The class was really interesting and easy. I came into this class not knowing anything about Linguistics and I thought it would be boring. But Torrence was engaging, funny and made me really like the material. The first midterm was a little disorganized but the second midterm and final were fine. He does listen to students and does care about student learning. He gave a couple REALLY easy pop quizzes during lecture to reward those who showed up and every time there was an actual quiz, he told us exactly what we needed to know and gave us more than enough time to learn it. People complained that he didn't give them enough time but he literally gave us two weeks to learn one sheet. Those people weren't paying attention/didn't show up to class. Even then though, he did push the quiz back so he really does listen to students and is concerned about student learning. Likewise, with the exams, he literally went through the slides and told us exactly what we needed to know and that was accurate. He didn't put anything on the test he didn't tell us to know. The homework was fine and was actually really helpful in preparing for the exams as the exams mimic the homework structure.

So overall it was a really fun and interesting class and I would definitely take Torrence again. It was a little more work than I was expecting but if you go in knowing that you're going to have homework and you'll have to study a bit, then it's actually pretty easy material.

Mainly gonna make an informative review because I recommend taking this class. This might be a little scattered.

This class is 100% online except for discussion sections, all the lectures are pre-recorded and pretty high quality because he recorded them in collaboration with the TFT 1-2 years ago. However, some weeks can be pretty boring.

There are 6 homework assignments, 2 papers, 1 midterm, and 1 final. I'm not sure but I think in Summer there isn't a midterm and there are less lectures (because summer sessions have less weeks).
The papers were graded pretty leniently (across all of the TAs based on groupme polls) and aren't too difficult, but they might take you 5-6 hours to complete. The homework, midterm, and final, are all multiple choice (but don't be surprised to see 5-7 answer choices per question). Both the midterm and final had 50 questions.

Memorization is pretty important in this class to succeed on the midterm and final. However I didn't take as many notes as I would ordinarily need to because there's a lot of detailed notes already posted on the Ling 1 Channel of the Linguistics discord server (came in clutch). Also, the screenings and case studies aren't super important, I think there were maybe 5 questions max on both the midterm and final on those things. There are a lot of experiments and studies, I wouldn't focus too much on the names /dates of them but rather what they showed. There's a lot of questions on "x evidence shows support for...". The most important memorization (and hardest week in my opinion) is for the Phonetics week because it's built into a lot of future lectures and you will need to basically memorize a different alphabet writing system in a short amount of time before the midterm, so either spend a lot of time on it when you're cramming for the midterm start early on it (all the lectures are pre-recorded and already uploaded). Make sure you know what all of the sounds make for the consonants and vowels. I found that creating pneumonics helped a lot to memorize the IPA consonants alphabet.
Other hard-ish weeks were morphology and syntax but if you practice with them you'll get good at doing problems related to them. In the other weeks it's way easier, you just need to memorize evidence, facts, observations, etc.

Professor doesn't post slides/discussion section slides aren't posted intentionally so a screenshot tool can really help you out.
There is also a textbook, you can get it online for free but I didn't really find it useful and stopped reading it after a couple of weeks. It basically reinforces the lectures. I wouldn't spend too much time on it, even reading a case study or watching a screening would be more beneficial to you, or just memorizing other things.

Some weeks are definitely easier than others, I would look into the next week's lecture videos and see how long they are. Sometimes you have 40 minutes to watch, while other times it's a few hours.

Section participation is also easy, you just have some anonymous poll questions during the TA's review lecture.

Also there was some easy extra credit too, it was 1% for doing a practice setup of the midterm and 1% for doing a survey (we weren't sure if it went to the overall final grade or just the final exam).

Overall this is probably one of the easier science GEs, as a poli-sci major I would definitely take this over a harder science. A decent amount of the weeks were pretty interesting too. In terms of the lecture/content difficulty, I would say the beginning of the quarter was easy, the middle was hard, and the end was easy again. Good luck!

Professor Torrence's lecture is really clear and interesting. I personally like this topic so I found the lectures very engaging even though they are recorded videos. However, like other reviews said, the course is impacted and heavy in workload if you take it during summer. 8 hours of videos every week and lots of materials to learn and remember. You have to actually spend time understanding and memorizing some of the concepts to do well in exam.
All in all, I recommend this course if you are interested in linguistics and willing to work hard.

