If you've taken Chinese 2 with Yao Laoshi, you probably already know how she rolls. If you haven't, you'll be in for a treat: She's a very, very good professor. Funny, has engaging lectures, and is great at teaching.

Of course, Chinese is a memorization-heavy language, and there's no getting out of that. For Chinese 3 will definitely need to work for your grade; 8 hours of outside study per week should be expected if you haven't studied Chinese before. If you thought Chinese 2 with Yao was hard, Chinese 3 will be even harder. Exams will still be closed note, except this time, you'll have 2 lessons per week, not just one lesson per week. We're on the quarter system, and during some weeks, you'll definitely feel the brunt of it. Don't fall behind.

For lectures, I'd prioritize doing the following to avoid falling behind:
1. Read the textbook, especially the grammar.
2. Do the preview worksheet
3. Grind characters.

In terms of course logistics, you will need THREE textbooks: the Textbook, the Workbook, and the CHARACTER Workbook. Homework is graded on effort, and in-class assignments are basically graded on effort, although if you repeat the same mistakes you will be docked points. Again, you must pick Simplified or Traditional and stick with it. Lecture and Discussion attendance are MANDATORY, but if you show up to them, they're free points. There are mandatory in-class assignments and quizzes. If you don't show up to them, you'll hurt your grade pretty badly. Also, as a heads up, lectures routinely go overtime and they're NOT recorded, so keep that in mind when planning coursework.

Quizzes form the bulk of your grade, and generally involve you transcribing what Yao Laoshi says into Chinese-both into characters and pinyin. They're graded very generously. Exams are actually quite difficult as they're purely written and you have to memorize many radicals. Yes, this is Chinese 3, but you still have to memorize radicals. Fortunately, exams are not worth that much of your grade (like 30% total), but probably the hardest aspect of the course.

By the way, the cutoff for a solid A was 93.5 percent when I took it. 90% is the cutoff for an A minus. So the little things, like blowing off quizzes and discussions can hurt your grade quite badly.

Basically, show up, care about the class, do your work (it's really clear what you're assigned to do), and you should do fine. You'll definitely learn Chinese.