Just talks about himself during lecture, not the material. You have to teach yourself the material and tests are hella difficult with confusing info. Professor does not care about students struggle and makes the class unnecessarily harder than other professors, does not curve, exams are very tricky with correct answers so similar to others, math heavy with lots of calculus and you can't use a scientific calculator (the ONLY professor who does not allow this), this professor will RUIN YOUR GPA!!! RUN away if you still can.

Although I got an A, this class was NOT easy. I learned up to z-scores in high school and that was all I knew about stats before taking Psych100A, and that only covered up to the first midterm. There were 2 midterms and 1 final (30% each). The tests were multiple choice and 50 questions in total, roughly 50% of each test were conceptual and the rest were calculations, some of which were quite tricky. The first midterm was easy because it was only about basic topics like mean, median and mode, but the other two exams were pretty challenging. Professor Jaffe went REALLY fast and I'd suggest everyone who's taking his class to read the textbook before coming the lecture. (Winter 2016/17 it was approximately one chapter per one lecture.) I NEVER went to his office hours and I survived, but I heard it was helpful and I'd highly recommend going to his OH if you can. However, I did read every chapter in the textbook and it was really helpful. Anyone who's taking this class should definitely read the textbook for the midterms/final because it helps A LOT especially for the conceptual questions. The workload for this class was light. There was a weekly quiz on CCLE, you got 2 attempts for each (they only counted the highest grade) and the TAs reopened the quizzes after the week was over (so you could practice as many times as you want.) There were also some questions on Tophat modules, which were added after each lecture. These normally took less than 30 minutes and they were NOT graded based on correctness. Both CCLE quizzes and module questions were REALLY helpful for the exams. If you can do the conceptual questions on the quizzes and calculations problems on the modules, you'll likely be fine. The practice problems in the textbook were too complicated, so don't even bother (I never did :/) There was a participation grade for this class, so attending lectures was sort of mandatory. Overall I'd recommend this class for anyone who has taken stats before and/or is willing to read the entire textbook and self-teach yourself a lot of concepts. The exams were actually not too bad, the questions were reasonable and as I've said, as long as you go over the quizzes and modules, you should be fine. Hope this helps! Good luck! :)

Jaffe should be your last possible option for Psych 100A. Worst professor ever. He doesn't teach the material at all, he just skims it. He does zero examples for calculations (and yes, he does include quite a number of them on his exams). Jaffe basically thinks everyone knows all there is to know about the material. He spends most of the time talking about himself and trying to look hip by making jokes. The test environment in this class is extremely messy and he constantly contradicts his TAs. Top Hat is also no help whatsoever; the homework doesn't relate to anything on his test. JUST AVOID THIS PROFESSOR. IT'S A WASTE OF YOUR TIME, MONEY, AND EFFORT.

Brief advice:
Take someone else if you can, unless you don't mind teaching yourself everything.

Elaborative advice:
Hi! If you have no idea how to make sense of all these reviews, you will be just as confused in his class if you decide to take it. You never know if you like or hate prof. Jaffe's class. When you approach him, he seems like a genuinely kind person who wants you to succeed. He is pretty funny and relatable, and for sure has a great knowledge and inspiring life story. The way he teaches the class though... will make you want to drop it. You will sit in class and have no idea what is going on. You're gonna hear a couple of jokes about drugs or alcohol, laugh a little, and think that things aren't too bad- but you will learn nothing. This is coming from a person who is getting an A in this class so I'm not writing this because I am hurt. The only reason that I'm not failing is because I literally taught myself everything. I went through the entire textbook and did most of the exercises even though they're not assigned. I think the biggest problem with this class is TopHat. The lectures are literally just slideshows, which is pretty pointless when it comes to learning computations. If he actually went over step by step computation problems in class, it would be so much more beneficial to the students. Sometimes when the wifi wasn't working or TopHat wasn't connecting, he would actually attempt to solve problems on the board which was good, but considering how big the classroom is, if you didn't sit in the first couple of rows, you wouldn't see any of it. Showing how to solve problems is what is missing from this class. The TAs did a better job at that, but everything always seemed so rushed and vague. Now to make this review even longer, here is the breakdown of the grading system:
5% the online quizes, 5% online participation on TopHat, and each of the 3 exams are worth 30%. Make sure you max out the online quizes and tophat assignments, and do the SONA experiment - it will give you 1 extra credit point. First midterm was easy, second midterm was a complete mess. Jaffe wasn't there and the TAs were just making everything way more stressful than it should've been. They were unnecessarily cold in the way they gave directions etc, and (personally) made me feel like I was already doing something wrong by just sitting in my chair waiting for my test. The test was where it went on another level of messiness, though- it had errors on it. You literally couldn't get the answers right if you tried. And yes, TAs addressed them and made us change the data in one of the tables on the test to make it work, but... there were MORE ERROS that were not addressed during the exam, even after a student pointed out that there was something wrong with the questions). I was literally just anxiously sitting there thinking that I don't know how to solve them and was wasting so much time. We did get the test curved because of that, but it was still a pretty disappointing experience that we shouldn't have to deal with in the first place. I'm so happy that this class is over and I would suggest you DON'T take this class with Jaffe if you have a choice.

Bottom line... I do wish he reconsiders the way he teaches this class because I want him to be as good of a teacher as he seems to be a person. But it won't happen overnight, so take it with someone else.

Listen to these reviews if you care about your GPA!!! The one below mine is 100% ON POINT.

