If youre taking over the summer, she monitors attendance through zoom polls which is annoying because she will only have 2 for the entire 2 hour lecture but you do not know when she will ask them so you just gotta be on your feet the whole time. Class is really easy but I hard sold on the final quiz and dropped my grade to a A-, otherwise should have ended with a comfortable A. Quizzes are open notes and open book, 15 questions, 13 MC and 1-2 Short Answer. You can get an easy A if you put even a little effort but don't completely doze off like I did. D:

Dr. Murray should not be a professor of this class anymore because she is not suited to meet the needs of lower classman. This was supposed to be an introductory course to Cognitive Science and was the first time I had been exposed to this material. Dr. Murray zoomed through 75 completely full slides per class with zero breaks or explanations. Every lecture I was struggling to write down notes because of her speed, and everything on the slides was crucial information. We deep-dived into every possible topic; it was not an introductory level. One positive aspect is she did post the slides and an audio recording after class.
The readings she assigned were also not introductory. Some of them were 30 pages of complete gibberish. When I visited her in office hours expressing my confusion, she would ask me what I did understand, and then state exactly what I had said in more complex words. She refused to help me on any of the assignments and shot down my ideas for the papers (even when the TA said they were solid ideas). Dr. Murray did not respond to emails, in fact, she ignored emails on purpose because of her "avoidant attachment style" (verbatim what she told us in class).
During the chaos with the protests on campus, she had ZERO care about the mental and physical well-being of her students. She ignored our emails and pleas to accommodate the midterm and then did not post the study material she promised us a week earlier until TWO DAYS before the midterm.
With the TA strike, she told us that she was going to grade our assignments, but not post the grades online for us to see, to be "in solidarity" with the strike. If she was truly in solidarity, she wouldn't have graded at all, so her explanation made zero sense. When receiving pushback from students about this, she said she would give us "24 hours' notice" of our grades being posted before they were finalized, as if that would be helpful (and that notice was never given btw).
As for her exams, they are designed to be overly complicated and trick you. Her questions are complex examples going beyond what was discussed in class and multiple answers are designed to look like the correct one. And once again, she promised us study material, and it was not posted until three days before the final. Additionally, Dr. Murray made a discussion board for us to ask her questions about the exam and promised to answer them by 5 PM the day before: not a SINGLE question was answered. Students asked Dr. Murray for three weeks to move the final online, as every other class had done, and she refused to do so unless “UCLA forced her to.” In the middle of the night before our final, literally less than 8 hours before, she sent us an email moving the exam online. I know that I ultimately ended with a great grade, but that was entirely thanks to the hours of extra work I did outside the class, not to the professor.

Prof Murray was very unorganized, procrastinated on posting exam resources (posted answers to exam questions at like 1am the day of the final), bad communication, and the class was extremely dense for an intro class. I would advise against taking with this prof.

Lightest class ever. I recommend taking this class with Prof. Murray! You only need to memorize what was on the slides and nothing more, readings weren't really necessary.

I really appreciated Professor Murray's organization and clarity; despite being her first quarter teaching, I never felt at any moment that she was just rambling or felt shaky about her lectures. Now on to the actual class: no mandatory attendance or discussion sections, one in class midterm, three article evaluations, weekly discussion sections, and an in class final. This class is mostly memorization based so it helps to make a big Quizlet or practice set of her slides when it comes to exams. Don't wait to do the article evaluations until the last minute! They're a slog to get through, but they can really sway your grade. You can earn up to 3% extra credit by either doing SONA studies or writing research article summaries. The final was non-cumulative from the midterm onwards.

I highly recommend Professor Murray for anyone taking Psych 85!

This is the first time Dr. Murray taught this class, and she did an AMAZING job! I might be a bit biased because I really like cogsci, but I genuinely felt like this class was designed in a perfect way to keep us engaged. The course consisted of 2 non-cumulative exams (with the higher grade weighted more), weekly discussion questions based on lectures + readings (which are actually pretty fun), 3 two-page article evaluations, and SONA extra credit. You do have a bit more writing than most other psych classes, but it isn't too much to stress about. The discussion question responses were entirely completion-based, and the article evaluations (in my opinion) were graded relatively leniently (just make sure your summary is organized and you provide justification for your critiques). Because the first exam was relatively challenging (she ended up curving the average from a C a B), she ended up giving us a much more straightforward final that most people received As on. Grading aside, Dr. Murray is a great lecturer who definitely knows the content super well and is always willing to elaborate/answer questions. The slideshows are relatively long, but the way she organizes them makes them super easy to follow along with. Dr. Murray really cares about our learning, and I'd say she's definitely the Psych 85 professor to take!