Professor
Nicoletta Loccioni
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - Loccioni is a really good professor. She patiently explained everything to her students. There was an assignment every week. The assignments were not easy, but if you spend some time on the slides, you can do them very well. The midterm and final were very similar to the assignments, and an A4 size cheat sheet was allowed to use in both exams. I REALLY RECOMMEND THIS PROFESSOR!
Winter 2019 - Loccioni is a really good professor. She patiently explained everything to her students. There was an assignment every week. The assignments were not easy, but if you spend some time on the slides, you can do them very well. The midterm and final were very similar to the assignments, and an A4 size cheat sheet was allowed to use in both exams. I REALLY RECOMMEND THIS PROFESSOR!
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2018 - Nico is one of the best professors I've ever had here at UCLA. I had her for LING 120B and 165B (Syntax I and II) in Fall 2018 and Winter 2019. I would highly recommend taking her for this course. I really hope I can take more classes with her as my professor. She is so kind, patient, and very understanding of students' needs and concerns. Her overall grading scheme is: 50% Homework (7 Assignments) 20% Midterm 30% Final Exam The midterm and final were very similar to the homework assignments and fairly straightforward if you did well on the homework and/or went to TA office hours for help (My TA, Zhuo, was also very helpful and friendly). If you take this class with Nico and also plan on taking LING 165B, try to take it with her again or the same professor you had for 120B because the teaching style and material covered varies from professor to professor.
Fall 2018 - Nico is one of the best professors I've ever had here at UCLA. I had her for LING 120B and 165B (Syntax I and II) in Fall 2018 and Winter 2019. I would highly recommend taking her for this course. I really hope I can take more classes with her as my professor. She is so kind, patient, and very understanding of students' needs and concerns. Her overall grading scheme is: 50% Homework (7 Assignments) 20% Midterm 30% Final Exam The midterm and final were very similar to the homework assignments and fairly straightforward if you did well on the homework and/or went to TA office hours for help (My TA, Zhuo, was also very helpful and friendly). If you take this class with Nico and also plan on taking LING 165B, try to take it with her again or the same professor you had for 120B because the teaching style and material covered varies from professor to professor.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Nico is a dedicated and approachable professor -- you can really tell she cares a lot about student learning. Besides several homework assignments (pretty standard with most ling upper divs), there is also a group project you do with a partner (whom you can choose yourself -- since none of us really knew each other due to our cameras being off during class and section not being mandatory, most people just posted in the CCLE forum and found partners that way, including myself). The group project seems daunting at first but really isn't that bad so long as you cooperate with your partner and don't procrastinate. You basically just pick a research topic you're interested in and write a paper about it (how you would conduct the experiment and the implications of hypothetical results, since you can't actually conduct it given the pandemic) and give a powerpoint presentation about it to the class during Week 10/finals week. There is also a midterm and final for the class, but it's pretty doable if you go over all the review questions/study guides posted for each exam and know the answers and concepts well. The final was definitely harder than the midterm imo, but the curve was pretty generous.
Fall 2020 - Nico is a dedicated and approachable professor -- you can really tell she cares a lot about student learning. Besides several homework assignments (pretty standard with most ling upper divs), there is also a group project you do with a partner (whom you can choose yourself -- since none of us really knew each other due to our cameras being off during class and section not being mandatory, most people just posted in the CCLE forum and found partners that way, including myself). The group project seems daunting at first but really isn't that bad so long as you cooperate with your partner and don't procrastinate. You basically just pick a research topic you're interested in and write a paper about it (how you would conduct the experiment and the implications of hypothetical results, since you can't actually conduct it given the pandemic) and give a powerpoint presentation about it to the class during Week 10/finals week. There is also a midterm and final for the class, but it's pretty doable if you go over all the review questions/study guides posted for each exam and know the answers and concepts well. The final was definitely harder than the midterm imo, but the curve was pretty generous.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - If you had Nico for 120B, I highly recommend taking her for this course as well. This continuity is extremely helpful, as some of my classmates had different 120B professors and weren't entirely familiar with the techniques, content, and teaching style of Nico. She is a great professor, but this course was challenging at times. Some of the technical explanations required on the homeworks and exams in this class were more difficult than those in 120B, because the deeper you delve into syntactic theory, the more blurred the line becomes between what's the "right" and "wrong" answer. I went to TA office hours weekly for help on the homework assignments, because there always seemed to be a few parts or subparts of a question that were difficult or worded vaguely. The midterm was fair (very similar to the homeworks), but the final was very difficult. When it comes to the homeworks and exams, grading-wise, it was somewhat harsher/stricter than in 120B.
Winter 2019 - If you had Nico for 120B, I highly recommend taking her for this course as well. This continuity is extremely helpful, as some of my classmates had different 120B professors and weren't entirely familiar with the techniques, content, and teaching style of Nico. She is a great professor, but this course was challenging at times. Some of the technical explanations required on the homeworks and exams in this class were more difficult than those in 120B, because the deeper you delve into syntactic theory, the more blurred the line becomes between what's the "right" and "wrong" answer. I went to TA office hours weekly for help on the homework assignments, because there always seemed to be a few parts or subparts of a question that were difficult or worded vaguely. The midterm was fair (very similar to the homeworks), but the final was very difficult. When it comes to the homeworks and exams, grading-wise, it was somewhat harsher/stricter than in 120B.