ANTH 2430

Highly recommend this class! It's super fun and not hard at all. Professor Beer throws jokes in lectures and explains all concepts really well. He is a very approachable guy. There are 4 homework sets and a final project, which are all very manageable. The test only asks questions about basic ideas, nothing tricky. There is a study guide. The readings are interesting and I truly enjoy them, though you don't really have to read all of them to do well in exam. Overall, this class has minimal workload and is definitely worth taking. I feel like I learn a lot more about languages and cultures around the world, as well as linguistic approaches to language data.

I took ANTH 2430 (Languages of the World) with Sam fall 2018. As far as Sam himself is concerned, he’s a great professor. I’d highly recommend taking anything this dude is teaching; he has a great sense of humor and knows how to pique students’ interest with cool examples. He is much more focused on having interesting, in-depth lectures than on getting through 100% of the material he planned on getting through. He is always happy to stop in the middle of a lecture to address a question thoroughly. Sam’s also great during office hours and more than once stayed past the official end of his hours to keep talking to me.
As far as ANTH 2430 goes, take this class if you have any interest in linguistics but don’t know anything about the field yet. It’s essentially a very basic, broad introduction to linguistics that traverses the planet geographically, exploring language families and areas across the globe. For the entire semester there are 4-5 homework assignments, 1 midterm, 1 final paper, and 1 final exam. You do not have to take the final exam if you get an A on the midterm. It is not difficult to finish this class with an A. Attendance is taken in discussion but not lecture. A lot of the people you will see signed up for this are taking it as a cross-departmental elective requirement for the CS or engineering departments.

Take this class! Professor Beer is incredibly attractive and a funny professor and the material is a really good survey of introductory linguistics. There are 4 homeworks that take about 2-3 hours to complete (and are pretty easy) that count for 30%, discussion section is 15%, the final paper (which you start writing for the homeworks) is 20% -- you select a language with less than a million speakers and write about 10 pages on it -- and then there is a midterm and final exam, but if you get 90% on the midterm you dont have to take the final.

Professor Beer is extremely attractive, I can't emphasize this enough. He is a great communicator and a great lecturer. I took this for my linguistics requirement for Cog Sci, but this is a great academic investment if you want to learn not just about world languages but also the culture behind it. This class and professor is really straightforward, no tricks and surprises. Also, TA Julia is extremely helpful and very accommodating during office hours. Professor Beer and TA Julia is the best duo out there!! The course title speak for its content. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Prof Beer is so funny and a great lecturer. I think this class is super interesting and fair, the homework aren't too bad though they are graded slightly on the harsher side so definitely go to office hours for tips. I took this as a CS integration elective and would recommend for anyone picking an integration elective!