LNGS 3250

This class is really not that bad, especially if you take the discussion with the lecture. Discussion is only 1 credit, and it's so helpful to get to know your TA who will be able to better help you understand what you're doing. Each of the assignments take a long time to do, but after a while they become kind of fun. Elson is also really cute, in a nerdy and dorky way, which for me was entertaining. With some effort, it's a more than doable to get an A. I should also point out that I was taking orgo and orgo lab with this class. If I can do it, you can do it.

Although I love Professor Elson, I probably wouldn't recommend taking this class just for fun. Elson really wants his students to deeply think about/understand the material. This results in his lectures becoming repetitive, which is useful (to some extent) but also tedious. The workload isn't bad, since he doesn't assign reading. There are only four assignments and a take-home final. These aren't meant to trick you. In fact, Elson will basically give you the answers if you go to his office hours. You're just supposed to demonstrate *why* they're right in a concise, logical manner. Definitely take the discussion section. The T.A. has access to the rubric and can make sure you know what's expected for each assignment.

Definitely worth taking! It's very interesting even if you aren't in linguistics. He is a great teacher, too! Although he might appear very intimidating at the beginning he greatly cares about his students.

If you're a first year interested in Linguistics I wouldn't recommend you take this class first. I mean I did it and I am kind of thankful because I learned a lot of theoretical things that gave me the basis for all the other linguistics class, like I think about the deep concepts he talked about and I kind of felt better prepared for other linguistics classes??? but it was harddd. Many people saying it's not bad are probably those who had experience in linguistics before and knew the terms because he would mention some terms and i would be LOSTTTT. That being said I did go to office hours and he was helpful but it to be honest I would leave his office hours still confused and I didn't even know how to explain my confusion at times. I wasn't the only one others were confused too but I ended up with a B (which was to my surprise). I learned a ton and it was very theoretical but I will say I was pretty miserable because I felt so dumb lol. I don't wanna say take it but I don't wanna say don't take it either.

Course- Lecture based, Elson has handouts that he publishes before class, 4 Homework assignments that you usually have 1-2 weeks to complete, Final Exam was 2 analysis problems and a short answer section. No daily homework.
Professor- so boring, and I actually adore linguistics. He gets on tangents all the time about various things that have nothing to do with linguistics. Honestly, I recommend taking other linguistics classes first (specifically ANTH 2430 - Languages of the World) and coming back to this one. Having background knowledge is invaluable to succeeding in this class.
#tCF2020

This class was certainly interesting. Coming into the class with absolutely no experience in anything even remotely related to linguistics did put me at a minor disadvantage, but it didn't hurt too much. The content itself wasn't too bad, I think that if you put at least a little time and effort into learning it you'd be fine.

The class period itself was not my favorite. I've never really enjoyed lecture based classes, so if you don't do well with them this class might not be for you. Each class the professor will give you a few papers on a topic that you're supposed to be talking about, but more often than not most of the class is not going to be about what is on those sheets. Classes mostly consist of the professor talking about... something. He'll get sidetracked often, but those conversations are pretty interesting. You basically need to be good at staying attentive when what you thought was going to happen doesn't.

I think my least favorite part of the class was the fact that we barely had any work at all. Don't get me wrong, a lack of work is always great, but after only four assignments throughout the entire semester, the final exam where we didn't receive any help was certainly a challenge. The final exam was nice, it was take home and most of it was open note. After going through all of my notes multiple times I actually felt really confident with the final exam and that I actually learned something so it made me feel good.

Professor Elson is great though. He's very helpful when you come to his office hours, especially on the homework. He can be pretty engaging at times, so it was nice to have him teaching the class. He seems very knowledgeable on the subject too, so I felt reassured that I was learning genuine material.

So yeah, overall it was an okay class. I feel like the content is actually pretty interesting, but the delivery isn't the best. Not entirely my favorite, but I am glad I took it. If you are interested in linguistics at all it is definitely worth your time.