Elena is a native Russian speaker and a very sweet woman. I enjoyed her class a lot, she's fun, and it's not particularly hard. She feeds you Russian goodies at times. The Russian program is really straightforward overall. They give you the homework, they give you practice quizzes/tests that nearly mirror the actual quizzes/tests. The work is virtually all online. They provide TONS of study materials, videos, grammar/oral guides, homework assignments, etc. that'll teach you Russian as fast as possible. It can get really mindnumbing finishing all the online module work. If you don't struggle with "busy work," though, this class will be a piece of cake for you. You need a 95 to get an A, which can be a bit frustrating for a lazy man such as myself. You WILL get that A if you show up, go to the Russian Room 8 times (weekly 1h group tutoring with an old lady named Nelya), and do the homework/practice quizzes. If you need extra credit, you can talk to her and something can be worked out. If you need to make something up, you can talk to her.

Throughout the class you're always doing textbook exercises with your classmates. You live off the $20 textbook, it's like your class Bible and it was composed by the Russian program here from what I understand. You basically need to be alert the whole way through, which again hurts my lazy soul. You can show up a bit tardy. From my understanding, this is how the Russian program is. It's extremely conducive to your fluency.

There's a talent show or two that the entire Slavic languages program participates in that you're supposed to show up to, it's like 2% of your grade. Your class does a poem or a dialogue or whatever together (it varies, y'all decide). Can be cute if you're into that stuff.

2% of your grade is watching 2 Russian movies w/ subtitles and writing brief half page English summaries which is pretty nice.

There are oral exams (midterm/final) and there are written in-class chapter quizzes, midterm, and final. From my understanding the Russian program is going to start doing those oral exams and the final online from home, which is kind of annoying but manageable.

All in all, great class, would recommend Elena and UCLA's world-class Russian program overall. Not a joke, but the path to an A is straightforward, if tedious at times.