PSYCH 162
Psychology of Addiction
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Survey of topics covering psychological and neurobiological theories of addiction, pharmacological effects of drugs and abuse, etiology, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - I wanna start off by saying this is one of the most interesting classes at UCLA. It has some seriously useful, research-backed information on topics that attract a lot of controversy and bias. I think having Dr. Ray as a professor is really helpful to understanding addiction. But the biggest issue with this class is the workload and pacing. Weekly quizzes all throughout, which are not evenly weighted. The weekly lecture quizzes are worth 40% (!!!) and the discussion quizzes are worth 20%. The lecture quizzes are due in the middle of the week, a really unusual deadline for a college course, in my opinion. They do drop a couple quizzes, but that's still a huge chunk of your grade dependent on less than 10 quizzes, each with about 5-15 questions. It's very difficult to make up those points when that one category of quiz is worth 40% and then another 20% is basically the same style of quiz. There are no finals or midterms, just two papers which are not evenly spaced in the course but due within about 3 weeks of each other. That pacing just doesn't really make sense to me, because I feel that the first paper could be due earlier and/or the second paper could be due later. The professor recommends getting started on the second paper early, which you definitely need to, but it's difficult to do that when you've just turned in the first paper and you have two other classes to manage work for, plus two weekly quizzes worth even more of your grade!
Spring 2022 - I wanna start off by saying this is one of the most interesting classes at UCLA. It has some seriously useful, research-backed information on topics that attract a lot of controversy and bias. I think having Dr. Ray as a professor is really helpful to understanding addiction. But the biggest issue with this class is the workload and pacing. Weekly quizzes all throughout, which are not evenly weighted. The weekly lecture quizzes are worth 40% (!!!) and the discussion quizzes are worth 20%. The lecture quizzes are due in the middle of the week, a really unusual deadline for a college course, in my opinion. They do drop a couple quizzes, but that's still a huge chunk of your grade dependent on less than 10 quizzes, each with about 5-15 questions. It's very difficult to make up those points when that one category of quiz is worth 40% and then another 20% is basically the same style of quiz. There are no finals or midterms, just two papers which are not evenly spaced in the course but due within about 3 weeks of each other. That pacing just doesn't really make sense to me, because I feel that the first paper could be due earlier and/or the second paper could be due later. The professor recommends getting started on the second paper early, which you definitely need to, but it's difficult to do that when you've just turned in the first paper and you have two other classes to manage work for, plus two weekly quizzes worth even more of your grade!
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