Overall the lectures aren’t the most engaging, but Schutze is very clear in his lectures/slides and answers all questions very detailed. He posts the slides which are very helpful when studying and the weekly homework assignments are definitely doable if you take advantage of any of the TAs’ office hours.

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you have to like linguistics to like this class. if you do, you will. if you dont, you probably wont, because theres no slacking off and getting a decent grade. TAs and professor schutze made it easy to get help so you can manage if you just care. the downside to this professor is his lectures are not very engaging, but at least all the information is in the slides and lectures are always podcasted. usually only about 1/3 of the class would show up. it was kinda sad.

The class is not extremely difficult per se, but it is definitely time consuming to say the least! The homework can be slightly tedious (and really time consuming) and the class is graded on a curve in which only the top 75% can earn a B- or above.

If you plan on taking this class, make sure to take the homework seriously! His exams are notably similar to the homework.

The lectures are not the most engaging thing ever, but the great thing about this class is that generally you don't even have to come to lecture because his powerpoint slides are exceedingly thorough for the most part. In addition, his lectures are BruinCasted, if that helps.

To anyone who is taking this class, make sure to really understand the subtle details given in the powerpoint slides! You might not expect it, but something as seemingly minuscule as "Canadian raising" or really bland syntactical theory can be brought up during exams!

The homeworks were unnecessarily long and so were the exams. Tedious and repetitive, but straightforward.

Took this class as a GE and had a great experience! The professor talks a little bit slow, but he is very clear and detailed. He would post recorded audio podcasts, so instead of going to lecture, I would just playback the podcasts at about 1.5x speed and followed along with the powerpoint slides.

If you want a good grade and/or simply want to learn the material well, I highly recommend get a copy of the Study Guide workbook that goes along with the textbook. It has a bunch of questions with an answer key. And these questions are almost identical to the homework questions you'll get (and the midterm and final as well).

Carson is a nice and articulate guy. His lectures aren't the most engaging ones but he does try his best to get everyone involve. All the slides are posted and lectures are bruincasted, and they are helpful when you're reviewing, for he organizes and explains most concepts well. Sometimes you would even say he is overexplaining things.

Probably the reason why it is a course that not that many people get an A is because he gives pretty hard tests to get a big wiggle room for curve. I remember the average score of the midterm was C+, something quite rare for a humanity course. And for the final we just had, there were a few people literally leaving one hour after the start (the test is 3 hours), because the questions were really edgy. Another challenge would be the homework that takes up 45% of the grade - for morphology and syntax they are generally ok yet they are considerably difficult in the Phonology unit, which happens to be taught first in the course. So getting a head start is extremely important for the course.

My suggestion for succeeding in this course is to get a study partner and go to your TA!! I had Scott, who is an amazing lecturer and super passionate about the material. The discussion sessions don't count into the total grade but try not to miss any one of them for they are super helpful.

This class is very interesting. Schutze is a good professor but most of the learning comes from doing homework assignments (and reading) independently and asking questions in office hours and discussion sessions. If you go to every class and ask questions when you are confused, you can succeed in this class. A lot of my class understood the material and a lot of my class DID NOT. In order to make sure you understand and learn the material, you have to communicate with your TA and Schutze. I started to slack and therefore earned my letter grade of C when all I needed to do was go to office hours every week and I could have done just fine. You must also read the book! The book will save your life and teach you everything you need to know.

I started to struggle after the midterm...the class is long and I would nod off because Schutze does not have a loud or attention grabbing voice. If you can stay focused easily, you'll be fine.

Seeing as how nobody has reviewed this professor in 3 years, I felt obligated to leave a message. I don't just rant on message boards either, I submitted the same critiques to him via evaluations and this is the first time I have felt so inspired to let others now about my experience.

Professor Schutze is disorganized, incoherent and professionally incapable of conveying his point. For an individual who has been teaching for "17 years," these shortcomings are even more egregious and significantly more aggravating for a student in his course. His lectures are lethargic and incomprehensible for most of the time. If you take this course, you will be teaching yourself the material via homework and section.

Before I go any further, I would like to point out that he is a nice man and he does genuinely care about his students's learning, but with regard to his competency as a professor I highly recommend you take another course. Especially if you are only taking this as GE Requirement because I can personally guarantee that this material will not interest you, especially when presented in this manner. To make things worse, Professor Schutze take relatively simple concepts - concepts that he knows he is presenting to a class comprised overwhelmingly of students who are not Linguistics majors - and magnifies there difficulty ten-fold.

This is coming from a student who earned a high passing grade in his class. Do not take it. You will work and it will frustrate you to no end. Cheers.

Well, he's not the most INTERESTING lecturer. It was really hard not to fall asleep. If I didn't fall asleep, I thought his lectures were very logically organized, and he takes an almost scientific approach to the topics.

I'm not sure why most people rate him as ineffective though (other than the really dull lectures). If you are able to pay attention, you learn a lot, pretty much everything you need to do the homework and the tests. I went to the lectures, and never read a page of the textbook.

I thought the homework was reasonably difficult, as was the midterm. We'll see about the final. Ling 20 is supposed to introduce you to the Linguistics major, so it needs to at least be challenging. If you're looking an easy Ling class, take Ling 1.