoes near Mono Lake (fire). It was one thing to listen and look at slides in class and quite another thing to actually go on mile long hikes and touch the mountain sides ourselves. We visited a lake where all the trees surrounding it were dead because of the sulfur leaking out from the lake floor and also took a dip in a natural hotspring. As a freshman I was shy and quiet and this class really opened me up.
I learned about other students' lives and how each person brought something special and unique to the trip. Every night we would all help cook dinner and stand around a huge fire, trying to warm up because it was so cold! This class was definitely special; how many classes have camping trips as the final? I recommended it to everyone on my dorm floor and those who took the class loved it too. This class was the most hands-on class I've taken at Cal and one that has really stuck with me. Even though my van broke down on the side of a mountain, I would take this class again in a heart beat.