So I took this class during online learning. While Prof. Silvestri is the actual professor, the class is almost entirely taught through recorded Harold Torrence lectures. Torrence is a great lecturer and the material isn't super difficult and is generally replicated in the reading. I have trouble paying attention to recorded lectures, so I primarily read the textbook instead. Grades are composed of participation (discussion section and a once a week mandatory attendance lecture w Silvestri); homework; two easy papers; midterm and final. Overall not super interesting in my opinion, but a pretty easy A.

I took this class during the COVID-19 pandemic in an online format.
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This class is managed by Professor Silvestri, but the vast majority of the actual material comes from asynchronous, prerecorded lectures from the department. There were about 1-3 hours of these lectures to watch on any given week. While that seems like a lot, they were very interesting and very helpful for the midterms/finals, so I didn't mind them too much.
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The workload of this class is extremely light; there are 6 short homework quizzes (MC), and two longer essays that are really easy (and fun) to write about languages. Both the midterm and final were multiple choice, with much more time given than needed. (3 hours for 50 multiple choice questions that are basically vocabulary recall/application). Overall, the difficulty of this class is quite low AS LONG AS YOU KEEP UP WITH LECTURES! If you fall behind on lectures, you will be missing material, as all the material is "either you know it or you don't." The textbook is also recommended, but not required (and you can find it online anyway). I found reading the textbook to be the most effective way to study vocabulary, and sometimes something would ONLY be mentioned in the textbook, though that would only cost you a couple points if you didn't know it on a test.
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Professor Silvestri does host one live lecture a week for an hour, where she usually looks at a specfic case study of a topic we learn about in the recorded lectures that week. They are pretty interesting and attending them is required for a participation grade. They aren't super helpful for the tests however. TAs also host various sessions, and the discussion you sign up for is NOT the one you must attend (you can choose any session at any time by any TA, so long as you attend at least one session per week). Discussions are mainly review of the online lectures and supplemental — they are somewhat useful for tests but I didn't personally enjoy them much. (Results may vary with various TAs).
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When it comes to communication with the professor, at least during this online format, it was quite minimal. Professor Silvestri is very approachable during office hours and lectures though, and overall is very nice. One thing to note is that she is quite unforgiving when it comes to things outlined in the syllabus; i.e. do not ask her a question that is answered in the syllabus.
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In conclusion, this was a pretty fun and interesting class. An excellent choice for non-bio STEM majors to get their Bio GE, or for anyone to get their Linguistic Analysis GE. The class is easy, engaging and enjoyable so long as you put in the minimal effort of keeping up with the lectures. I would definitely recommend this class.

PROS:
- this is an "easy GE" ONLY IF YOU PUT IN THE WORK (you get it or you don't kind of class)
- asynchronous class - you need to have the discipline to keep up with the class. don't slack off
- fun and engaging class - I had a lot of fun learning about linguistics overall.
- 6 HW assignments and 2 papers - relatively easy
CONS:
- the tests are on respondus
- the tests are hard (you really need to study and keep up with lectures)
- learning IPA for me was difficult (it is like learning another language's alphabet in a way)

Very easy class, watch the lectures provided by Harold Torrence (engaging lecturer and often interesting material). Watching the lectures and taking notes is sufficient to understanding the material for all home works, exams, and essays. Workload is light, weekly homework that is very manageable, 2 essays that are graded on content not style (getting a 100% on these is very reasonable), a midterm and a final that are multiple choice all from information from lectures. Easy and surprisingly interesting class, would definitely recommend.

This course has given me a brand new perspective in languages. Not only was the content extremely useful for daily life (natural language processing in CS research, using phonetics and IPAs to accelerate mastering another language) but it was also delivered in a friendly way. For example, the first video lecture started out with "expletive infixation", an act of inserting the f word in commonly used phrases. Diving deeper into why this phenomenon is able to exist and not making native speakers feel weird really makes one appreciate the beauty of language that we take for granted.
The assignments are opened at the beginning of the week online, so you can control your own pace of learning. You have unlimited attempts to finish each homework and although collaboration is discouraged, you can easily find materials for you to reference online. This may be a double-edged sword, since you do have to at least go over each week's discussion notes as a tool to understand the important ideas in weekly lectures and watch the video lecture in detail to ACE that midterm and final.
Professor Silvestri was kind enough to offer us 2 points for experimental credits, and all it asks is for you to participate in the research conducted by the social sciences/humanities departments for a fraction of your free time.
I would recommend anyone, whether if you are just trying to get the easiest course on the row, or if you are eager to expand your vision, to take this course offered by Professor Silvestri.

