Linguistics, Like Life and Rocks, Is Hard

Linguistics is not like any humanities course you've taken. It's more like a math or science class in many ways, maybe logic. It's definitely not one of those classes you can skate through on your natural ability to produce eloquent language on demand in an essay test or a paper that's due half an hour from when you started. . . I was an English major, too, I know how it works. (: There is a lot of memory work you have to do for this class and some of the concepts are a little mind bending at first, but once you get them figured out you'll have a hard time remembering why they were hard. Don't get me wrong, it's worth it, but don't have any illusions about coming to class and having someone regurgitate the text for you--I'm not a mama bird and you ain't no baby bird. You're a student at a world class university. I expect your performance to reflect that fact.

You Must Prepare for this class. You must read and you must commit some stuff to memory. If you don't, it doesn't matter what the heck I do in class, you won't get a lot of it. There may be one person in 35 who doesn't have to do some actual reading to do well on the exams and even that person has to spend some time memorizing terms, formulas, etc. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make information accessible and enjoyable for you and I spend more time with students than anyone I know (who isn't also a student), so I am available for office hours. What I can't do for you is your memory work. If you come to me with nothing in your head yet about it, I can't help you understand how it works. And even though it may suggest that I'm a little messed up in the head, I feel like a failure when you don't learn. So learn dammit. (I'm not going to type damnit and you can't make me; deal with it.)

Every semester I take a little more time to prepare students for what the semester will bring because amazingly, every semester there is a ridiculously high number of students who just flat out don't believe me. Here's a testimonial from a student e-mail I got mid semester last spring:

I think I grossly underestimated the difficulty of this class but I've been doing the tutorials for the IPA on the blog and it's really starting to make sense. It feels like it's a little late for it all to start coming to me now but I think I am starting to understand it and like it more :) I just wanted to thank you for. . . yada yada

I think this student ended up withdrawing from the class. I think she's the only one who did, and my grade spreads come out well, but she's not the only one who found it to require actual preparation to their shock and amazement. Most people are going to do well if they just follow the daily recommended allowance of linguistic prep. If you spent 10 minutes a day on reviewing terms and stuff you have to memorize, you'd probably be in very good shape (that plus the reading and thinking ahead of time). ((I know, thinking is such an extraordinary thing for a prof to expect of you, they are So Unreasonable. . . don't they know you don't have time to think because you're too busy being a college student?)

So, truth in advertising, full disclosure. Be not deceived about what can co-occur with humor. And remember, you're building a brain here. And paying a lot of money to do it. I'll preach more about that later. (: But only because I love you. (: