First off, Prof. Alim is absolutely wonderful. He is so passionate about his work and super encouraging towards his students. I am taking this class as a 1st year English major, and this class is not hard at all. The lectures are recorded, so you just watch them on your own time, do the readings for the week and go to your discussion. Some week's readings are heavier than others, but overall it is manageable. Also, from Alim's lectures, you can see which readings you actually need to do.

Alim also hosts a Live Session Zoom each Thursday where he goes over the week's materials and hint at what will be on the "celebrations." The "celebrations" are your exams; you have one in Week 5 and another one in Week 10. Theses celebrations are multiple-choice and easy. If you do your readings, lectures and attend his Thursday zooms, these two exams will be a piece of cake.

Besides the exams, you have two short papers. Both papers are 1-2 pages (single spaced) and that is including your works cited. The prompts are very straightforward.

If you take this class, just read, watch/go to lectures, attend his Thursday Live Sessions and you will be on your way to an A.

Overall I really like this class, and Alim is amazing. His Zooms on Thursdays are things I look forward too. He always shares what snacks he has during the zoom and even showed us his dogs.

Take this class!!

This was my favorite class as a freshman during fall quarter! All the TAs and the Professor wants you to succeed. The reading can be overwhelming, but as others said, you honestly don't need to read them. Almost all of them were really interesting though, and I enjoyed reading them when I wanted to understand the week's materials better. The two tests (both multiple choice) are EXTREMELY easy if you just show up to the weekly online review sessions and take a few notes down. Professor Alim is very clear in what he puts on the test, so you should not struggle at all. Because of the TA strikes, the 2nd essay out of 2 essays expected of us was not required and was turned into extra credit, but expect to do both if the quarter goes normally. They are really short and also decently easy. I would totally recommend this GE to everyone!

The readings were unnecessarily long and complicated (almost 100 pages a week). I had to watch his lectures several times in order to understand the concepts, he is not very clear and usually just reads off his slides. I was able to get away with doing very few readings, but I am not sure how his exams will be structured in the future. The essays are interesting topics and depending on your TA not harshly graded.

I took this class as a pre-req for my comm major and loved it. Course material was super interesting, workload wasn't unmanageable, and professor Alim was awesome. There are a lot of readings assigned every week but I found that you could get away with only reading a few and watching the lectures (which were all online when I took the course). The tests were also EXTREMELY easy. if you understand what is going on in the class at all you should be able to get an A on both exams no problem.

Took this class fall quarter of my freshman year and it exceeded my expectations! The course content was super interesting and Natalie was a great TA and I really enjoyed the discussion sections and she helped us prepare for the exams and papers.

The assignments consisted of: weekly readings and weekly reading responses, two exams (midterm and final), and two papers. The TAs and professors give you all the information you need to do good on the exams so if you pay attention you'll be fine. Do keep up with the reading because it is a lot at first and easy to fall behind. The readings seem overwhelming at first but you get used to it and the content is quite interesting.

**selling physical copies of Alim's books for the course!! email me at ***************

Pretty cool class. I personally thought the topic was sleep-worthy but I mean hey, a lot of it is pretty important to know and acknowledge. Alim himself is clearly very knowledgeable but its weird how uninvolved with the class he is. The tests are just on CCLE, the lectures are all previously recorded, and the textbooks are all written by him. Theres a good amount of reading but you can get by by just skimming and highlighting the key concepts (which are often just discussed in the lecture or in the discussion). Overall, easy A if you can manage to do well on the 2 papers. Would take it again, I liked how flexible the schedule was.

The class was pretty interesting, but the readings are very dense and there is quite a bit of it. If you end up having to skim, Professor Alim's lectures track the important info very closely. He focused on raciolinguistics a lot, since that's his area of study, but generally I did find myself thinking about language in new and useful ways. The exams are easy if you watch the lectures, and if you have a good TA the essay rubrics are clear. I'd take this class if you're truly interested in the topic and willing to work for it, but maybe not as GE.

Pros: The midterm and final are insanely easy. They are online and multiple choice, and the questions are not that hard. That said, disclaimer: I only found them easy because I went to the midterm review session (where he explains most of the questions in depth) and because I went to study sessions organized with the Groupme (for the final, there was no review session, but we were given a study guide, which helped out a lot). Definitely take advantage of the review session, and use the Groupme—this course can be difficult at times, but there will always be people who can explain the concepts in simpler terms, or can help answer questions. The two essay prompts were very easy, although that might depend on your TA. Getting an A in this class is not suuuuuper hard compared to some of the other GE courses. The professor is a fun dude, unfortunately lectures was asynchronous so the only time I got to know him were from the emails he sent and the study session. I didn't really go to office hours, but didn't feel the need to. Prof. Alim was incredibly helpful, and super knowledgeable—much of the material for this course comes from his own research and writing.
Cons: The reading. Oh, the reading. To be honest, I did all of the readings, because I was scared of doing bad on the midterm and final. I felt that there were way too many, that they were way too long, and they were written in a terribly academic-languagey way (for people who think about language all the time, some of the authors' language style is so incomprehensible and inaccessible for the average college student. Or maybe that was just me). That said, you probably didn't really have to read through them all, nor do you have to read very carefully, because as I said a lot of it is covered by the review session. I would say that I found the discussion sections not very helpful, but that might just be my section. And finally, I had very little idea of what this class was going to be about, but I thought that the material would be about many different languages and ways of communication. This course focuses heavily on African American English, and a lot other styles are sort of shoehorned in and aren't relevant to the essays at all. That said, overall, the course definitely made me change the way I view language.
Overall: If you don't like reading a lot, probably don't take this class. But if you are interested in the topic, and use the resources provided, it shouldn't be too difficult. Just don't be a tryhard like me.

Alim is an excellent professor and you should definitely take this class if given the opportunity. I took this class as a GE my first quarter at UCLA because I was interested in anthropology and wanted to learn more about it, and now, partially due to this class, I'm double majoring in anthro and bio. Going into it, I was more expecting to learn about the science of linguistics and how language differs in different societies, but we focused a lot on the power of language and how it reinforces different ideas that people have about each other--which I didn't expect, but found very interesting and important to be aware about. Expect to hear a lot of words like "standard language ideology" and "cisheteropatriarchy." The course focuses a lot on Alim's research on Black Language in CA and Hip Hop in South Africa, and I would've liked to learn more about other cultures, but it was nice to learn about actual research he did.
This class was pretty easy. There are a few readings a week, a few very short papers throughout the course, and a two "celebrations of learning" aka exams that are timed multiple choice. The exams are so easy, if you've skimmed the readings and paid some attention in lecture, you're all set. Alim is very passionate about what he teaches, and his lectures are pretty clear.
I found this class extremely interesting and I think it should be required for everyone. It made me think critically about things I've never thought about before, and it inspired me to major in anthro (now a sophomore). Take this class!

He is an amazing professor and fair on his grading. I also have the book so contact me if you need it- *************