Something to watch out for this class: the professor provides a digital copy of the textbook for free at the start of the class, don't go buy the textbook at the bookstore because it is a waste of money and is actually a different textbook, IDK why they even have it there still on the shelf. For the class itself, sit near the front because its easy to miss something the professor says because she can be too quiet sometimes. The class is trickier than you might think and for those that are Ling. majors out there who think they already know a lot don't make the mistake of slacking off because the class is mostly about the formal representations of different structures in linguistics and is actually quite tricky. Overall she is a very helpful professor and the class isn't too hard as long as you pay attention from the very beginning.

Giuseppina is fantastic! I took her LING 20 class on the side of two heavier STEM classes and found the subject to be an interesting look at language more than half of the time. It can get a little technical with grammaticality, sentence structure, and phonological rules (language sounds). While the required homework (30% of your grade, graded pretty leniently) was usually short, it could be tricky- but the TAs would always be happy to help you through it and check your rationale before you turned it in. The midterm (35%) wasn't so hard, but the material got a decent amount trickier by the final (35%), which would require you spend some more time learning everything and getting support from her and the TAs. She offered 2% extra credit, and her lectures came straight out of the textbook, which is a free pdf another professor on campus wrote very well and with clear explanations of each topic. Though I didn't do as well as I'd have liked because I didn't allot enough time to studying for the final, I'd definitely take more classes with her. She's really sweet and always brought a positive energy to each lecture. Get feedback on your practice from the TAs and you'll do great.

Grading scheme:
20% Discussion Attendance
15% Homework Quizzes (6 total, online, not timed, take home)
30% Midterm Exam
35% Final Exam

A lot of people say this class can be difficult because you have to learn academic notation, especially for syntax, but I'd say the material is mostly conceptual understanding and if you have the patience to read through the online textbook Silvestri provides and take some good notes the exams shouldn't be difficult. On topics such as ambiguity there were a bunch of hints and on the 65 point final theres was a 5 point extra credit. If you participate in some psychology experiments (which shouldn't take more than 3 hours) you'll get an extra 3% added to your overall grade. Discussion participation is worth a whopping 20% so it's easy to boost your grade in this class. The quizzes aren't difficult at all and there's plenty of instances where you can find the answer in the textbook.

Silvestri herself is super sweet and it's clear she knows the material inside out and backwards. If you're more interested in linguistics like I am and approach her with linguistic theories and previous research/projects she'd be happy to discuss them with you. She was just as excited about the content I talked about as I was. The TAs give practice problems and solutions every week, which was really helpful for the exams.

I'd rush to take her next class.

I really like Professor Giuseppina as a person, but it was often hard for me to digest lecture content. I think it depends on how well you grasp the information in the beginning, because it’s fast paced. Lecture is also at 8 AM which is not the best. The TAs are great though and provide really good worksheets to help out. My advice is do her practice set she gives about a week before the midterm & final, they are almost exactly like the tests. However, some concepts just did not make sense to me when explained during lecture

I loved taking this class with Giuseppina. She was engaging, excited, and passionate about the topic. When I took the class, it was her first quarter teaching at UCLA, so at times it seemed like she was still finding her stride. That said, she was wonderful. She valued her student learning very clearly. The tests were fairly easy, with a lot of the material being put in a sort of "appendix" for students at the back of the test for reference. I only went to office hours once, but she answered my question completely. She assigns a decent amount of readings, but they do help with the classwork. The homework was due weekly and was generally easy.