Most amazing professor I've ever had. I'm literally shocked by the other reviews. She is hilarious during lecture and loves to get involved. Learns names quickly and is super accessible outside of class. At the end of the class she even gave me two books to read! Really a gem in the ling community and knows how to teach (if you let her).
Curtin is the worst professor i've had in my experience at UCSB. She's narrow-minded, passive aggressive and her lecturesmaterials are very disorganized. If you take her be prepared to abandon your own opinions.
Her lectures are very unclear and hard to follow. She often goes on tangents and didn't really talk about things in the reader... Her lectures were not helpful and the readings were long... her quizzes are quite difficult, but not too hard of a grader when it comes to papers.
This course was a very common sense class. You need the book for weekly assignments (you don't need to read everything she assigns, just page through to find the answers to the focus questions). Fairly easy grading (by TA), lots of repetition. She's very enthusiastic and friendly. Says "itself" or "themselves" after everything.
I was bored out of my mind in this class, stopped going after week 4 but got a B- anyway. Lectures are basically repetitions of the reading, but you'll need to pull from the readings for the essays. The midterm/final were so-so, I hated that the answers seemed so ambiguous. No one liked this class.
I didn't really enjoy this class, the material seemed common sense as we were going through it, but the quizzes, midterms and finals were confusing. Definitely keep up on the reading, but don't stress too much about the papers.
She is very good professor, but we should be careful because her tests are much harder than you think. You should memorize so many theories and submit assignments which are quite easy. it is not hard to get C or B-.
Curtin really isn't that bad. If you put at least some effort in you'll get a B. She gives a lot of weekly assignments which are pretty easy, but her tests are kind of difficult, somewhat similar to Mullins but not AS hard. Overall a decent class
This class is based on memorizing the notes (which basically summarize the book) and repeating what you're taught. The assignments are graded on completion, not quality, so they are very easy. The essays aren't too bad so long as you apply some concepts. The tests can be tricky, but they aren't difficult as long as you can remember what she says.
Melissa is very motivated, nice and funny. Some of the course material feels quite arbitrary however and I feel she's more enthusiastic about it than I am! I guess overall I enjoyed the course.
She is impossible to follow in lecture, goes on tangents, her notes make no sense. She's not very hard but I would not take her again.
The class is well organized and if you do the work, you'll be fine. The prof uses good examples, so it's pretty easy to learn the concepts and do well on the tests.
WORST PROFESSOR I HAVE EVER TAKEN HANDS DOWN. Tests were hard,and when I questioned why I was considered wrong(over things which were 100% personal perceptions) I got a b.s. answer. Basically if you want to pass the class write the b.s. she tells you and dont have your own opinions, if you want an A get ready to work like crazy. Can not stand her
I took her culture and language class and found it to be very entertaining/interesting. I like her relaxed teaching style but you also manage to learn something! I liked the way she organized her class with 4 short papers, midterm, final and participation. Definitely recommend Melissa!
She doesn't appear to have any concern for her students at all. I don't think she even writes her own exams, yet she wasted over 45 minutes one day arguing with the ENTIRE class when we tried to tell her the questions were confusing & misleading. I am an A student, and I got a C+ in her class. I've never gotten anything close to that low. RUN!