This class was more difficult than expected. However, if you put in time , you will get an A. The course was online and pre recorded lectures which were easy to follow.

Torrence was frustrating. He was over an hour and a half late to our 8 AM final (with our tests) and we couldn't have extra time because another class needed the room for their final. I think he ended up not using the final for our grade, and it was extremely annoying. He was very unorganized and the class was extremely boring. I like Linguistics, but I hated this class. It was easier than any class I've taken (even in high school), but I would not take a class with him again. The class is easy. Take it with a different professor.

Linguistics is an interesting yet challenging discipline. For newcomers, it will probably be unlike anything you've seen before. You learn about the commonalities between the world's languages, how we acquire grammar as a child, the sound patterns of languages, how sentence structure is conceived, how to perceive meaning, and more. This class will make you think. Ling 1 fulfills the life science GE or the philosophical/linguistic GE.

I am currently the book: Pinker's "The Language Instinct" as an iBooks version for $4. I would recommend using this electronic version as you can easily find keywords by using command F, which is very helpful when doing the homework.

Also, I am selling all of the answers to the homeworks (I got 100% on all of them), $2 per homework. Feel free to text me at 7149870551. Good luck with this class!

This class is pretty much an easy A. Lectures are interesting and we had the option to join whichever discussion section we liked. There were two essays which were not hard to complete and there is a highly recommended book (but not mandatory) that you could read.
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I AM SELLING A PDF VERSION OF THIS BOOK ("An Introduction to Language 11 edition" by Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams). If interested, send me quick email:
andrew87mendez@gmail.com

I took this class during remote learning and it was very interesting. Most of the reviews on here stress that you cannot slack off, but honestly I started learning the material a few days before the exams and wrote the papers the day they were due and have done well above average. Professor Torrence's lectures are GREAT, interesting, and thorough. This class was a lot more work than it needed to be, though, as lectures were pretty redundant and the material could have been conveyed effectively with half the amount of work required. I would recommend this class ONLY to those looking for a easy, interesting GE that requires a little bit of work. It definitely is more work than some of the other GE's out there.

Professor Torrence made this class extremely easy. Just remember his slides and teaching assistant's slides you will be fine.

The content was super interesting and the professor was very engaging making the lectures easy to follow even though it was a virtual platform. The content was very heavy, however, and I remember spending a long time creating a midterm and final study guide as the professor used a lockdown browser for our test. Not the easiest class you can take, but fairly interesting and a medium workload.

Took Ling 1 for a GE credit in spring 2020 so it was online. Professor Torrence's lectures are all pre recorded. He's very clear and easy to understand, and he's pretty engaging for a recorded lecture. It's overall a pretty easy class. The exams kind of suck since they use Respondus lockdown browser and are pretty memorization heavy (like memorizing phonemes and rules etc). There were 2 analysis papers and they were super short and straightforward, and the homeworks were a breeze. Definitely recommend this class if you're looking for something interesting and easy!

Easiest GE I've taken so far. Lectures were pretty informative (though I must confess I barely listened to them after the first midterm and instead crammed with other students in the class for the final) and homework was very easily and light. The analysis papers seem like a lot, but honestly both can be written up in less than two hours. Prof. Torrence is a great lecturer and knows his stuff. You'll definitely learn an interesting thing or two from this course.

This class is a little challenging over the summer with up to 5 lectures per week since they put in 10 weeks of lecture into 6 weeks. However, it's definitely doable and interesting. The grading is 15% discussion participation, 40% weekly homework, 25% final paper, and 20% final, though I think that there's a different grading scheme if you take it during a regular quarter. The workload seems like a lot but it's manageable and lectures are engaging. I think that this class is a good start for those who are interested in learning about linguistics, and this is definitely one of the best GE's I've taken.