I think the hardest part about this class is getting into it in the first place. This will be the easiest class you can get for the Linguistic analysis GE, and it is very well run. I took it when it was completely asynchronous, watching online pre-recorded lectures, but in person wouldn't be much different because most of the grade is made up of the 2 analysis papers, the mid-term and the final. And, having the midterm or final online doesn't really change a whole lot, you can't cheat your way to an A because of what this class really tests on. Furthermore, she gave us the phonetic and IPA charts for the final exam which was all you really need, plus it means you don't have to memorize the symbols. I definitely put off doing work in this class because it was asynchronous, and I think it is better taught in person. That being said, 25% of the grade is based off 6 homework assignments, all of which are on a quizlet somewhere. The 2 analysis papers, each worth 15% of the final grade, are very strait forward. They don't grade that hard, depending on your TA. The 2nd one does require some more thought, but she gives you example papers which helps a lot. For the first paper, I originally got an 84 but felt my TA graded to harsh, talked to him, and he changed it to a 98 (shoutout Zia I love you, you are a god). She is VERY understanding (won't move test dates but reach out to her for anything) and HAs make themselves available especially for clarifying sections of the essays which can be confusing. Also, you can get up to 3 EC points by being a test subject for the UCLA psychology pool and taking the Respondus test early. If you have a good enrollment time and need to fulfill this Ge USE IT.

This class is really easy, but I took it online so that might be why. There are homework quizzes(MC) almost weekly as well as a midterm, a final, and 2 short papers. Most of the lectures were pre-recorded and not done by Silvestri. They were very interesting but incredibly long. There was one live lecture a week but none of the material covered in those was super important. Overall, a very easy and interesting GE.

PROS:
- Amazing video lectures
- 2 easy and straightforward essays that shouldn't take too long. The reports were about comparing the traits of two languages.
- 6 homework assignments overall (roughly 15 questions per homework, multiple choice)
- Fair exams, no tricks

CONS:
- Lectures and discussions are mandatory
- The professor can act pretty passive-aggressively at times
- There is a lot of overlap between the video lectures, live lectures, and reading
- There are a lot of things, like IPA symbols, that you have to memorize

OVERALL: I would definitely recommend taking this class as a GE. The assignments were pretty light and usually doesn't take that much time.

I found ling1 a very interesting class. Human language is a very interesting concept, and if you have the slightest bit of interest in language learning or linguistics, I highly recommend taking this class. If you already know you despise linguistics, you may want to not take this class.
I found Giuseppina's lectures interesting, but honestly For Ling1, the professor you have doesn't matter. Even though it's required to attend Zoom lectures live, (or to watch the lectures and take a quiz), none of the content discussed in the lectures is tested. Instead, material from prerecorded lectures by Harold and a few by Russel (R.i.p.) cover the course material. Harold gives very in depth coverage of the material, and pretty much verbatim of the textbook. Even though the lectures are long, I suggest watching them and paying attention. Russel covers the last two weeks, but his lectures are less in depth so you may want to read the textbook.
It's also required to attend a discussion section each week, but due to the distance learning, you were able to attend whichever you desire. Material in the discussion sections will be tested, so it's good to pay attention(Phillip Barnett covers the material well).
The analysis papers are relatively simply and easy to write. Just hit all the points on the rubric and you should be able to get an A. Though I have heard certain T.A's grade harder. Gabriel Teixeira graded my papers, and I think he's a pretty easy grader (my papers kind of sucked but I still got 100%).

I took this class online because of COVID19.

This class consisted of once weekly live lecture with Silvestri and multiple asynchronous lecture videos each week by either Professor William Harold Torrence or Professor Russell Schuh. I really enjoyed the content of Torrence's lectures - he made them engaging and clear. There was also a discussion section once a week which was basically just a review of the content for that week and were usually pretty helpful. The main content of the class and the content of the exams comes from the asynchronous lectures. The live lectures were mostly examples and case studies. In total, each week had about 2.5 weeks of pre-recorded lectures with 1 hour of live lecture (which was also recorded and posted later). The amount of lecture was a bit much, but manageable.

Professor Silvestri is a great professor. She is very knowledgeable, kind, and considerate towards her students. I thought the number of assignments was reasonable and easy to understand what was expected week to week.
Silvestri was very responsive to emails and it was clear that she cared about student learning and is passionate about teaching. Since this is a GE with ~500 people in the class, there was not a lot of personal interaction between the professor and students. Overall, I really enjoyed Silvestri's class and thought she did a great job teaching and organizing it. I would recommend taking it as a GE or as a prerequisite for various majors.