I would definitely recommend taking this class if you want a fairly easy GE that you can do on your own time. It was taught asynchronously when I took it so I could watch and take notes on the lectures whenever I wanted. There are usually 2-3 lectures to watch each week between 30 mins to 1 hour long, along with a textbook reading and possibly an extra article or video. There was homework once a week which was a quiz on canvas about the previous module. The midterm and final exam had to be taken on a lockdown browser with a camera and audio. There were also two analysis papers we had to write but Silvestri provided a clear layout for everything she was looking for in the essays so they weren't too difficult. The topics itself are pretty easy to learn - the section most people struggled with was the phonetics section but it's not too bad if you practice it. Silvestri also offers a few easy extra credit opportunities! I would 100% take this class again.

Best part about this class was that the amount of extra credit offered means you really don’t have to worry too much about the midterm and final, which are without a doubt the only parts of the class that are at all difficult.

I took this class while it was async so I didn't really interact with the prof much. A lot of the recorded lectures were by someone else and it could be tedious and boring at times (especially with having to memorize the phonetic alphabet). However, the midterm and finals were relatively easy and the two papers were graded very leniently and were pretty fun to write. Do the extra credit she offers, it really boosts your grade. Overall, not a bad GE and a relatively easy A

This was a really interesting and somewhat easy class though the professor doesn't actually give the lectures. She posts recorded ones given by other professors (totaling to a few hours per week) and also shares related materials and case studies. There's homework almost every week, two essays with a required word count, a midterm, and a final. For the essays, you might need to put spaces between characters to increase your word count because entire sentences in some languages may only count as one word. They're graded pretty easily, and she provides a sample essay and a rubric. The homework and final had a few mistakes where some answers were repeated, and I don't know how she handled that. She didn't allow late homework submissions, but the homework is available for a week. It was on CCLE, so you could go back after the deadline and see what you got wrong. The midterm and final were proctored on Respondus, and you could use scratch paper. Some important tables were given to you, and most of the questions focused on heavily covered topics. But some asked about very specific, barely covered topics, or the answer was verbatim to something very specific in a lecture. You don't need to read the textbook or go to discussion, but those could clarify some things.

This is an easy class if you know another language in addition to English. We have near weekly multiple choice homework assignments, two 1200-word writing assignments comparing two languages (hence you need knowledge of a non-English language. The writing assignments have very clear instructions so it's very easy to meet the word count), and a midterm and final, both multiple choice.
If you take good notes on the lectures and understand all the homework, you will ace this class. Reading the textbook is not needed.

I felt like I was slightly misled by the reviews or underestimated how much niche content was going to be on the tests because there was a ton of specific information necessary in order to score A's on these tests. There are many lectures, and discussion sections that will help out. IPA might be the most difficult thing to learn, but should not take more than a day to memorize. I felt as if the content of the tests were split between broad topics that you had to apply that were similar to the homework and random facts from slides throughout the quarter. I believe it is possible that I would have done better had a took a deeper and more focused look into the lectures. Overall, not super fun class but definitely manageable and certainly not a bad GE to take.

Ling 1 with Silvestri is alright. The course was asynchronous. Silverstri put up the weekly videos, readings, and assignments ahead of time. The lecture videos were not given by the professor herself but by two other professors. They are pretty informative, but incredibly long for no reason. There were weekly assignments in a quiz format and sometimes we had some extra readings or videos to watch. All pretty easy if you spend time with the materials. Discussions are mandatory but for my section, it was the TA just reading slides on the same info as the lectures and readings, so very repetitive. There are two papers for the course which are pretty easy and just ask you to analyze some aspects of the language you speak in comparison to another language. Midterm and final were multiple choice about the content of the course, also pretty easy if you study.

This course was okay for a GE but it isn't anything special. Some of the information is common knowledge and everything else is memorization. Some of the themes of the course were also too ideological for my taste. You don't get any interaction with the professor unless you email her so your grade completely relies on how much effort you put in on the assigned work.

Would recommend as an easy science GE but overall, pretty time-consuming and repetitive.

I really enjoyed this class! Despite all the lectures being pre-recorded, the material was presented in an engaging way that made the weekly homework super easy to comprehend and complete. There are 2 analysis papers that you are required to complete for this class - both of which are graded super easily and are not difficult to complete. I would say the most difficult parts of this class were the midterm and final, both of which consisted of 50 questions. Double and triple check your answers for these tests, since the answers are not as obvious as they may seem! Overall, I would recommend this class for anybody looking for a simple science GE.

Even though I didn't score the best in this class, I feel like the class is genuinely very well organized and there's an appropriate workload for it. Since it was online, we only had either 2 or 3 one hour long lectures that were very well prepared per week and these were all quite interesting! There are 5 quizzes that we also take online that are quite easy as long as you do the work for those 2 weeks, if you have trouble there are also quizlets that have the answers for all of them. The 2 three page essays were rather leniently graded and very easy to accomplish, took me a couple hours and I was pretty much set.

I absolutely loved this class, and it gave me a great interest for linguistics! As most people have mentioned, Silvestri does not directly teach this class. Instead, there are pre-recorded lecture videos by Harrold Torrence. You definitely don't want to fall behind or wait until the last minute to watch the lectures because they are usually pretty long and packed with a ton of information. You need to know pretty much all of that information to do well on the midterm and final. The exams were not open notes, and we did have to have our cameras on while taking them, so make sure you really know your stuff. Learning IPA was probably the most difficult part, but by taking just a few hours to study (I used Quizlet), I was able to get a really good grasp on it. The content was super interesting which made the course extremely worth it to me. Basically, I think you get out of this class what you put into it. If you keep up with the lectures, attend discussion sections, go to your TA with questions (especially for your analysis papers), and make a solid effort, you will do well!