100B is a challenging course, but that is expected. I think that firstenberg made this class engaging, and I enjoyed learning about research in psychology (pretty good preliminary info if you're thinking about grad school and doing your own research someday!)

I will say that lecture was not enough to solidify the material for the exams, it was once a week so I basically felt unprepared the entire time. The text is pretty different from lecture, but do your best to learn from it and take DILIGENT notes on her lectures (TA's now post their own notes of the lecture on ccle) but still, take your own!!

Lab may seem like it takes up your entire time and soul, but dedicate more time to lecture because ultimately-- exams matter more for your grade (60% lecture, 40% lab) In addition, lab has a bunch of assignments so you can work with that 40% whereas lecture grade is only two exams.

Don't play yourself by ignoring the APA manual while writing submissions for lab, because your TA will mercilessly deduct points from your awesome paper because you write "8" instead of "eight", and other small errors (true story, v sad)

Finally, the exams incorporate stats like ANOVA, t -tests, main effects, simple effects, interactions, etc. GET THESE CONCEPTS DOWN!

This class is mandatory for psych majors, we all feel camaraderie in our misery over the grading structure in this course. May the curve be ever in your favor. <3

What a class. Where do I start?

1- The Professor: Dr. Firstinberg is a great, knowledgeable, smart, and all around fantastic instructor. Her class is by no means easy, but she's very clear in her expectations from students and her teaching strategy. Lectures were organized, ideas and concepts flowed effortlessly, and it was just a pleasure being in her class. In office hours, she was open to questions and seemed concerned about genuine student learning. If all professors at UCLA taught like Iris, UCLA would have great classes.

2- The tests: Tests were hard, I'm not gonna lie to you. However, they're designed to test your understanding of the material. The material is very interesting, and hard concepts can be mastered by practicing and applying them through the different practice material the course provides (which isn't much).
Back to the tests; they're 40 multiple choice answers based on different scenarios on research methods. They can be tricky so read carefully.

3- Discussion/Lab: Labs are where most of the work in this class is centered, and there's a lot of it. All Was will be harsh graders so you should expect low scores, but do your best and follow instructions to the smallest details. Follow APA like it's your holy book; read it every night to sleep and before every meal.
Take notes of things that you think you're gonna remember because in reality you're gonna forget them and not include them in your paper and mess something up. Take notes and start working on your paper early.
My project group was wonderful and hardworking (s/o), and my TA (Danny) was funny and easy-going but I can't say this will be everyone's experience.

4- Grade breakdown:

60% lecture (midterm + final)
40% Lab (Method, quizzes, participation, first + final submission)

All in all (not knowing my grade yet), this class wasn't AS HORRIBLE as people say it is, but it is hard and it requires a lot of work. Good luck!

OK. 2:15 am, I have not even completed the quarter yet which may be unfair but the way things are looking so far I feel obligated to write the review to spare anyone who is considering it for Spring.

THIS CLASS IS UNNECESSARY HELL, and while you might need to take it for your major, here is what I can advise you thus far.

1. people aren't kidding on here or exaggerating when they say how difficult it is. my mistake- I thought they were because of how much I understood the material in lecture, and did well on the first couple quizzes in lab- so I left studying for Exam 1 for the night before and I'm sure you can guess how the rest went. Ya, its worst than you think. With a 62% on the midterm, I literally need to Ace the fuck out of lab and Exam 2 to even pass the class now as in to have a solid C.

2. Don't be afraid of this class- but know there is a reason people r reviewing it what they are so take it seriously, or else you will be crying your dumb ass away when you need to kill yourself to get an A on the lab assignments which is kinda out of your control ultimately so again STUDY FOR THE EXAMS AND WORK ON THE PRACTICE EXAM FROM THE DAY ITS POSTED!!

3. There is group work. If theres anything I hate more than this class is being dependent on people for stuff. 2:15 am, as I mentioned, and I am still typing up the First submission of the lab report that is due tomorrow morning because we still fucking changed what we are doing for the 100th until the last sec. I thought my confused ass would be saved by my partners but we are just a ball of confusion and now my muffled brain is going to hand in gibberish tomorrow.

4. Also this isn't so related to the class, or it is really to all classes, MANAGE YOUR TIME WISLEY AND EAT GOOD FOOD AND DRINK WATER. Didn't realize that the reason I felt like fainting today in Powell is because literally 7 hours have passed since I ate lentil soup for lunch, and I was so anxious and irritated about why I am so foggy and faint. Not sure how I got home in once piece, but that nearly ass-wooping from my mama about why my dumb ass waits so long to eat prob got the message through my head.

When all is said and done, just don't stress, take care of yourself to be able to put out your best work, and pray that my ass doesn't get thrown out of the psych major this quarter. Amen sistas.

