Quite frankly, I don't know why there are such terrible ratings on Professor Kouloujian? He was a great professor. He's very patient with all the students and wants everyone to pass the class! The assignments and midterms are extremely easy. His teaching method is extremely effective since it helped one of my classmates learn from scratch and I was easily able to learn how to read and write Armenian again! I definitely recommend this class and will be attending the 101B class this winter!

Honestly whoever is reading this review right now, just focus and understand that I am giving you a free get out of Guantanamo Bay prison card. I don't believe other students are writing good reviews about him, you can tell when the bad reviews started showing up, the upvotes went up. I feel that the professor wrote good reviews about himself because I talked to the class and they described how stupidly he "organized" the syllabus and the whole course. Here let's take a look at this review:

"I learned an entire language within 7 weeks with this professor. Although the work load is not very little, he is very fair and courteous with his grading. I added the class late but he was so helpful in supporting me and being patient with my learning process. He was very knowledgeable in the Armenian culture and even entertained us with a few interesting stories throughout the course. Overall, I learned so much in his class and felt culturally enriched. Thank you Professor!"

Why would someone who took this course during winter 2019 post a review on January 22nd, 2020? We received grades earlier than that. But besides that. This course (Armenian 101A) is only offered during the FALL quarters then the 101B class during Winter an so on. How are you able to take a course that's only offered during the Fall when it is the Winter session.
Anyways this professor is someone you should just stay away from, don't touch him with a 500-foot pole, and he just assigns so much work that it is ridiculous. You won't learn to speak the language I promise you this, although you will learn to read it which I found highly invaluable because you don't even know what you are reading and what it means.

I warned you/gave you the free prison card, so did the other genuine reviews with all the upvotes/downvotes. Look at the other review where they mentioned this class was easier than there EEB classes. That review was posted before grades were even distributed. Such bullshit reviews holy fuck, don't fall for it.

Despite never having the chance to see the Armenian language in my entire life, I felt this class was extremely interesting. The professor is super friendly and generous with the grades. Basically, if you bomb your midterm, you will still get an A. What other classes could you find this kind of easy yet interesting professor? At least not in most of my EEB classes. I really appreciate the professor for making this quarter such a wonderful experience. For those that argue from time to time, just read your material more!

Throughout the quarter, he kept saying everyone will get A's if you show effort and will say quiz grades don't matter for your overall grade, but that's a complete LIE. He expects you to master the language and know how to translate/conjugate everything in 10 weeks. He will also lie to you about what will be on the quiz so never take his word for it. He's a decent professor but his teaching style needs to be modified heavily. I would suggest another professor for this course but unfortunately he's the only one. Also don't be late because he will be extra and give you a hard time about it.

I really didn't learn to speak the language (Armenian) even though the class is supposed to teach it or at least the professor is. All I did was learn to read words about the same people within the book with the same names. Some of what was in the book was pretty odd like one lesson from the book involved someone pooping. And it consisted as most of the lesson which was weird. I didn't learn to write my name, didn't learn to even speak the language to get by even by a little. Just steer clear away from this class. I have no idea why this course demanded more than my major courses, he gave no breaks at all and went off on tangents after reading a sentence from the lessons. He would even criticize students in front of the whole class just for losing track from reading along with the class. Although he would give a 25 minute speech and automatically would expect you to remember where he left off.
In short: Mean professor, boring class that made you want to sleep, hard grading, A TON OF WORK, expects you to know the whole language, wants students to learn but wont teach them to SPEAK the language.

This professor was horrrrrribbbbllllleeeee. Like honestly this guy wrote the reviews, it's so obvious too. Now from a student standpoint, I will tell you that everybody from the class complained about the workload, tests, and material. In 10 weeks, the teacher expected you to learn a whole language, especially reading, writing, and speaking. He was a decent teacher and somewhat cared about students learning but you would always stress about what your grade might be and would lose focus on your other important classes.
In the end, do not take this class with this professor. I promise you even Armenian students hated this course.

