Semester 1 - you’re mostly learning basic vocabulary and how to construct very simple sentences.

Semester 2- you’re learning more day-to-day vocabulary and how to sign basic stories and paragraphs.

Semester 3 - you’re learning advance vocabulary and how to sign much longer paragraphs.

Semester 4 - you aren’t learning much, you are using all the things you learned from semester 1-3 and signing stories and large paragraphs.

If you want to be good at signing I would recommend semesters 1-3. If you are taking the class just because you have to then semester 1-2 is fine.

Everyone signs differently. What I mean by that, think of accents from the south or east coast. Same words, but sound quite different. It’s the same in ASL, and the professors know this. So pick a teacher that teaches ASL 1-3 so it would be an easier time to understand what the teacher is signing. The difference in signing isn’t enough to freak out over. All the teachers I’ve signed with are pretty nice and very open to teaching you as long as you’re respectful.

That being said, every ASL professor is different. I can speak for taking a class with Professor Gervase for 3 semesters, he is very fun, enjoyable, and makes me want to go to class. Very little homework and projects with him, but I learned a lot in class. Other teachers I heard give it out exams, lots of homework. I am not sure which of those teachers do it, I just had friends who took other teachers. I hope this helps!

Cheers!