Honestly this class is not as bad as the reviews say!! I think he just had a hard time transitioning with COVID, but taking him in 2021 he got his sh*t together. His lectures were long and they had a lot of info, but his weekly quizzes and tests were open note/book/everything which was super helpful for this course. FOR THIS COURSE YOU NEED OPEN BOOK!! I also took Kennedy's 115 and failed with a D- because she used respondus and her tests were crazy hard. I really do recommend taking this class with him over anyone else!!

I don't know how he was Pre-Pandemic, but I think that Professor Avi himself was super sweet and was a wonderful lecturer (might have been the fact that it was asynchronous). I treated this class like an in-person class and memorized almost everything for both the midterm and final, and breezed through the exams because they were pretty straightforward. This class is definitely hard in the sense that there is so much material in 10 weeks, but if you truly study maybe a week or few days in advance, the exams/quizzes will feel relatively easy. YEs, the material is definitely not hard to understand, especially if you've taken harder classes like Chem153A. I personally thought Psych 110 was harder cause I took it with the worst prof ever. The quizzes were TA-based and they were somewhat sort of poorly worded, but not impossible to do. I rarely used my notes during the exam so I honestly think this in-reality is what you study and what you get in the end, even in the in-person perspective. Again, I don't really know how he taught before so I wouldn't judge the past reviews, but what I can say is that he definitely was amazing this quarter.

My Grade Breakdown for an A+:
-Quizzes: 30/30 (2 out of 7 quizzes dropped // 30% of grade)
-Midterm: 49.50 (35% of grade)
-Final: 50/50 (35% of grade)

Honestly, I think if you go in with an open heart and don't take this class with another heavy-intense load class, you will be fine and do well in the class! Good luck and stay safe y'all :)

This class is probably the hardest class I have ever taken, and the fact that it was taught by Professor Avi made that even more complex. This professor does not lecture clearly and just goes over the slides without any additional information. I also did not like the format that the class was going with, there was only one final with no midterm, and he expected us to know everything and every small detail in every slide is a fair game of the final. The final was not handled greatly as online, it was probably the hardest final. Since they knew it was going to be online, they made the final as hard as possible. I do not recommend taking this class, wait another quarter for a different professor if you have to.

For every exam you get 4 pages of cheat sheets (yay). I would feel super confident during the exams and thought I was doing great...I was wrong. THe questions are a little tricky so you have to pay A LOT of attention to not make silly mistakes like me.

it was hard, would not take again.

TL;DR, if you need to take this class/a neuroscience class, do it with Professor Adhikari. This class is pretty straightforward, 3 exams (non-cumulative) and weekly, online, open-note 6-question quizzes. For the exams, he allows for 2 front and back cheat sheets that can be written or typed, which I thought was nice. Discussion sections are helpful, but not mandatory, and I also never read the textbook. I went to lecture at the start of class, but he also provides recorded lectures from Covid which have the same information. Honestly, I found the online lectures better than the in-person lectures because I could pause and take time to type my notes. The main thing about this class is that there is SO MUCH information, so you really need to write everything down and make sure you understand the concepts of each lecture. Make sure you know your way around your cheat sheet and study beforehand; I personally wouldn't solely rely on the cheat sheet. Overall, pretty information dense but straightforward class, and Professor Adhikari is a good and funny lecturer.

lots of materal. three exams and each have two pages of cheat sheets and everyone has to put the fonts really really small (like I did font 6 and three columns per page and the pages were narrow magins) so we can fit all the material that is on the exam. it is a LOT

He's a cool guy and very funny, but I felt like it was kind of hard to talk to him. I also didn't put as much effort into this class as I should've. I highly recommend copying literally every word this man says and write it down. I also recommend writing literally EVERYTHING on your cheat sheet and studying it. Discussions were useful according to some of my friends, but I didn't go to any so I can't really vouch for that. Scheme: MT 1 & 2: 46.2%, Final: 23.8%, Quizzes: 30%. Nothing crazy, but really hard to make a comeback after screwing up even one category. I would take again with him, though.

Although he is a great lecturer and I appreciated the way that concepts were explained, I feel as though the professor was a bit unapproachable and his grading scheme makes it extremely hard to get an A in the course. The grading is out of a 100 point system, and each exam question is 0.7 points. The first two exams are 33 questions and the last exam is 34 questions. None of the exams are cumulative which I appreciated. With his grading scheme, you can only get 10 test questions wrong all in all (and get 100% on all the quizzes) to receive an A in the class. The first exam is WAY harder than the last two in my opinion. I got 8 questions wrong on the first and worked super hard for the second two, getting one wrong on each and barely scraping by with an A. My biggest piece of advice if you choose to take his class even with his grading scheme is to actually learn the material and to learn how to navigate your cheat sheet! You get two pages front and back of the cheat sheet but DON'T just rely on finding the information on it during the test. If you know the material and actually study it for a week before the exam, your cheat sheet will be a safety blanket and something you can check answers with and that is how I improved in the class and did well on the last two exams, since on the first exam when I did worse I mainly relied on my cheat sheet and didn't thoroughly review the concepts enough.

This class is up to what you feel you'll succeed with- a professor who isn't very accommodating, no curve and no extra credit with a tough grading scheme, but teaches concepts very well and you'll have minimal work to do other than the exams.

TL;DR: Extremely dense class, but Prof. Adhikari is an amazing professor, so if you want to take this class, take it with him.

Prof. Adhikari is honestly my favorite professor at UCLA. He is very engaging, knowledgable, have a good sense of humor, and approachable. He is quick to respond to email and discussion questions, and is always happy to answer questions during office hours. He is also very understanding and genuinely wants students do well.

The class consists of seven weekly quizzes (two lowest quiz grade would be dropped), two midterms, and one exam. All quizzes are open note open book (but there is a tight time limit), and for midterms & exam, we are allowed of two double-sided cheat sheet. Prof. Adhikari has all of the lectures online, and he even says in the syllabus that if we can understand all the concepts just by watching the online lectures, we do not have to come to class in person. There are discussion sections, but they are not mandatory.

The course material are indeed super dense. I recommend watching the online lectures even if you go to the in person ones, because you can always pause and take notes or rewatch if you miss something. But I personally find them very interesting too. Good class, very nice professor, would take again.