I do not recommend this class to anyone! This class does not have a lot of work: there is just 2 assignments (8% each) and the rest of the 84% is your three exams. The exams are extremely difficult and you will not be able to see your answers after so you have no idea which questions you missed. The exams are online and open note but even that does not help.

This class or more specifically, this professor, makes me incredibly frustrated. I rarely write reviews on Bruinwalk but as a senior, I feel it is my civic duty to tell future bruins to RUN from this man. I am the kind of person that really tries to find the positive in people, but I'm not gonna lie to you--this man has no heart. If you are shooting for an A or high B, do not take this class. His forms of examination are not fair and are not representative of what we learned in class. Aaron is the worst UCLA has to offer. I feel bad saying that but it's true :/

This was by far the worst class I have taken. Blaisdell does not care about his students. While his exams are open note and open book, he asks incredibly specific questions, and at times even asks questions that aren't regarding material taught in lecture or found in the textbook. The grade is comprised almost entirely of 2 midterms and a final exam. One of our exams was entirely tossed to the side due to a mistake on his end, which left a lot of students devastated. Complaints were made and no changes were made. Would recommend taking this class with another professor, or not taking this class entirely.

I have never written a review for a professor however after taking a class with Blaisdell I feel this is necessary. I agree with other reviews on this page that state he does NOT care about his students or their learning. I will say the workload for this class is manageable. However, he is extremely unfair with the way he handles exams so much so that he refused to count our final exam (there are three exams in the course all divided with course concepts equally) into our grades. He did this without warning due to a mistake on HIS part. His excuse was not having TA's to help out with the creation of the exam due to the strike. Let me remind you this class size is not like the general classes such as chemistry or physics and only 2 assignments had to be graded if not by the TA by him. I do not recommend taking this class unless you're okay with unexpectedly receiving a grade that does not reflect your understanding or learning as well as having to re-take exams with extra time ON THE SPOT due to his mistakes. Not acceptable.

hate this dude fr. worst prof i have ever had. lectures are ok, but he is very condescending and does not care about students. lectures aren't recorded so if you miss one you're kinda screwed. exams are impossible. ill see you in hell blaisdell fr ruined by life.

Professor Blaisdell is very passionate and knowledgable about comparative psychobiology. This class consists of 2 assignments that are extremely easy, as well as 2 midterms and a final. He does not record his lectures, and he elaborates heavily on information not included in the slides during the lectures. Overall, this class was pretty interesting and it was not difficult at all to do well. I recommend!

Please run from Aaron Blaisdell. Don't walk. Run.

I have never felt the need to write a BruinWalk review before this professor. I have managed all of my other professors and maintained my GPA. Not here. If you are a psychobiology major looking to maintain a high GPA, take the EE BIOL option. His class is unfair.

Aaron himself is a nice guy, sure. But otherwise not the move if you care about your grade. His tests are insane and his make-ups are even worse. They are essay based and he assigns grades so randomly. Honestly, worst class I've taken at UCLA and I would do my best to avoid 118 with Blaisdell at all costs. Good luck.

This class is made up of 10 "homework" assignments (1 dropped, 2% each) and 2 exams (non-cumulative, 42% each). I thought Blaisdell was a great lecturer and the way he presented concepts was clear and concise. However, the kicker is the exams. Despite the exams being open-note, it is daunting to "command-F" minuscule details in the textbook that we didn't even cover in class. The wording on some of the exam questions was also a bit strange, resembling the student work we submitted for "homework" credit. For the first midterm, majority of the students felt as if they did not have enough time and the average was pretty poor (~75%), but Blaisdell took this into consideration and added 5 points to our scores. He gave us more than enough time for the final exam, showing he is willing to implement student suggestions. Overall, the course is extremely doable, just be careful on exams as that is such a big portion of the final grade!

The worst class I've ever taken at UCLA. TAKE EEB100 TO FULFILL YOUR PSYCHOBIO MAJOR REQ, not this class. Exams completely destroyed my grade, I studied the exact same and scored 30% higher on the final because we had DOUBLE the time to answer the same number of questions compared to the midterm. This class should be a "scavenger hunt" because easily, for 30-40 of the questions, I am ctrl-f'ing the textbook to find some obscure, detailed, useless sentence to answer a multiple choice question that is ~1% of my grade. The exams did not test our grasp of the knowledge, just our ability to search things up. Some of the questions seemed to have been written from students as well, instead of from the prof. No lectures were accommodating for COVID, or recorded/podcasted. Slides are basically useless without the professor explaining them (obscure diagrams, sparse notes, etc). Read the textbook (first 10 chapters) back to front and you'll ace the class, good luck.

Professor Blaisdell is an approachable professor and you can tell he is enthusiastic about the subject. He encourages questions/discussion during lecture and takes the time to answer in detail.

My complaint is of his exams. 50% midterm, 50% final. Each exam was 40 MC and 10 short answer, so each question is worth 1% of your grade. The exams had some tricky questions, while others involved knowing useless detail that I think deviated from testing the important course concepts. So while I studied hard to understand the course concepts from the lecture slides and book, I ended with a worse grade than I think I deserved.

If you happen to take Professor Blaisdell for Psych 118, the most important thing you can do is memorize/understand everything on his slides, even the seemingly insignificant details. His exams take a few questions from the book, but the book is intensely dense. If you're interested in saving some time from reading, I took some pretty good book notes that I can email to you. Email me at *************.