Hmm, it's really surprising to me that some people write in such strongly negative reviews for Prof. Alim; ie "avoid at all costs". I would recommend ignoring those reviews, as I had a really great experience with the class, and its hard for me to believe that people actually feel that way. This class truly changed my perspective on the world in a really meaningful way, and I still think about things I learned in the class all the time. Alim is a really cool person who cares about student learning and making the class fun. The lectures had lots of variety in media--ie youtube videos, films, etc. This class was not easy, and doing the readings and going to lecture really was necessary, but if you work hard to understand the concepts and examples, you should do fine on the exams. I definitely recommend this professor, and will try to take him again if he teaches another class in the future. My grade: A+.

At first I was not a big fan of this class but as time progressed I started to enjoy it more. It seems overwhelming at first with all of the readings but I realized later that professor alim did not expect students to know every little detail. Nice teacher and nice TA's at least the guys, the girl TAs scared me a bit. Overall good class.

this was a great class! it focused on language inequality, which turned out to be a really interesting subject. a lot of assigned reading but you didnt have to do it all. if you go to lecture and skim the readings, you should be fine. alim is a really nice/cool guy who cares about the students. he's very open to talk to you during office hours, which you should talk advantage of for sure. pretty easy class and a lot of fun.

This guys was an amazing professor. He is very concerned with a students grade. He also has lots of people come during the lecture within linguistic anthropology to get you interested in the field. There is lots of reading and hw to turn in every week. But you get attendance points. He also gives you a paper to write about 6 pages this is just to help bring up your grade since they really dont focus on details as much. The final was also an autobiographical essay. He also gave us an extra 2%. He is really approachable and really helpful but you must go to lecture to do well in the class. If you got to lecture you will get a B and higher at the very least if not you will be lost in the class and the reading. But he its a fun class, so help fun during his celebrations of knowledge.

Very repetitive. Way too much reading. Horribly done lectures in which he reads his slides verbatim. Ends up being a class about African American Vernacular instead of a general linguistic anthro class. Though, it is definitely very easy. Don't have to do the readings and can still get an A no problem. Honestly though, He could have taught us the concepts that it took him a quarter to teach in 2-3 weeks. Bad class that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. He's a cool guy and I like him a lot. I likely got an A in the class too. But seriously, avoid this class if you can.

Prof tries too hard to be cool. Apart from that, there are too many reading assignments that are coupled with the stupidest assignments known to UCLA's campus: 3-2-1s, in which (for every single reading assignment) you must provide 3 important facts, 2 interesting facts, and 1 question. WTF? I thought I was done with this high school BS. If you are interested in taking a class alllllll about racial inequality in America, go for it. Otherwise, this class is boring and repetitive, with a long arduous midterm graded by obnoxious TAs. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. ever.

Worst class ever and professor ever...the TAs suck too. Tons of reading and absolutely no guidance whatsoever.