Barry Schein - University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Professor: Barry Schein

Department: Languages

College: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: LING275
• Grade Received: Audit/No Grade
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Avoid this class. Dont get me wrong this is super interesting subject matter its just TOO MUCH WORK for a GE. Its taught by Mintz and Schein and they switch days lecturing, CONFUSING. It feels like they have a hard time dumbing it down for people who have no grasp of linguistics/are just enrolled for GE credit. If you must for GE take it P/NP.

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: LING275
• Grade Received: B
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

It's honestly not super difficult. The second test is really hard to understand if you didn't understand the first test. The third test is completely unrelated to the first two. But there are usually only a couple of hard questions on the tests. Go to every lab or you'll be totally lost. The TA's have all of the important information.

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: LING275
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Really frustrating as a professor. He's obviously very smart but he doesn't know how to teach. He rambles so much and is so difficult to understand. I made an effort for half a semester but eventually just couldn't do it. The class is also way too hard; I clawed my way to an okay grade only with the help of the (excellent) TAs.

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: LING301
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

He is a brilliant man with a kind heart but he has some trouble communicating what he knows to his students. The knowledge gap between what he knows and what we know was too large for him to bridge. Most of the students in my class had great difficulty understanding the material, and going to class each day was frustrating.

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: LING275
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Seriously only went to this class for the first month or two and could not understand anything that was going on. Only reason I am passing this class is because I had a great TA. Really difficult to understand, does not use power points, rambles, and uses upper level terms that most students are not familiar with.

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: LING275G
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Extremely difficult to understand. Teaches by giving examples and expects students to come up with the rules-- not great for an intro linguistics class. Test questions are difficult to understand and really random, so there's no real way to prepare. He's smart, but not a great fit for a beginning linguistics class.

Rating # 7

Overview:

• Course: LING275
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Some people are being a bit harsh here. Yes, the Professor lectures as if the students already have a background in linguistics, but he tries to be helpful when you go to his office hours.This class can be frustrating and it's not easy.

Rating # 8

Overview:

• Course: LING275
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

NOT a strong professor. NOT good at lecturing linguistics and always maintains a negative or strange attitude towards students. Even said directly in class: "a good exam is one where the average is less than a 60". This professor is not out to enrich the minds of his students and maintains a sense of high school teacher high headed-ness.

Rating # 9

Overview:

• Course: LING534
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 1.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

I loved this class. I love the way he teaches, he gives you all the examples and lets you think you came up with the solution yourself. It was one of the most fun classes I've ever taken. He is also extremely helpful outside class, his office door is always open, and he gives appointments generously.

Rating # 10

Overview:

• Course: LING275
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Spare your sanity, don't take this class or him :(

Rating # 11

Overview:

• Course: LING210
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: N/A
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Prof. Schein knows his stuff well, but he doesn't know how to teach it to beginning linguistics students. The class was unnecessarily hard; the homework make me want to bang my head against a wall. He tried to be helpful, but I hated the class. Avoid him, unless you're a masochistic grad student.

Rating # 12

Overview:

• Course: LING275
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: N/A
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

I dropped this class so fast... I thought linguistics would be interesting. How wrong I was.