Professor Rissman is a wonderful professor and 120A is one of my favorite classes. The class is extremely doable if you listen to the lecture and read the book. (more emphasis on lecture than on the book). Review your notes and the previous lecture before every class to succeed on the in-class quizzes. And be on time as the class quizzes start at the beginning of class. I would highly recommend this class!

This is the best class that I have taken at UCLA. Cognitive Psychology wasn't one of my particular interests, however, he was so fascinating, passionate about the material and engaging in the manner that he taught the class, that I truly enjoyed it. He manages to make the class fun as well as educational (which is a gift to the students).
I highly recommend this professor. I got an A because I was motivated to study after the lecture. I read the chapter before the class, went to lecture, and then carefully outlined the bruincast at home. However, it didn't feel like a burden because of the way in which he delivered the new material. He is very clear in his explanation and drives the points home. He is also very receptive to questions in class and in office hours. Take it. Take him.

Definitely one of the best teachers at UCLA. He's really easy to talk to and puts a lot of effort into his class. He always responds quickly to emails and genuinely takes his students' inputs into account. I feel a little bad for making him go out of his way to help me in the course but am really grateful because I know most if not all professors here do not care about each individual student.

A tip for the class: study the lecture material. Most of the test questions come from the lectures. The readings, including the required ones, don't really give you any new information that isn't covered in lectures.

Professor Rissman's class was the first class I completely enjoyed at UCLA. It was my first psych class here and I was so pleasantly surprised by his enthusiasm and fervent love for cognitive science. He is engaging in all his lectures and the use of iClickers is actually really beneficial. His class is challenging but he provides all the necessary materials to do well in his lectures which are podcasted. He is an amazing professor and it is apparent in every single lecture that he is very knowledgable about the topics and does a lot of preparation for each lecture so that it is as clear to the students as possible

Take this man! He has been one of the best professors I have taken at UCLA. He is so passionate about what he talks about and can answer any question you ask him. I regret not going to office hours for his class and getting to know him.

Great professor! His lectures are clear and the tests are fair. I highly recommend taking any course taught by Dr. Rissman.

Professor Rissman is a great lecturer. He explains the concepts clearly most of the time. There were concepts that he got confused explaining, but I give him credit for correcting himself instead of letting it go.

He is nice, funny, and gives enough examples to make the concepts clear. However, do not get confused b/w his personality and how easy the class is going to be. Some students tend to think that if the professor is nice, test are going to be easy, and this is not the case . The subjects for the class, although interesting, are hard to understand, so you really need to put some effort to get an A

I would definitely recommend him. I learned a lot even when I was not interested in the class at all. For those of us who are Psych major there is not way to avoid science classes, so I am glad I took this class with him. I wish I had him for Psych 120B

I LOVE this professor!
I was dreading taking any "science-y" psych classes, but Jesse made it so fun and understanding. He uses movie clips and demos to explain concepts and his lectures and fun and engaging so you learn the material really well and are able to recall a lot of the information on the test. The clicker quizzes help, too, and are easy to boost up your grade.

He is also a FAIR professor which i loved about him. If too many people missed a question, he threw it out or gave everybody credit for it. The articles for the paper were interesting.

Overall, AWESOME class and an AMAZING professor, and this is coming from somebody who has very very little science-based knowledge and who was dreading this class and i got an A. I, too, wish he taught 120B...

I've never written an evaluation on bruinwalk before, but I just had to for this professor because this guy and his class was bomb. Professor Rissman's class was very interesting and organized. I actually enjoyed going to class each lecture. His grading breakdown goes as follows:

Midterm Exam 33%
Final Exam 37%
Term Paper 15%
i>clicker Quizzes 10%
Class Participation 5%

Honestly, there isn't much workload but you do learn a lot of material as long as you go to class. Each lecture was very organized and funny, because Dr.Rissman would have some kind of joke somewhere and uses picture, but everything was relevant to the material being taught at hand. His syllabus lays out what reading to do every week (which isn't very much) and what material we will be learning. The midterm was very fair. Honestly, just pay attention during lecture (I NEVER TOOK NOTES IN THIS CLASS), and just reread each lecture before midterm/final and you will do fine. The book/pdfs can help fill gaps you couldn't quite get, but isn't essential in getting a good grade in the class, as I either skimmed the readings or didn't do them at all, and I got A+ on both midterm and final - just from reading the slideshows. The midterm/final consists of multiple choice, matching, fill in the blanks, short answers, and a short essay. Sounds like a lot, but easy if you study.

To do well in the class, I recommend:
*Study for the small iClicker quizzes every tuesday (Which are solely from the lectures)
*Go to class, and just listen to the lecture (As I mentioned, I never took notes)
*Study the lectures THOROUGHLY before the midterm/final
*Do the extra credits (1% EC from going to some CogSci presentation 1-2 hours long and writing what you thought about it, and %2 EC from participating in studies, where 1 credit = 0.5% EC for a maximum of 4 credits)

Then, you will earn A+ in class, like me :D

THE CLASS IS ORGANIZED, FUN, FAIR, AND INTERESTING. THE PROFESSOR IS NICE AND CARES A LOT ABOUT HIS STUDENTS. TAKE HIS CLASS!!! ESPECIALLY THIS ONE. YOU WILL LEARN A LOT, HAVE FUN, AND DO WELL!!!

Breakdown of your grade:
Midterm Exam 30%
Final Exam 35%
Term Paper 15%
Clicker Quizzes 10% (you could drop the lowest 2 quizzes)
Clicker Participation 5%
Section Attendance 5%
Plus two extra credit percentage points
My final grade: A

This was my first time taking a column A class, and given the little "science" background I had, I was scared of how challenging the class was going to be. Nonetheless, I can honestly say Dr. Rissman has been one of the best instructor I've had during my academic tenure. The concepts were, at times, hard to grasp but the way Dr Rissman dictated the class was really effective. I like how interactive the class was with the clickers and how funny the demos were for certain topics! It definitely kept me wanting to know more. I only wished we had more time to go more into detail with certain topics because I felt sometimes we were going to fast. Though, having the class in video podcast was also helpful because I could also go back to the lecture and check if I forgot to annotate any major example or concept. Overall, a really good class. Just make sure you balance out the difficulty of all your classes because if paired with other hard classes it can get a unnecessarily stressful.