I hated this class. Based on reviews I thought it would be an easy A, but I think due to the transition to online learning it was HELL. The lectures were so tedious and long with so many details, and the midterm and final literally asked for the most random details from an example experiment mentioned once. The material could have been super interesting but the way it was taught I would rather bang my head against a wall then attend that zoom lecture again. Hopefully it will be better once it gets back to in person learning.

I love Professor Smurda! She has the best personality and is more than willing to offer additional help/ get to know her students on a personal level. This class specifically can be challenging because there was so much information, and tests were open book but very difficult. I ended up taking the class pass/no pass, which was a good option for me as it was my last requirement. If you do not want to take it p/np, be prepared to put in some work. Not an easy A but a great professor and interesting material!

I completely disagree with the other review. This class was my favorite psych course at UCLA. The material was really interesting and the professor went out of her way to help anyone who needed it. I would highly recommend it.

I loved the textbook. It was easy to read and actually applies to your life. The lectures are always interesting, but you do need to study because the test covers a lot of material. Great class, great professor!

Taking this course with Professor Smurda was one of the best decisions ever. She truly cares about her students and is very attentive whenever one needs help with topics or is confused about something. Tests are very well-formed, as long as you study your notes and go through the lectures as well as read the chapter books that are assigned it is a very do able class to do. Professor Smurda does a great job of allowing everything to come together and make perfect sense!

Professor Smurda is easy to talk to, friendly, and displays a true curiosity for the burgeoning field of self psychology. I took this class during covid, so the online format probably differs from what the format would have been if in-person. The material we were tested on consisted of readings from Jonathon Brown's "The Self" (which was only about $15 for e-book), lecture slides, and select research articles. We had two exams (a midterm and final), although Professor Smurda allowed us to skip the final and make the midterm count for the entire testing category. The other assignments in the class included weekly piazza posts (pose one question and respond to one of your classmates') and an essay in which we had the choice of applying the principles we learned about to a life experience or designing a research proposal. Overall, I learned a lot from this class and felt comfortable in knowing Professor Smurda was looking out for us students during a difficult quarter. Just be sure to keep up with the material (lectures, readings) and you should be good—it can be deceptively easy to skip a week and then feel overwhelmed. Also, go to office hours. You can get any questions answered and have some fun discussing consciousness!

I'm honestly not sure how the average for this class on here is an A when we averaged an 86% on the midterm and she said "wow this is the highest score we've seen for the average by far!". The extra credit is helpful and very easy, but overall I wouldn't call this class very engaging and you need to know absolutely EVERYTHING she has ever BRIEFLY mentioned to be getting full credit on these tests. I'm not Smurda's biggest fan by a long shot but I would consider the class fair.

What a dope class. I've sat in the back of the class for every course I've taken at UCLA and Dr. Smurda is one of the only ones who has the energy to reach everyone in the class. She's really funny too. My bf isn't in the major but even he often sat in on her class because the material is so interesting and Prof, imo, does a great job of explaining things in a digestible form. She even has a Piazza page where you can ask questions to her and your peers... just in case you didn't catch something.

There's no textbook required, but there's like 1 or 2 reading books (I can only remember 1 but I feel like there were 2, maybe I'm crazy) that are super cheap and actually pretty cool. You def want to read the stuff because it'll without a doubt show up on the tests. The material from the books is all thoroughly hashed out during discussion section so I recommend that you go to those. Her tests aren't super easy but they're not super hard either. She's not trying to trick you but she will get you to think a little bit.

I really enjoyed this class and it opened up a lot of new areas of thought for me. I'm not even a particularly smart person and I still managed to do well bc Prof actually cares to make sure that you're learning and not just mindlessly vomiting info on test day.

I 100% think you should take this class.

I took this during lockdown. I rented the e-version of the textbook for a reasonable price, and I think there was at least one more book she required if memory serves. Professor Smurda's lectures were very interesting to me. Her voice was clear, and the content was clear and pretty transparent. Personally, I am stunned to read some of the reviews here that the readings were too much. I have ADHD, and if a professor is unengaging or boring, I have a lot of trouble being engaged and absorbing the information. But I admit I am probably pretty biased because the topic of this class was of great interest to me. I still maintain that her lectures are clear, as well as her tests. She is extremely accomodating and understanding of her students' struggles. She expressed her preference of engaging with students in a physical classroom, but she still moved from generally requiring students to have their cameras on, to allowing them to be turned off for the sake of connection stability. She made a lot of effort to make sure the internet connection was good on her end, calling her internet company many times and ensuring that everything was fine. When connection on zoom was still an issue, she changed her lectures to pre-recorded instead. She also cancelled finals, recognizing the great impact that the lockdown had on students, as well as the unrest revolving around extreme racial injustice. School stresses me out a ton, and I tend to complain a lot about unfairness revolving professors and class structure, and I still cannot say anything negative about Porfessor Smurda. I don't recall ever once feeling like she was being unfair or un-understanding. Extremely the opposite.

This was definitely my FAVORITE class at UCLA. I took this during my last quarter at UCLA during the pandemic and not only did I learn a lot but I enjoyed the lecture material and how it was taught. Her lecture slides are SO clear and I wrote my notes directly on the slides to review for the exams and got an A on them. Because of the adjustments to remote, Dr. Smurda was super helpful and understanding with everything. When we had internet connection issues in class, she switched to prerecorded to ensure that we were still learning the material. In addition to her office hours (HIGHLY recommend going to get into the material more), she had an optional class to attend in addition to the prerecorded lectures in case anyone had discussion questions they wanted answered. Overall, the lecture material was interesting, Dr. Smurda is super approachable and understanding, and the experience of taking this class with her made it all the better. HIGHLY recommend!!