Professor
Michelle Yuan
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - Professor Yuan is a great professor, and I couldn't recommend her more for this class. She's a very clear and organized lecturer and posts slides and recordings to make it easy to review. The content can definitely be a bit confusing, but she presents it clearly and makes it really easy to get help with office hours, and the discussions were useful to get practice with the material as well (shoutout to Laura for being a great TA). The grading consisted of weekly quizzes that were worth a small portion of the grade, homework due every two weeks, discussion attendance, and the final. The quizzes and homework were pretty straightforward, and the homework regularly included extra credit so it wasn't difficult to get 100% in that category. The final was reasonably difficult but also had an extra credit problem, which helped a lot. I think whether or not you enjoyed the syntax portion of Ling 1 or Ling 20 should be a good indication of whether you'll like this class, even though you don't end up using much from those classes. I personally enjoyed the syntax part of both of those classes and I thought 120B was really interesting and engaging. Everything in the course builds on itself week by week, so it's important to stay on track with the lectures. The material definitely got more complex as the course went on, but if you're good with logical thinking I think it's pretty easy to catch on to building the trees. Overall, Professor Yuan makes it easy to succeed in the class and I'd highly recommend her as a professor.
Spring 2025 - Professor Yuan is a great professor, and I couldn't recommend her more for this class. She's a very clear and organized lecturer and posts slides and recordings to make it easy to review. The content can definitely be a bit confusing, but she presents it clearly and makes it really easy to get help with office hours, and the discussions were useful to get practice with the material as well (shoutout to Laura for being a great TA). The grading consisted of weekly quizzes that were worth a small portion of the grade, homework due every two weeks, discussion attendance, and the final. The quizzes and homework were pretty straightforward, and the homework regularly included extra credit so it wasn't difficult to get 100% in that category. The final was reasonably difficult but also had an extra credit problem, which helped a lot. I think whether or not you enjoyed the syntax portion of Ling 1 or Ling 20 should be a good indication of whether you'll like this class, even though you don't end up using much from those classes. I personally enjoyed the syntax part of both of those classes and I thought 120B was really interesting and engaging. Everything in the course builds on itself week by week, so it's important to stay on track with the lectures. The material definitely got more complex as the course went on, but if you're good with logical thinking I think it's pretty easy to catch on to building the trees. Overall, Professor Yuan makes it easy to succeed in the class and I'd highly recommend her as a professor.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - Ling 165B was definitely a step up from syntax I (120B), but I personally found the material pretty intuitive to grasp and interact with (also, I did not take Syntax I with prof Yuan). Professor Yuan's lectures were not recorded due to the classroom we were in, but she always posted lecture slides and handouts. I found her handouts to be a great resource to annotate in lecture or review on the days I was unable to attend in person. Her lectures can often feel a bit dense or difficult to understand just through reading, so I'd recommend going in person as much as possible. Discussion sections were not mandatory but attendance was an opportunity for extra credit + I found Joe's sections extremely helpful. Prof Yuan's homework requires a solid understanding of the class material and pushes you to apply them further in ways that weren't directly taught in class. I found them a bit difficult but always averaged above 90% on them. There are also weekly check-ins that help you see where you're at in understanding the material. Quizzes occurred every odd numbered week and consisted only of drawing trees, which I found very fair for the most part, except for some super long sentences/ones that combine lots of features to look out for. I found the final most interesting though, because we got to choose a research paper from a set list and write a relatively short (8-10 pg double space) response to it, which was really just answering thing like what the main argument + evidence was, what parts were interesting/confusing, etc.
Fall 2025 - Ling 165B was definitely a step up from syntax I (120B), but I personally found the material pretty intuitive to grasp and interact with (also, I did not take Syntax I with prof Yuan). Professor Yuan's lectures were not recorded due to the classroom we were in, but she always posted lecture slides and handouts. I found her handouts to be a great resource to annotate in lecture or review on the days I was unable to attend in person. Her lectures can often feel a bit dense or difficult to understand just through reading, so I'd recommend going in person as much as possible. Discussion sections were not mandatory but attendance was an opportunity for extra credit + I found Joe's sections extremely helpful. Prof Yuan's homework requires a solid understanding of the class material and pushes you to apply them further in ways that weren't directly taught in class. I found them a bit difficult but always averaged above 90% on them. There are also weekly check-ins that help you see where you're at in understanding the material. Quizzes occurred every odd numbered week and consisted only of drawing trees, which I found very fair for the most part, except for some super long sentences/ones that combine lots of features to look out for. I found the final most interesting though, because we got to choose a research paper from a set list and write a relatively short (8-10 pg double space) response to it, which was really just answering thing like what the main argument + evidence was, what parts were interesting/confusing, etc.
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