The reality is that PSYCH 115 is a difficult class. Students complaining about detailed slides, difficult exams/quizzes, and heavy memorization strike me as somewhat delusional—behavioral neuroscience isn't meant to be easy and neatly curated for consumption and naturally will involve memorization and lots of work. For instance, yes it may be a little monotonous to memorize parts of the neural circuit responsible for the vestibuloocular reflex, but how else are you going to understand it on a meaningful level? A vague understanding like "your eyes account for motion to focus on an image" is simplistic and even contrary to science. Anyone who has worked in a lab knows that research is conducted at a very fundamental, detailed level; you can't do this type of work unless you understand the details.

As for the class, I do have some critiques. I felt that Dr. Blair lectured far more efficiently than Dr. Adhikari, who often took twice the amount of time to cover the same amount of material—this would result in monstrous review sessions over 4 hours long or poorly paced lectures (however, I am certainly grateful that Dr. Blair/Adhi would often stay the duration of these review sessions to help students with questions). Readings are also somewhat excessive. Tip for future students: unless it is for the weekly quiz, there is no need to do the readings as exams will predominantly test on lecture material. In general, make flashcards from lecture, review them frequently (Anki is helpful for this) and you will do well.

With that being said, I feel that describing Dr. Blair/Adhi as "horrible lecturers" gives future students the wrong idea. The class is hard and that means detailed, dense lectures—that doesn't mean Dr. Blair/Adhi themselves did not do a good job delivering this information. It was clear from lectures and how they answered students' questions that they cared about student learning and DID do a good job conveying this information. Take everything you read on Bruinwalk, especially for more notoriously difficult classes, with a grain of salt (including my review of course).

I had taken GE Cluster 73 (Mind Over Matter) prior to taking this class (the cluster covers neuroscience), so I had a pretty solid foundation coming into this class. Compared to the cluster, this class was much more surface-level when it comes to neuroscience concepts. However, it didn't mean that I didn't need to study incredibly hard before each exam.

Because I had heard a lot of bad things about the class, I was FREAKING out before every exam. I went over the PowerPoints so I knew every detail of the concepts they covered (I didn't memorize the slides - I learned the concepts), and whenever something was a tad bit foggy, I went and reviewed the BruinCast and took dedicated notes. I also did concept maps to test my mastery of the material. Turns out, the exams were way, way more simple than I had imagined them to be. They aren't easy per say, but if you study hard you will do well. I would recommend living and breathing those PowerPoints and BruinCasts for a few days before each exam and you should do well. I felt the exams were very fair, except for the short answer on the second exam. That part was graded so haphazardly and strangely that even the TAs were pissed off about it. The exam format ended up going back to multiple choice and fill in the blank (like the first exam) partially due to this.

The textbook is pointless except for the quizzes which are given in section. It is IMPERATIVE that you read the chapters assigned for the quizzes very closely. I made a Quizlet to go along with each textbook chapter, focusing on the bolded terms and important concepts covered. My tip is to study the graphs and diagrams! Maybe I'm the only person who glosses over the diagrams in textbooks, but I got hit hard on the second quiz because it tested directly from the graphs/diagrams, of which I didn't even take a cursory glance at. Luckily we we were able to drop our lowest score, and after I beefed up my studying on the diagrams I got 100% on the remaining quizzes.

As for Dr. Blair and Dr. Adhikari, I have never been in a class where the teaching style was so . . . bland? I don't know how to describe it other than I literally would go to class, take notes, pay attention, do my Clicker questions, and somehow emerge with zero knowledge of what I was taught. I literally HAD to rewatch large swaths of the BruinCast to get the information down because during lecture it just passed through one ear and out the other. However, I do have to say that Dr. Adhikari was worse for me in this respect because I ended up watching most of his BruinCasts at 1.5x speed to learn the information again. In my other classes, I always emerge with a good sense of what I learned but in this one I left each class with little to nothing. Something must have gotten in there though, because I still remember the concepts perfectly weeks later.

All in all - I would take 115 with Blair and Adhikari again. The exams were fair, the material was super interesting and fun, but bland lecturers and hellishly long review sessions that aren't super helpful when you could just review the information again for yourself.

This class seems to get a bad rap for the difficulty of the exams and detailed slides, but as someone who does not study very hard or manage my time/assignments well, I thought this class was very manageable. I don't care much about grades as long as I pass, and I didn't expect me, of all people, to get an A after seeing the reviews. It is NOT that bad. The professor is very knowledgeable about the content and often simplifies concepts in lecture to help you connect the dots in your head which was very helpful if you're not super familiar with biology. All of the lectures are recorded and are your only source of information, so rewatching them right before midterms while pausing occasionally to fully understand the topics or maybe even draw out concept maps to help you memorize is how you'll do well in this class.