DO NOT take 100A with Jaffe! This is common knowledge amongst most junior/senior psych majors at this point. Ask around.

His lectures overgeneralize the concepts and he skips over random details and calculations that you are later tested on. He was not at all effective in communicating the material in a way that corresponds to the exam structure. He wastes way too much time on irrelevant semantics and trying to be funny/cool/hip. During the last 10 minutes of the midterm, he literally started playing music on the auditorium speakers. Incredibly unprofessional- I cannot fathom any professor who takes their jobs seriously doing this.

He posts online "modules" of each lecture, which were generally incomplete and almost always lacking specific info/calculations that would be required on the exams. Weekly online quizzes were posted by the TA's, but again, these were not significantly related to the exams that comprise 90% of your grade.

Statistics and math in general is a very left brain/ analytical/ objective/ logic based field. He is friendly, charismatic, and a great public speaker but unfortunately this overall personality does not mesh well with the material he required to cover. I think this is also because a test bank from the textbook company is used to generate exam questions (versus him actually making his own exams).

The only thing that held the class together were the review sessions by the TA's during discussion, which ACTUALLY more or less actually conveyed the material in a useful way. Catch 22 is that they were both generally rude and unapproachable. Their overall demeanor was as if they were doing us a favor by being there (rather than the fact that UCLA is probs comping their tuition).

End result was an unnecessarily stressful quarter. Not everyone is meant to be teacher!!! He isn't a bad person. You really do want to like him because he seems nice, but in the end he is adding way more stress to your life than necessary by not performing his job at a satisfactory level (especially at a top tier university like UCLA).

I honestly wish the reviews below this one were posted before I took the class last quarter. I agree with what others have said about Jaffe's character. He is a very nice man who means well and wants to be approachable. However, that will not get you through this class. Not only was this course expensive ($80 for TopHat $180 for textbook), it was also the most frustrating class I have ever taken in my life.
To sum everything up:
-tests are composed of lengthy statistical equations that must be done using a basic 4 function calculator.
-You are given 1.5 minutes per problem
-TAs are snappy and rude
-There were frequent mistakes on exams and TAs had to interrupt every single test to tell students to change numbers or wording.
- Book and lecture would contradict each other
-Online modules created by the professor also had frequent mistakes

Please listen to these reviews. This course is such an unnecessary challenge when this material could be taught much more effectively and efficiently by another professor.

If you can get Enders for 100A don’t hesitate to take him. Jaffe tried to be a good professor but he is so confusing and all he wants to talk about in class is alcohol and drugs and goes off topic way too much. You pretty much have to read the book to understand what he’s teaching you I would suggest reading the chapter before coming to lecture so you can maybe understand some of what he’s trying to teach you. Also the tas and jaffe were super unorganized and unprofessional, on our second exam there was 3 question that had mistakes on them and when some people brought it up to th tas the brushes I.T off and said there were no errors also jaffe wasn’t even there for the midterm and only after the midterm and many people emailing him did they realize there actually was an error on the exam and this just messed everyone over cause we spent more time worrying over those questions than the other questions on the exam and when these concerns were brought up jaffe and the tas just brushed it off and said they would give everyone the points for the questions even though that test should’ve been dropped. Jaffe I believe wants to be a good teacher and I think he thinks he actually is one but he definetly should not be teaching this class.

I decided to write a review about this class because it was quite stressful. To start off, my class was composed of mostly transfers from community colleges, so having a professor as disorganized as Jaffe did not do anything to help these new students get acclimated to the academic environment at UCLA. The second midterm was a disaster that led to several people receiving F’s because they were continuing to do problems on the exam after the TAs told us to stop. Usually a stickler for rules, this would normally bother me, but given the fact that we only had 1 hour and 15 min. to complete the super long exam (which had several mistakes on it) it made sense. To make matters worse, Jaffe was in Hawaii while all of this was happening. This class is mandatory for psych majors, so we deserve to have teachers who will actually teach us what we need to know instead of everything being a guessing game. So many times people would ask about what we should know for the exam, and all we got back from the TAs was, “technically, whatever is on the modules, in the textbook, or went over in class is fair game.” Cool, thanks. Super useful.
Bottom line- unless you are quite independent and can study and teach concepts to yourself, you should look for any other professor besides Jaffe! This class was one wild ride, to say the least.

Hands down, the worst professor I have ever had. I don't want to beat a dead horse but all the previous reviews are accurate. Top hat is terrible, lectures are confusing, TAs had bad attitudes. I learned 90% of the material on my own through the text book and YouTube. The 2nd midterm was a circus, professor Jaffe didn't even bother showing up to administer it. The amount of cheating I witnessed during that midterm was just crazy which ended up skewing the grades for that exam. This class destroyed my academic confidence. Avoid his class, even if that means you have to wait until next quarter to take it. Exams are 90% of your grade for this class.

This class was awful solely because of the professor. While i was studying for the second midterm, my friend who had the other prof was studying for her first midterm ( they were on the same day) she was watching netflix and got an A, and i studied all night and got a B-, so if you can at all, do not take Jaffe, because there are other options that are easier and you'll do better in.
He doesn't teach, his slides don't make sense, his lectures are rambling and pointless but you have to go for participation points. you only can re do quizzes once, but the other prof lets you do them as many times as you want.
I am a strong student and did poorly in this, and it was frustrating, time consuming, and senseless. do not take jaffe if you an avoid it. if you have to, just go to discussion bc the TAs actually can teach, unlike him, and read the book.