I wouldn't take this as an online SUMMER class. Since the videos are edited, he can fit in so much information into one video.
My friend who took this in class in Spring 2019 showed me the work he had to do. Come to find, the 6 week summer course and 10 week regular course have the exact same content. So they shoved 10 weeks of stuff into 6. It can be demanding (4-8 videos a week, each over 1 hour) but if you're good with your time, you can do it. I was taking another class along side this one and found problems juggling it all.
Online summer class has a final paper, final exam (cumulative), discussion sessions and homework. The class can be difficult in certain sections and it's hard to ask questions in discussion since it's online. There will be hundreds online at the same time with like 80 questions and they only have their allotted time to answer while also covering the lectures. I'm sure this class is fine in person. Professor Torrence is very charming and engaging. But as an online class, it can be just too much at times. Plus you have to pay to take the test online or go in person, which isn't ideal as a Summer course since many students are away and don't have $40 to dish out on a final. Overall not bad, would take it again but not over the summer.

I absolutely loved this class! I honestly find myself using the concepts I've learned almost every day in multiple different areas of my life. The first midterm was super straightforward, and I got a 98% from taking detailed notes (which was relatively easy because of the online lectures) and just a few hours of review the night before. The final was a bit more challenging because the material was a little tougher. There's also a 5 page paper due at the end of the quarter where you apply the concepts you've learned to your own personal experience with language, and you have to participate in a Psych study for 2% of your grade (don't wait til week 10 like me lol). Overall, the professor is extremely thorough and I'm happy I took the course!

This class was a terrible experience. Torrance was extremely unclear in his lectures and his homework was confusing. In addition, his TA's grading was inconsistent and homeworks that had the same answers as other classmates often scored differently. Finally, his tests were all unfairly scored and worded in a way that sought to confuse the students. I would NOT take another class with Torrance.

This class is pretty straight forward. The lectures really are interesting to listen to. They’re pre recorded so you can listen to them 1.5x or 2x depending on what he’s talking about. I took it during the COVID situation but it didn’t really change much, except for the protests in which he made the final optional/ it could only help you if you took it.
- The homework you’d need to think about it a little, but completely manageable. The readings he usually covers in his lectures so that’s nice as well. For us we needed to attend at least 15 minutes of discussion in order to get the points and then you could leave.

This class was much easier than I expected it to be. The lectures were engaging and the information was useful and interesting. Definitely one of the easiest GEs I have taken in my time at UCLA. Would recommend!

Would recommend taking this class as a GE. Ultimately, it was a pretty easy class, with weekly homework and about 2-3 hours of weekly lectures. Homework is straightforward, and good practice for the midterm/final that were also pretty easy. Lectures are a bit boring, so I would recommend watching on 2x speed or even skipping them and just reading the textbook. Case studies are mostly optional, but there were 1 or 2 questions on the midterm about them (out of 50 questions.) Two analysis papers are also very straightforward and graded easy (at least by my TA).

Close to no work a week, probably spent about 3 hours a week on this class total, including discussions.

I took his online class.

Pros:
- Lecture videos are well recorded and edited (done by film department).
- Mostly self-pace meaning it makes easier to manage time (except homework, online discussion, and exam).
- Lectures are fairly short and clear (2-4 hours a week).
- No surprises in exams (Qs are based on lectures and some are identical from homework).
- Final exam is not accumulative (i.e. phonetics will not be on final. thank god).
- Lecture videos has subtitles and allows to be played in faster speed.

Cons:
- Requires self-disciplines. It's easy to get distracted.
- Proctor-U (for taking online exam) is expensive. $25 if you set the date 72 hours ahead of time or $30. You have an option to take exams offline though.
- Very straight forward lectures which can be boring (but his charming voice neglects this con).

Overall, I enjoyed his class. Topics are fairly interesting and we get to learn how the languages are formed and how they interact our everyday life. Homework and exams are fairly easy as long as you watch all of the lecture videos carefully and take notes while doing so (typing in word doc was good enough for me). Closed-book exams meaning you have to memorize the materials. However, most of materials are fairly easy to remember and some of them are simply common sense.