Wow, I really don't understand the bad reviews? He doesn't "pick on" anyone, I genuinely think everyone who left a bad review is just extremely sensitive. Yes, you will get called on, that's how he takes attendance. Yes, he will *nicely* criticize you in front of the class, but that's how you learn. Not to mention, there have been many times where he corrected my classmate on a mistake that I make as well, so the open criticisms are valuable to everyone. Stop being such weenies lol. The workload is a lot, but it's literally a language class. When have you ever taken a language class with little work, especially in a quarter system?? These reviews threw me off so much. No one that I've spoken to about Kouloujian in person has ever had anything bad to say, so I'm assuming one particular class had a bad experience & went ham on BruinWalk lmao.

The experience of Armenian 101A , Fall 2019.
The first day of class the syllabus was distributed. Listed on the syllabus are the lessons for every day the class is in session. The professor told us the first day of class that there would be no testing or quizzes.

On the syllabus there are strict instructions on how to do each lesson:

1 - read each lesson repeatedly at home until you’re comfortable with it, (note: each lesson will be read aloud during the following session by each student in the class),

2 - write out the entire lesson by hand,

3 - When we reached “optional exercises” for each lesson, those were then added to the work load,

4 - Additionally, there were 6 essays that had to be turned in on varying topics throughout the quarter with the idea that the student used the vocabulary given to them for the lesson that was due that same day. This is very time consuming. The essays would be great if the vocabulary was actually applicable to the topic we were given to write about.

During week 4 on Thursday, the list of vocabulary was given to us for lessons 1-9 (and then 10-20) in one packet. After being told there would not be any tests, we were alerted there would be a “quiz” on the following Tuesday in week 5 covering lessons 1-9. Each midterm project included several exercises that all had to be hand written and turned in (not graded). Note the necessary vocabulary was not given at the beginning of each lesson but not until the last possible class meeting prior to the quiz.

Next, while there are no actual course objectives, we were required to learn each letter in upper case, lower case and the “name of the letter” for an exam (we were not alerted to this until nearly the end of the quarter). The Armenian alphabet list was handed out on October 10 during week 2. Each class session was broken up into the introduction of three or four new letters, their names, how to write them, and then the professor reading the grammar lessons aloud directly from the textbook.

From the first of two midterms, nearly every class meeting there was a quiz, be prepared. This class takes a lot of time for memorization. Expect to recite the verb conjugations aloud with no mistakes or hesitations once they are introduced.

The textbook breaks the lessons around the alphabet and the text itself is very difficult to read or decipher the letters. The textbook while informative is black and white with no visuals to assist with memory or tips on how to remember the information provided.

The class is set up into 2 hour and 30 minute sessions, which is very long with no breaks. I think we were given maybe 2-3 total throughout the quarter.

This class was a lot of work for very little return on investment. The class sessions had extensive tangents when we could have been learning more about how to use the language. This class requires extensive memorization with very little time to do so.

In my opinion, I would not recommend this class as it is not set up for students to succeed or even acquire the language. I was told by another classmate that while he knew the language he was struggling and it was difficult for him. He told me that he no idea how I was surviving if it was that difficult for him.

This class needs to be completely reorganized with new techniques put into place in order to be successful. The workload is far too voluminous for anyone to memorize the bulk of the vocabulary. I was very disappointed by this course overall.

I would recommend this course for anybody wanting to learn the language. One warning, he does not give out grades throughout the term. That said, if you do the work, it is an easy A. He doesn't care about formal evaluation and grading. All he cares about is whether you improve throughout the quarter. I had major anxiety all quarter long because I am so used to normal grading, but that is just not how he works. He is very passionate about the language, and he expects the same. His class was very interesting and different from most language classes.

I learned an entire language within 7 weeks with this professor. Although the work load is not very little, he is very fair and courteous with his grading. I added the class late but he was so helpful in supporting me and being patient with my learning process. He was very knowledgeable in the Armenian culture and even entertained us with a few interesting stories throughout the course. Overall, I learned so much in his class and felt culturally enriched. Thank you Professor!