Taking this class with him will be very interesting. Some courses are easy but boring but this one is not. It's challenging but is much more interesting than you think. Memorizing things without critical thinking won't guarantee you good grades. Note taking is very important.

**THIS IS A REVIEW FOR PSYCH 118**
This is a notoriously hard class, but was tolerable with Professor Trott. The first exam was difficult as in the exam had more of an emphasis on the textbook than people thought. The average was a 32.6/40. The second exam was significantly easier with the average being a 36/40 and the final was similar to the second exam in terms of difficulty with the average being a 35.5/40. My tip for doing well in the class is to definitely do all the textbook readings as I found this more helpful than lectures. Also definitely make sure to do the study guide and known it in and out as this is basically what is on the exam. Professor Trott was a super helpful and kind professor. He literally answered all the questions people had on the study guide. If you're unsure about a concept make sure to ask on the discussion board or in office hours. Besides the 3 noncumalitive exams, there are 2 assignments. The first is a recorded video on a topic of your choice. This could either be a video of you or a slide show with a voice over. The other assingment is to do a flyer or social media post about a researcher in the Comparative psychobiology filed. Both assignments were super easy and people got 100s on them. He also offers extra credit through sona!!

This class honestly wasn’t as bad as i expected but I definitely had a really big learning curve with his exams. I figured that I didn’t need to study too much on the first one because it was open book open note and open internet, but I was very wrong and ended up getting below average. For the second midterm I made sure to type up my notes into a google doc as a review and did much better. For the final, I went through the slides and forced myself to explain everything and if I was confused rewatched the lecture until it made sense. I never went to discussion section or office hours but once I figured out how to study for the tests I got 100% on the final. You don’t need to memorize anything, you just need to have a pretty deep understanding of the experiments gone over in class and honestly have a bit of luck.

Professor Trott is such an amazing professor for this class! He has the willingness and patience that I don’t often see in my other professors. He offers EC and his homework assignments are more than doable. His exams are also EXTREMELY fair and he even lets you bring in a cheat sheet. He is an amazing professor and I can’t wait to take more classes with him!

Professor Trott is such an amazing teacher, I was so nervous about this class and saw that he was a new professor too so I was even more nervous. But damn, he is such an amazing professor. He explains everything so well and he is super helpful if you don't understand. His class consisted of 2 exams, weekly quizzes which you can take as many times as you need to get a 10/10, some lab assignments, and some extra credit. I am taking 2 more of his classes because he is just so damn good. Take him even if you don't need the class.

he funny and shit

(serious note: this class is very easy and engaging i enjoyed it)

This was my first stats class at UCLA and I was so nervous about it. But to my surprise, I really enjoyed it and learned oodles of useful information. Professor Trott is absolutely amazing. He is very good at breaking down complex concepts and cares about his students. As long as you pay attention during lecture and take good notes from the textbook, the class should go swimmingly. I would also highly recommend going to office hours. There was also lab sessions where we went over basic stats software in jamovi. Attendance was not mandatory but I defo recommend going because it is quite interesting. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable this class was. Yes, you do need to study but it was quite manageable and Trott was more than happy to help. Trott is amazing :)

so glad professor trott's bruinwalk profile was updated so i can encourage every interested student to take his class. i think there are very few professors at ucla who are both insanely smart and also kind about it but professor trott is definitely both. i went into this class with 0 knowledge of statistics and he always found a way to explain things to me and i am forever grateful. he's very sweet and wants you to do well!!!! the tests are very manageable, there are weekly quizzes that are simple as long as you review the material. he also offers practice quizzes that aren't mandatory but very helpful for understanding! and study questions at the end of lectures that are also super helpful. if you're nervous to take a stats class like i was, i highly recommend going to office hours as well! he will never make you feel stupid for asking a million questions and will reword concepts for you until you get it. i can't recommend him enough!!!!

In winter 2025, Neuroscience M101B was split into three modules: Dr. Orkun Akin (Module 1 Neurodevelopment) and Dr. Jeremy Trott (Module 2 Transmembrane Signaling and Module 3 Synaptic Transmission). This review will talk about the class in general and each professor.
Overall, this class felt quite straightforward and was definitely easier than M101A. Unlike F24 M101A where exams were taken online from home and were open book and open note, the M101B exams this quarter were taken online, although on Respondus and physically in the lecture hall, and we were only allowed a 1 page cheat sheet (so not completely open book and open note). Like M101A, there were 3 exams. Each exam covered its respective module and nothing else; therefore, the Module 3 exam, which was during finals week, was not a comprehensive final, but rather only an exam on Trott's synaptic transmission material.
Class Logistics: 65% for Exams (equally split amongst the three exams, so around 22% per exam), 20% for Discussion Section Attendance and Weekly Quizzes, 15% for Seminar and Clinical Correlation Writeups. There was 2% extra credit offered on each exam for answering a short bonus question quiz on the Respondus software before the real exam. This was participation-based EC; if you answer, you get the 2% boost to your exam score (capped at 100% though).

Module 1 Neurodevelopment by Orkun Akin:
Dr. Akin's module was all about neurodevelopment, starting with gastrulation and into synaptogenesis, all in six lectures. Dr. Akin is an extremely knowledgable, clear, and detailed professor, taking time during lecture to clearly explain all diagrams, experiments, and figures and answering questions during office hours. His lecture slides were the most helpful that I have seen in the neuroscience core series, as they included enough informative text that clearly spelled out the main results and findings of each slide (as a lot of this module was discussing experiments). While the figures and experiments conducted were often complex, Dr. Akin's summary text on the slides was very helpful to understand the big picture concepts, and his explanations in class were also very clear. Dr. Akin's quizzes and exam were extremely fair; he was straight to the point and there were little to no tricky questions/wording. There is quite a lot of content to remember, but with the one page cheat sheet, this was certainly doable! Dr. Akin was great!

Module 2 Transmembrane Signalling and Module 3 Synaptic Transmission by Jeremy Trott:
In W25, Dr. Trott taught both Module 2 and Module 3 of M101B. Module 2, which was about transmembrane signalling, felt very similar to Schweizer's Module 1 from M101A. We reviewed a lot of what we already learned about ion channels, Nernst, action potentials, and then added new concepts about ionotropic (ligand gated ion channel) and metabotropic (GPCR) transmission. Dr. Trott was very enthusiastic, lively, and captivating. He is a very nice guy and answers questions methodically and is receptive to student feedback (i.e. A few times, there was confusing wording on a quiz question, so he would accept multiple answers as correct). His quizzes and exam for both Module 2 and Module 3 did feel harder than Dr. Akin's but maybe this is because the material is more challenging to understand. Both exams for Trott were 15 questions: 10 multiple choice questions and 5 long paragraph answers. Once again, the cheat sheet was very helpful for all the different details that we learned throughout Trott's modules. I would highly recommend Dr. Trott; he is clear and methodical with his lecture style.

Overall, I thought this class was interesting and engaging, and both professors were fantastic! All three modules focused heavily on discussing pathbreaking historical experiments that revealed important findings that we now hold to be true, so understanding and recalling experimental methodology, the importance of the experiment, and any limitations was crucial for the exam. Other than that, there are a lot of proteins/molecules to remember for all three modules, but having them on the cheat sheet helped a lot. This class was enjoyable and not too difficult! Akin and Trott were great!

He is one of the best professors I have ever taken! Take him if you can, he is so clear and helpful, I was scared to take this class, but he made it so easy to understand. He's super funny and approachable too!