I'm seeing a ton of negative reviews from Fall 2025 so I wanna come in with more of a positive take on Professor Poole. Keep in mind I really liked this professor so I'm a little biased, but I'll try to keep this review as impartial as possible!

Pros:
Professor Poole is one of the smartest professors that I have had. He is extremely eloquent and if you listen closely while he is lecturing you will learn A LOT.

He's also incredibly kind and helpful. He is always incredibly sweet if you go to ask him questions after class, and he's also sneakily one of the funniest professors that I've had here at UCLA. I found myself laughing in his class more than any other class, although that might've just been a unique experience.

The class and lecture material is all very well organized. He gives you a handout every lecture with basically everything that you need to know, so you can easily go back and review these for the exams.

Cons:
This class can be very boring. On one hand I like seeing Dr. Poole lecture because he kind of gets into a flow state where he explains everything super well, and his class is clearly structured in a very lecturey format because it works well for him. However, because of this, and because the class content is essentially grammar and drawing tons of trees, it can definitely get boring at times because it's not very engaging.

Honestly I kind of take this to be a pro, but the exams are hard in that they are very conceptual. I think why a couple people are complaining here from last quarter is because some exam questions were free-response and forced you to really think critically about the material. I personally loved this and feel like the whole point of college is to get you to think critically instead of just systematically memorizing how to do problems. That being said, you can certainly prepare for these problems by conceptually learning the material and reviewing the homework and discussion worksheets. Many conceptual exam questions were closely mirrored on the discussion worksheets and homework so good back and review those!

Overall, a little bit of a boring class at times, but I also feel like I learned a lot. Dr. Poole can get a little bit strict at times, but he's really kind if you come into this course engaged and curious. Hot take is that people are just complaining because they're used to memorization heavy classes, whereas in this class you actually have to understand the theory behind the syntax to succeed.