Overall, this is not a fun class. The lecture and lab portions of the course are completely separate, so it's almost like taking 2 classes in one. My main advice: although the lab portion seems like it takes WAY more time and effort, DO NOT skimp on studying things from lecture for the midterm and final. That was my issue in this class - I was so overwhelmed with the lab (designing an experiment and writing an APA paper on it), that I slacked off when it came to studying the lecture material. The lecture portion is worth 60% of your overall course grade, whereas the lab is only worth 40%. So, although I received an A for the lab portion, I received a C in the lecture portion and therefore got a C+ overall. So make sure to go to lecture (another one of my problems), study hard for the midterm and final (the tests are very tricky), and you should be fine. The professor is nice. The class and the grading system is just stupid overall. Good luck

There are 2 components to this class: the lecture and the lab. Firstenberg did an amazing job teaching us about research methods in psychology every week, and it was a pleasure to have her as my professor. However, what you learn in lecture does not necessarily help with the assignments in lab. Most assignments in lab are graded by your TA and the grade is also curved based on the grades your section's classmates receive. As long as you follow the TA's directions and ask him or her for clarifications, you should get an okay grade for the lab component of this class. The grading may not necessarily be fair, but the curve in the end does help a lot and evens out your grade. Yes, there is a lot of work involved, but as long as you don't procrastinate and work on your project gradually, you should be fine with time management.

The most important point to take away from this review is to really focus on your midterm and final exam score. You have control over these scores and can really study the lecture and textbook material to secure good grades for your lecture portion of the class. There is more luck involved with your lab grade and like I said before, you may not think the lab grade you receive is necessarily fair, so put more work into the exam scores because they are worth 60% of your overall grade.

There are 2 components to this class: the lecture and the lab. Firstenberg did an amazing job teaching us about research methods in psychology every week, and it was a pleasure to have her as my professor. However, what you learn in lecture does not necessarily help with the assignments in lab. Most assignments in lab are graded by your TA and the grade is also curved based on the grades your section's classmates receive. As long as you follow the TA's directions and ask him or her for clarifications, you should get an okay grade for the lab component of this class. The grading may not necessarily be fair, but the curve in the end does help a lot and evens out your grade. Yes, there is a lot of work involved, but as long as you don't procrastinate and work on your project gradually, you should be fine with time management.

The most important point to take away from this review is to really focus on your midterm and final exam score. You have control over these scores and can really study the lecture and textbook material to secure good grades for your lecture portion of the class. There is more luck involved with your lab grade and like I said before, you may not think the lab grade you receive is necessarily fair, so put more work into the exam scores because they are worth 60% of your overall grade.

So I thought I was going to end up with a B/B- but I guess the curve turned out to be generous or I got lucky somehow. First off, I was really scared about taking this class because 1. it can bring down your gpa if you don't do well and 2. a lot of people dreaded this class. There is a required group project and I think that's the most annoying part of this class. You'd have to meet with your group 2-3 times to figure out your experiment and do assignments related to your project. I guess I got lucky by getting a pretty good lab group because they did everything even though I did try to help but my ideas weren't appreciated. Anyway, it doesn't matter if you have a hard or easy TA because the lab grades are curved in your section, meaning your grade is relative to everyone else's performance. My TA said the average is B-/B so if you want an A, I recommend working on your first submission NOT the night before, attend lectures because quizzes are 100% based on them, and go to office hours if you're confused.
The midterm and final average were both 74%. I got 82% on the midterm and 78% on the final (even though I thought I did really well lol). ALSO tests are tricky af so make sure you read the questions and answers CAREFULLY. I cannot stress this enough; sometimes I feel like she tests more on how you interpret the questions than how well you actually know the material smh. Read the textbook and take detailed notes. Make sure you know about ANOVA and post-hoc tests (that tripped me up during the final).
I wish y'all future 100B'ers do well in this class and end up with a helpful TA/ project group. Unfortunately, the curve is there so that not everyone can get an A but at least not everyone can fail :) good luck!

The worst part about this class is that you don’t know how you stand grade wise throughout the entire quarter! But it was a nice suprise for me, bc I thought I was at the C+/B- range and I ended up with an A-.
Everyone stresses out about the project, but that’s only worth around 25-30% of your grade. What’s important is that you do well on the midterm/final, which is worth 60% of your grade total! What I did was take very detailed notes on every thing the professor said. Never skip class because it’s not bruincasted & the textbook isn’t very similar to lecture. Skim the textbook (abou 10% of the exam questions are textbook based). Also, know what tests to do based on the type of experiment (anova, t-test...). She doesn’t go over that in lecture, but it’s on the exam.
Grade breakdown:
Method section: 78
Project proposal: 81
First submission: 68
Final submission: 86
Midterm: 85
Final: 90

Finally, make friends with your TA! They will help you a lot

100B is a doable class if you take it seriously. BUT this is definitely not the class to take if you have a lot on your plate because its really time consuming! Read over your paper A LOT and use your APA manual all the time because its super easy to lose points over little stuff like italicizing or citations. Your TA is gonna be your best friend this quarter-- go to them for EVERYTHING. Since a lot of them are really particular about what they want in your research paper, go to office hours and email them to be sure of all of this. Tests are very similar to quizzes and not as easy as the practice tests she gives. So just take really good notes in lecture, skim the textbook, and go over your quizzes.

Grade Breakdown...

Method Section: 90

Project proposal: 72

First Submission: 83

Final Submission: 94

Midterm: 93%

Final: 80%

and she offered 1 point of extra credit for participating in a study.

Good luck (:

Selling textbook, APA manual, detailed lecture notes, practice midterms/finals, 2 course readers (workbooks), and quizzes from two different quarters.
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