I absolutely loved Professor Zuraw!! It is so clear how passionate she is about teaching, and the class was setup to ensure that students could make mistakes but still receive a great grade as long as you showed mastery later on. This year, she experimented with having technology-free class and we were given physical paper handouts to follow along with lecture. I felt a bit skeptical at first, but it actually helped me focus really well, and the handouts were a great resource to look back to especially if you don't have the time to look through the textbook (although I personally found the textbook helpful too). The class was skills-mastery based, and we had quizzes (very low-stakes) every week as well as long catch-up quizzes that gives you lots of opportunities to master the skills you need. I didn't even have to attend the final because I was able to get all my points during class. Homework assignments were definitely very enriching, and despite phonological analysis being one of my weaker spots, I feel a lot more comfortable and confident working with phonological data now. The homework pushed us to write phonological rules for data from different languages every other week, and we were given both an original + revision deadline to receive written feedback on our submissions. Because all of the homeworks were technically due on finals week, we had lots of time to visit office hours where she was more than happy to help walk through things, or ask for direct feedback. Overall would definitely recommend taking Ling 120A with Prof Zuraw :)

This class was an easy A.

Figured 120A would be a nightmare for me because I crawled through 102 with the most generous D grade of my life, but for someone who struggles massively with auditory processing type stuff, this course has been extremely enjoyable to take.

The grading scheme is such that there are goals for various concepts in the course; once you master them, your grade can't drop for that concept. As long as you master the various concepts and grab a couple advanced proficiencies, an A is extremely doable in this course, and unless a train wreck in my life occurs, I'm expecting an A- or an A. There is a final project, and it involves eliciting data from consultants regarding a phonological phenomenon in some language, both of your choice. It's a baby step into more rigorous academic writing but still appropriate in scale to the course where it doesn't feel intimidatingly/overwhelmingly formal.

Kie provides handouts each lecture, and while it does somewhat suck to miss lecture since you miss out on filling some blanks in the notes, the course is still easily manageable, and the lecture handouts are excellent review materials regardless. Strongly recommend taking this course with Kie, but in my experience, Dr. Bell is also an excellent professor for 119A (if for example, you took 102 or you need to petition to take 119A due tocourse availability) who was nothing but patient with me and my circumstances when I took 102 and dropped 119A a few years ago. Dr. Bell has the same grading scheme, so I suspect you won't go wrong regardless of which professor you choose. Regardless, Kie definitely made me appreciate phonology way more than I ever would have expected.

Printed handouts provided every lecture, and notes are allowed for quizzes and final. Assessments can't lower your grade; solve a type of problem once and you don't need to worry about that metric for the rest of the quarter. I didn't even show up to the final and still got an A+.