Professor
Antonio Quicoli
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - Nearly zero knowledge in syntax before taking this class. You basically just draw syntax trees the entire quarter, though things do take a while to make sense. There are some chapters of readings assigned but I personally never read any. Lectures are not the most interesting, but workload is fairly light, just one exercise worksheet of ~15 questions/trees to finish weekly, plus you do go over almost all of them in class together. Mid term and final are also a piece of worksheet (which you would also go over with the class, could also do office hours if you’d like). Quicoli is a very caring instructor who is always more than happy to help his students, only downside is that his lectures are quite confusing and all over the place. That said, just be there and draw the syntax trees, get an A, and then you’ll be fine. TLDR; Not easy to master the contents completely, easy A as long as you make sure to show up and draw those trees with the class.
Fall 2022 - Nearly zero knowledge in syntax before taking this class. You basically just draw syntax trees the entire quarter, though things do take a while to make sense. There are some chapters of readings assigned but I personally never read any. Lectures are not the most interesting, but workload is fairly light, just one exercise worksheet of ~15 questions/trees to finish weekly, plus you do go over almost all of them in class together. Mid term and final are also a piece of worksheet (which you would also go over with the class, could also do office hours if you’d like). Quicoli is a very caring instructor who is always more than happy to help his students, only downside is that his lectures are quite confusing and all over the place. That said, just be there and draw the syntax trees, get an A, and then you’ll be fine. TLDR; Not easy to master the contents completely, easy A as long as you make sure to show up and draw those trees with the class.
Most Helpful Review
I took Spanish M118A with Prof. Quicoli this past summer and it was the easiest A+ I've ever earned at UCLA. The course covers mainly the phonological changes from Latin to Spanish, with some material on Portuguese, but is taught entirely in English. Quicoli speaks very slowly so you'll never miss anything in lecture, though he does tend to get confused when asked clarifying questions in class - I'd recommend just going to office hours if you don't understand something because otherwise he's liable to take 15 minutes of lecture time to simply figure out what you're asking let alone answer. The handouts really aren't the best and he doesn't seem to have changed them at all over the years, also the course reader had a lot of extra material that was never assigned or even that relevant to the homework (try to buy it from someone who's taken the class already, I suspect he never updates the reader either). Luckily, you can ace the course by merely going to class and reading the Lathrop text - the grading breakdown included homeworks, "in-class assignments" (which consisted of one multiple choice question on one day of class), a take-home midterm, and in-class final. Quicoli grades very fairly but don't expect much feedback on your work. If you have absolutely no interest in the material the class will likely seem boring and you won't feel that you learned much, but I find myself using what I learned in his class now that I'm taking a Portuguese language course. Overall, Quicoli is an extremely nice person though probably not the best at communicating his knowledge in class.
I took Spanish M118A with Prof. Quicoli this past summer and it was the easiest A+ I've ever earned at UCLA. The course covers mainly the phonological changes from Latin to Spanish, with some material on Portuguese, but is taught entirely in English. Quicoli speaks very slowly so you'll never miss anything in lecture, though he does tend to get confused when asked clarifying questions in class - I'd recommend just going to office hours if you don't understand something because otherwise he's liable to take 15 minutes of lecture time to simply figure out what you're asking let alone answer. The handouts really aren't the best and he doesn't seem to have changed them at all over the years, also the course reader had a lot of extra material that was never assigned or even that relevant to the homework (try to buy it from someone who's taken the class already, I suspect he never updates the reader either). Luckily, you can ace the course by merely going to class and reading the Lathrop text - the grading breakdown included homeworks, "in-class assignments" (which consisted of one multiple choice question on one day of class), a take-home midterm, and in-class final. Quicoli grades very fairly but don't expect much feedback on your work. If you have absolutely no interest in the material the class will likely seem boring and you won't feel that you learned much, but I find myself using what I learned in his class now that I'm taking a Portuguese language course. Overall, Quicoli is an extremely nice person though probably not the best at communicating his knowledge in class.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - This class was EXTREMELY BORING. I took Ling 1 my freshman year with Torrance and found it fascinating so I was really excited to take this class. I felt like I didn't learn anything of value in this class and I often sat in the back and worked on other things. He requires you buy a course reader but I'd recommend the PDF only. His assignments you can just search for the word he's assigned and literally copy how to do it out of the book. He often times does word derivations wrong in class. Would not recommend even for an "easy-A," do yourself a favor and take a more interesting class
Winter 2019 - This class was EXTREMELY BORING. I took Ling 1 my freshman year with Torrance and found it fascinating so I was really excited to take this class. I felt like I didn't learn anything of value in this class and I often sat in the back and worked on other things. He requires you buy a course reader but I'd recommend the PDF only. His assignments you can just search for the word he's assigned and literally copy how to do it out of the book. He often times does word derivations wrong in class. Would not recommend even for an "easy-A," do yourself a favor and take a more interesting class
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