This class is not nearly as hard as the reviews make it seem!! I took it Winter 2021 (online) and just finished the final and got a 108%. Although the lectures contain a lot of information, I HIGHLY recommend typing up very thorough notes. Then, for the quizzes, midterm, and final, you can just search through your notes and find all of the answers easily! Seriously not bad and Professor Adhikari does not deserve this low of a rating!

This class was perhaps one of the most challenging class because there are a lot of materials to cover in such a short time, constant weekly quizzes during the discussion section, iclicker quizzes, and so on. However, what I found most challenging was understanding the lecture. He speaks too fast and seemed to have problem with mic so it was extremely hard to hear and understand his lectures. I was hoping I would get used to it after few week, but it was still extremely hard throughout the course. I never had any problems listening and understanding lectures in UCLA so far which sucked. Adding on the location of the classroom was near frequent construction which exacerbated this problem. Probably one of my worst lecture experience. I would have personally opted out to not go to lecture and just study on my own if it wasn't for iclicker. I often had to relearn lecture material and supplement with other sources because I would not be fully learning and understanding the lecture material due to that issue. I personally benefited more from discussion session with quiz and answer review than lectures. There was only 1 final exam and other grades depend on iclicker and discussion section grade (participation and quiz grade). Although professor made final exam optional as Covid 19 was declared pandemic and final had to be administered online, there was no flexibility in grading scheme so it was either taking grade you currently have or take final and risk getting worse grade. I understand professor's choice of rigid grading scheme in regard to fairness, but I would have appreciated more flexibility and empathy as it was extremely difficult time for students to focus on studying for final in the tough time. I do appreciate that final was open book and notes, but the I personally found final to be extremely difficult even though it was open book and notes. Also, I personally wish professor would have given more flexibility on final (like completing it in 24 hour window like a lot of online final), but it was during the fixed window time frame of Tuesday 8am. Overall I think he is average professor, but I personally did not enjoy the lectures due to a lot of mixed issues.

Not as bad as everybody says

The coronavirus saved my grade by making my final optional. This way, 25% of my grade came from attendance, which will not happen for anyone reading this. It was fabulous. How did I get a B-? The world may never know!! My quiz grades were awful. I gave up on studying for them because my TA wrote the HARDEST questions imaginable and even when she was wrong, and we showed her in the slides she was wrong, she insisted she was right. So I lost so many points because the quizzes are made by each TA and are of different difficulty levels. My friend's class got free points just because they didn't like the wording of questions, and here I was struggling to read my questions with no help whatsoever. I lost points on a clicker question because he put it on the second slide and decided to start class a little early that day. I was literally 3 minutes late (coming from the other side of campus) so I missed it. The professors were not helpful at all. My TA eventually gave us back 3 points on different quizzes, but not for my grades! I told her and she fought me on it, so I emailed the professors and they. did. nothing. This class was basically the TA's running it themselves. Plus, this guy doesn't know how to talk into a microphone, so if you have hearing troubles like me, good fkn luck hearing anything. Basically, don't take this class with Adhikari or Izquierdo-Elder

Sigh. This was the most disappointing class I've taken as an undergraduate. If the material wasn't difficult enough, powerpoint slides are dense, and we went through about 100 slides every week. There are weekly quizzes on these hundreds of slides, worth a big portion of your grade. The final exam, even considering it was open note/open book due to this quarter's circumstances, was nearly impossible. Finally, participation counts for a huge chunk of your grade, and even if you miss one clicker, you lose 2% of your grade.

The professors are nice, but are not engaging lecturers whatsoever. I'm glad I've passed, but really do wish this class was taught in a way that it is, at the very least, interesting. Try to avoid it

Do Not take this class if you need a high GPA. I got lucky with the coronavirus and that was the only reason I pulled an A. If I would have had to take the final, I would have received a C+. There is an absurd amount of information expected to be learned. No midterm, one final. 7 quizzes. Do not take this class if you don't have to.

This class was one of the most problematic courses I've ever taken. There is a quiz every week, and depending on your TA you will either have simple definition quizzes or incredibly complex, not worth studying for quizzes like myself. The professors do not care about the discrepancies and ignored all emails and discussion posts asking if the quizzes would be curved within TA's.

Additionally, the manner in which the professors handled the cancellation of classes was heartless. Some of the students took the quiz Week 10 and others didn't due to the remote classes, so they removed the quiz grade from students who had taken it. I received my best grade on that quiz and pleaded for some compromise to include the quiz grade, and Avi refused to consider any other option because his solution was "detrimental" - yes, he said detrimental - to the smallest group of students (including myself) as most students had not taken the quiz.

Finally, the professors were incredibly unclear about grading when making the final optional, leaving many students stressed the night before trying to decide whether or not to take the final. The final included information from neither the lectures nor the textbook (which I read every page of) and it took everyone in the class 3 hours.

Overall, Professors Izquierdo and Adhikari do not care about their students or their wellbeing. Avoid this class at all costs.

(This class was taken remotely due to COVID-19)
Can we stop equating an Overall 'good' (5) score with a class being 'easy' and a 'light' workload? That being said, if you want an 'easy' A, this class isn't for you. However, if you are truly interested in learning about Neuroscience, don't hesitate to take this class. Professor Adhikari does an excellent job going over each concept thoroughly via lecture & slides (and if you pay attention you may even find him quite entertaining) and is good about responding to CCLE discussion board questions. The TA that I had (Adam Gold) was very knowledgeable, and I liked how he reiterated the most important concepts from the lectures each week. My only complaint is that on quizzes & exams you can't bounce around - like skip ahead (a test-taking method I personally find effective for managing expectations) or return to previous questions you'd like to spend a little more time contemplating the answer to.

Dr Adhikari does not deserve such a low rating. I don’t know what he was like pre-pandemic but the previous reviews make me believe that they have to do more with the course itself rather than the professor.

For winter 2021, the course was open note for ALL quizzes and exams which took a huge weight off of my shoulders. In addition, the quizzes and exams are not very difficult if you pay attention to the material in lecture and take good notes.

Personally, I didn’t think discussion was useful at all. Adhikari frequently monitors the discussion board and answers any questions you may have about the material. He also posted practice midterm and final which is a very good indicator of how well prepared you are for the exams.

We had one midterm and one final, both weighed at 35% and 7 quizzes with two being dropped and making up 30% of your grade.

Breakdown of scores:

Quizzes (best of 5): 26/30
Midterm: 46/50
Final: 48/50 (he added 4 bonus questions to the final)
Overall grade: 91.8%
There will likely be no curve as most of the class performed well.

Overall, Adhikari is a great option but if the course is not open note in the future then that will definitely cause some stress.

One complaint I have about the course was the wording of some questions on all material (quizzes, midterm, final, practice tests). Could have been better worded.

This class was offered asynchronously, with 2 lectures a week. Each lecture averaged about 35 slides. There is an attendance required 1 hr discussion section, with a quiz on the previous week's material. This course has a very steep point system. With that being said, you definitely have to put the time in to be successful in this course. I attended PLF sessions + made my own notes on top of watching every lecture. The quizzes and exams are based off the slides: both the text and images are fair game for testing.
All this aside, the information was very interesting, and I didn't mind putting in the work to study for it. I thoroughly enjoyed this course and wish I could have taken it in person! Yes it's challenging, but it's very rewarding to devote time and effort and learn new things along the way! Take this course if you have the chance.