I honestly really enjoyed the course, it was very interesting once you take the time to learn it all (not much, I set aside 2 chill days before the exam to review), and if I wasn't a procrastinator, I would've happily spent more time studying to get a better grade. I thought Dr. Blair was a greater lecturer and I'm happy he revised the course to not rely on a textbook as he explained everything perfectly.

Discussion sections were probably the most annoying part of the whole course since attendance was mandatory even though you're given two freebies. In discussions, you use iClicker to participate with your group and you're supposed to be graded on accuracy but they aren't that difficult either, and I really liked TA Ryan since he was very laid back.

Really really awesome class. The material is tough and there's a lot of it, but overall really rewarding. Dr. Blair is an excellent lecturer, and I enjoyed every class (they were all recorded, too). Tests are entirely memorization based taken right from the slides. just do the work and youll be fine

This is one of if not the toughest Psych class you can take at UCLA. Lectures were in-person and Bruincasted as of Spring 2023 and discussions were mandatory. The lectures were very standard with the professor just running through a deck of slides, but be aware that he speaks quite fast so don’t expect to be able to write down everything he says. Feel free to just sit and listen during lecture and then replay on BruinCast later… it’s not worth trying to write everything down. There were weekly discussion quizzes that are graded on accuracy—make sure you attend because I’m pretty sure the quizzes are geolocked. Exams were given on MATLAB and are online, remote and open-book. They consisted of MC and matching questions but don’t let this format deceive you. The exams in this class were incredibly difficult. The best advice that I can give you for this class is to transcribe the professor’s lectures word-by-word. Replay the BruinCast and just write down every single thing he says—I did this and got an A on every exam. There is no easy way out with this class—be ready to work hard.

Smartest professor I have ever had but this was the most difficult class I have taken at UCLA. I am a straigh A student and barely got a B- in this class. I put more time and effort on this class than all of my other classes combined and still would fail almost every exam. He is a very nice professor but more worried about the use of chat gpt than success in his student

No doubt one of the most engaging professors I've ever had throughout my undergraduate tenure. His module of Psych 116 (Behavioral Neuroscience Lab) was based on his current research about place cells in the hippocampus, and it was truly fascinating material (to me, at least). It's one thing for a professor teach a course that's based on other peoples' findings, but it's another thing altogether to learn from the person who's actually DOING the ground-breaking scientific discoveries. He's a busy man with all the research he's got going on, but he still managed to schedule two 2-hour lecture-based review sessions before the final, which I think only few other professors have done before (in my experience). Feel free to ask him ANY question about the material, (even if you think it's a stupid question and it's something he's repeated 10,000 times before). He will never show signs of annoyance or make you feel stupid, but instead explain everything in detail. He's REALLY interested in student learning, which makes him real neat professor. A word of warning for the ladies, though: I found his disarmingly good looks and boyish-charm quite a distraction. Still, it's worth it. TAKE HIS CLASSES!!

Seriously one of the nicest and most engaging professors I've had. I had him twice, once for Psych 119F and once for Psych 116, and I loved having him both times.

His lecture slides are clear and concise with helpful visuals. His lectures are organized with a clear sense of direction. The labs for Psych 116 for his module helped me understand the concepts well. As long as you study hard, ask a lot of questions, and listen closely, you should do well in his class.

If you're not good at bio, this class is going to ruin you. Prepare to rememorize everything you forgot from high school bio

Good prof, if you can get over how he looks like Conan O'Brian, but way less funny

Being a fifth year psych student, I can confidently say that Prof. Blair was one of my favorite (if not favorite) professor! He is animated, engaging, intelligent and his powerpoints are brilliantly crafted and colorful. Many of the his experiments are very interesting and revolutionizes ideas in neuroscience. If you're a neuroscience major or are very interested in that subject matter, I HIGHLY recommend! Even though he is hard (I was taking Jentsch's neuropharm class concurrently and thought it was alot harder) you will learn so many interesting facts about neuroscience that will stick you for awhile. I think I learned the most in this class out of all of them. One tip is to make sure you understand the experiments on his powerpoints REALLY well because ?'s about it are tricky. Didn't really need the book, it was just background info. Make sure to attend lectures as it supplements ppt really well and the concepts are kinda difficult to understand if you just study ppt. alone. go to office hours and ask him to clarify because sometimes he can be a little bit unclear. Anyway, def. take his class if you're interested in entering the field! Wish I could take him again (half kidding :P)