Im writing this review crying while taking a break from doing this 12 HOUR FINAL. Dont take this class y'all. I hate it here. Her tests take hours and I'm just at my breaking point with all this work and the pandemic/ racial protests. This class made me HATE this subject. Im so tired. Im so over it. Idk why she has to go all out on her tests when everyone is having a hard time rn. I just wanna cry and never look at another transcript again. Please do yourself a favor and take a different class with a professor who actually cares about you and your wellbeing.

Professor Cartmill seemed genuinely interested and knowledgeable about the topic, but she was just not willing to be helpful and accommodating to students. This class was so frustrating because she kept acting like she wanted to help us, but then refused to listen to any of our suggestions. She insisted that our midterm (which if you added up word count would be 2000 words) was doable in 2 hours in class, which is straight up a lie, and when we suggested that we be given more time to do it, or that we have fewer questions, she would tell us that she wouldn't do that and to stop asking. The material wasn't even particularly challenging, but she told us she wanted to "challenge and push" us and make it hard for us, resulting in confusing and misleading questions on the exams. Her lectures were also consistently late to be uploaded, and she wasn't the best at communication. Again, I get that going online was hard for everyone, but she demanded that we adapt quickly while asking us to make allowances for her. I think most people ended up getting As and Bs, but it was overall not a great experience.

I'm sure Professor Cartmill is a lot more organized in an in-person lecture format that she is more used to, but for online classes, her readings & lectures were consistently days late to be uploaded. I never knew when a lecture was up, and felt stupid doing the readings because they were all covered during the lecture, with no extra information presented to serve as an incentive to pay attention to lecture. That being said, the readings are important for the exams, because it's reading-heavy and you are required to cite sources. I took this as an elective as a linguistics major, but I wish I took something else because I didn't really learn anything I hadn't already learned in past linguistics courses. Definitely a good source of information for non-linguistics majors interested in language acquisition/socialization though!

I took this class during the pandemic and honestly I think people who are leaving negative reviews are overexaggerating. Yes, the midterm did take longer than the recommended 2 hours, but it was not the hardest test I've ever taken. The test was shortened due to the pandemic and she made things really clear during office hours. Others in the class felt like it was "the hardest midterm they've ever taken at UCLA" but it really was not. It was really fairly straightforward, 3 short answers, and 3 long answers. She posted lecture videos instead of live lectures so I just put them on 2x speed and took notes. Overall, the class was pretty interesting and she was a really good professor and made the content pretty clear.