This class is my absolute favorite class that I've taken at UCLA by far. This class also changed the way I see the world and people around me. Dr. Smurda is an amazing professor and her lectures were highly enjoyable and extremely interesting.

Like the other reviews mention, her grading is a bit unfair. Your entire grade is pretty much based on just the midterm and the final so beware. I have never studied so hard in my life before. I feel like I gained so much knowledge from this class and worked very hardly, yet the B I earned does not reflect how much effort I put in. However, the material is actually very interesting to study so at least you won't be bored!

Dr. Smurda is really funny, accommodating, and truly wants all of her students to succeed. I would highly recommend taking diligent notes and really tuning in to each lecture in order to do well. Her exams were closed note, which is another reason I had to study so hardly. Dr. Smurda offers extra credit opportunities as well, so if you want to boost your grade even more I would do those.

Overall, I would definitely recommend taking this class! Although I am usually a straight-A student and received a B in this class, I am still very glad I took it because I learned so much and see the world around me differently now. Take at your own risk.

I completely disagree with anyone who says that the tests for this class were unfair. The average on both exams was high and as long as you studied the slides and did the assigned reading, you could easily get an "A" on the tests. Dr. Smurda is my favorite professor because she actually cares about her students and spends time getting to know them and she will go the extra mile to help them during office hours. Her lectures were always engaging and interactive and the material was really interesting. I would highly recommend this class.

Okay so what's funny is that this class has taught me to not trust the grade distribution. The reason being that I entered this quarter taking this class as well as Cognitive Psychology and I was expecting (based of the grade distribution) to have to Pass No Pass this class and just get the A in CogPsych. But nope, I literally barely scraped by in 120A (CogPsych) giving it a decent amount of effort and got an A in this class giving it the same effort.

So with all that being said, I think it really just depends on what you're good at. If you did okay in 100B, you'll do fine in this class. I got an A- in 100B and an A in this class. It really. isn't hard at alllll if you put in at least some effort. The test was supposed to be hard but I got a 96% on it. It's hard to remember the last time I did that well on it. Literally all you have to know for this class is research methods and you're good.

As a psych major, this has been my favorite psych class I've taken so far. I loved how engaging the lectures were. I always looked forward to each lecture and loved being able to apply the concepts in class to my life. Professor Smurda is funny and her lectures have plenty of examples and engage the class. She's very approachable and has a wealth of knowledge. I found the readings interesting and didn't really see it as too much work. The tests were multiple choice and not that difficult. 100% recommend this class.

Psych 135 with Professor Smurda was very engaging and she makes her expectations clear from the beginning. The material is straightforward and may seem simplistic, but the terms can get confusing so it's better not to underestimate the tests and make sure to study!

Dr. Smurda is a wonderful lecturer and person. In this class, your grade will be based on 4 primary things: (1) midterm (2) paper (3) final (4) weekly quizzes. She provides ample extra credit to bolster your grade. This quarter, she was also incredibly lenient with the quizzes and actually dropped your lowest 2 grades. She's a very warm and welcoming professor, and you can tell she likes interacting with her students. If not for the material, take this class for her!

Overall the class was easy but the tests were poorly written in my opinion. The TAs were very helpful on the first exam and then didn’t give us much for the final. However, we got a front and back cheat sheet for the final but the averages for both exams were the same.

This class was interesting but definitely not the easy A I thought it would be (coming from a student with a 3.9 cumulative GPA.) There’s 1 midterm and 1 final, and they’re weighted 30% and 40%, with whichever one you do better on weighted 40%. Final was not cumulative. There are 6 3-question quizzes on the readings, with your lowest score dropped. These quizzes are 10% of your grade. There was a final paper due week 9 that could either be a research proposal or application of social influence tactics (6-7 page requirement) that was 20% of your grade. Pam, the TA, is nice and helpful but was very nit picky when grading the papers and took off points for minor APA format mistakes, typos, etc. so definitely proofread your paper before turning it in. Dr. Smurda offers 1% extra credit for participating in poll questions during class, so it’s a good idea to actually attend class, but she also records lectures on Bruin cast. She offers another 1% extra credit for participating in SONA studies. As for the exams, they’re pretty detailed and not really common sense. They draw on really specific concepts from the readings and lecture so you definitely have to do all of the readings and know the material. This class isn’t necessarily difficult, but there is just a lot of reading and memorization involved, and you can’t really just skim by and do the bare minimum if you want an A.

2 exams worth 50% and 30% (weighted in your favor) and discussion section hw worth 20%.

Content was very intuitive yet still required some studying to understand it to the level the exams required. No textbook but discussion section hw was based on 4 books – definitely did not need to read all of the assigned chapters though. Overall I really enjoyed the class, learned a lot, and would recommend.

This class was super manageable! Social psych isn't my favorite psych topic but the material still kept me engaged. I was lucky enough to take this class in a quarter where I had a really light workload in my other classes, so a lot of my focus went into this class which is how I managed to get an A+. I also did all three of the extra credit opportunities (answer 70% of the PollEv questions, 3 hours of SONA studies, and a page of notes for the final) which boosted my grade up 3%. The midterm and final questions are not that difficult as long as you genuinely understand the material! I made a quizlet and updated it every weekend with the material we learned that week to make sure I stayed on top of the content and didn't fall behind. This made studying for the tests a lot easier as well because I already knew a lot of the material, and didn't feel like I was cramming all at once. Overall, great class to take if your other classes aren't super challenging!