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!

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.

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

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.