CHIN 3010

Not sure where to begin. Like most language classes, there are no opportunities for extra credit and no curves at all. That being said, it was very easy to end up with a not-so-decent grade on the assignments. Kou laoshi has very high expectations of his students, particularly in the area regarding writing. If you are not good with grammar OR writing, I do not recommend this class. If you mess up on 3 characters on your tingxie, it's an automatic 8.3/10, no matter how perfectly you wrote the other 100 or so characters. I love the textbook for this class; however, the way the class is designed, we only have less than 4 classes to learn a whole unit and that includes 200 new words and 10 new grammatical patterns. I would say we've learned about ~6 units this semester; therefore, it is very easy to forget some of the first 200 words you'd studied at the beginning of the semester.
Another aspect of the class that I did not like was the abundant homework. Before every class, we are expected to study for tingxie and write a few paragraphs based on whatever topic we are going to talk about the following class. Sometimes, we even have workbook homework (which was easy) but we end up spending at least 10 hours every week trying to complete the homework before they're due in class. So, do not take this class if you already have a full plate for this semester.
As for the teacher, he could be nicer in terms of giving us more partial credit. I give him credit for trying hard to make our experience in this class worthwhile, but I do think he does not realize how much many classes or responsibilities we have outside of Chinese class. If he had, he would be more flexible about assignments and maybe even give us less time-consuming homework.

Kou laoshi means well, but since he is very new he doesn't understand how to give out assignments. He gives way too much work at once and assumes we will have time to finish it all. I find myself putting in an insane amount of effort for this class and not receiving the grade I want. I think he is slowly learning but needs to improve on his lesson plans.