Easy, simple class; Bahtina is a great, helpful prof; 100% recommend for a GE.

I took this class when it was called Scientific Study of Language and Society, which was essentially an intro to sociolinguistics. Lectures were pre-recorded and came with downloadable slides, which made notes and studying for exams so much easier. The typical weekly workload consists of two lecture responses (some mcq and frq), a discussion board post, project prep for discussion sections, and sometimes Perusall annotations. The project prep work picks up toward the end of the quarter (starting around when you do the project proposal), so be prepared for that. It can seem like a lot since most things are due on Thursday (before discussion sections on in the afternoon), but looking back it seemed like a reasonable workload.

The most heavily weighted assignment in the class is the research project (worth 40%). Even though a group project in an asynchronous class sounds scary at first, both Dr. Bahtina and our TA Hannah took action in groups where some members were unresponsive or weren't pulling their weight. There are also opportunities midway and at the end of the quarter to report group members who were contributing less or nominate members who did extra work for extra credit. The actual project itself is broken up so that a little bit of work is due before each week's section, and those assignments also contribute to your project grade.

Don't stress too much about the midterm and final! As long as you watch the lecture videos, go over the slides a bit, and do the posted practice questions, you should be good to go.

Overall, would take this class again! Dr. Bahtina and Hannah were super nice and clearly cared a lot about us students.