Dr. Smurda is an amazing professor and I highly recommend psych majors who need to take a lab class to take her Social Psych Lab. This class luckily is nothing like Psych 100B, because you actually get to pick a topic for your project that interests you and your group. You also have a chance to find significant effects, which is really rare in 100B.

The meat of the class is one midterm exam, a group presentation (based on your group project), and a final report (based on your group project as well). The midterm is just the right amount of challenging, not difficult if you study and stay engaged with the material. It is also a mixture of multiple choice, matching, and written questions, which makes it quite fair. Dr. Smurda is very clear each step of the way in the class about what you need to do and how you need to do it, so as long as you pay attention you'll do well. Even though it's quite structured, there's always room for creativity when you're designing and executing your project, which is great. And Dr. Smurda is so helpful, always available to help with anything you're struggling with and willing to explain it in a different way so you'll understand it. Her lectures are engaging and I promise you won't get bored! Take this class!

If you are gonna take Psychology 135, take the one with Professor Smurda.
As you expect to learn in a social psychology course, she teaches you lots of things about the social psychology area, and each of pieces of knowledge is really informative and you can really apply what you learned in the class to the reality and lots of situations and moments in your life.

She delivers the lecture in a really clear and organized way that you can follow her with her speech also by reading slides. Because of the fact that she will always give some small surprise during the lecture, the slides would not be posted before the lecture, but after the lecture. You can still review for exam by studying slides.

She is also a nice person that she is very available during her regular office hours and she is really willing to hear from students and talk with students about the issues about the course and more, so feel free to go to office hour and talk with her.
She also personally holds review sessions before the exams, so there are many review sessions you can choose to attend, some from the TAs, some from professor Smurda herself.

The class overall is not very difficult, but prepare to learn a lot because social psychology contends lots of information and it is really broad.
The grading during my Psych135 is: 40%midterm, 40%final, 20%discussion sessions, 1.5%extra credits by participating in 3 researches.
The exams are all multiple-choices, about 40-50 questions. If you do study a lot, you will be fine.

Overall, taking 135 with Smurda is a good experience, and it is both doable and enjoyable.

Professor Smurda was by far one of the best professors I've had at UCLA! I wasn't looking forward to taking a lab class, but Professor Smurda made it very enjoyable. She is very approachable and genuinely cares about her students. You can tell that she worked hard on her lectures to make sure they were engaging and fun for us. She made the class a very comfortable environment and always had a great energy about her.

I am very confused by any negative review on here. I think she taught at a perfect pace and her lectures were always enjoyable.

Overall I received an A, which I think is very doable if you put in the time and effort. I would definitely recommend her if you are looking for a lab to take!

I had mixed feelings about her. She was often friendly, but I didn't like that she only teaches part time and talks about her children too much in class. I feel like I might know more about her kids than Social Psychology. Don't underestimate her tests. I got a C on the first exam and an A on the final. So, I got a B. Kind of sucks.

Enthusiastic and knowledgeable about her subject matter, clear explanations of concepts, encourages class discussion. I enjoyed coming to her lectures, which are well attended, and never bothered with an available podcast. I found myself telling my friends about some of the studies we went over in class, which sparked some really interesting conversations. Makes you think about yourself and how other people influence your thoughts and behaviors. I would definitely take another class from her.

Dr. Smurda is incredible! I learned a tremendous amount in this class. Her lectures were fascinating and she delivered them in an engaging, hilarious way. I found myself thinking about the material all the time. She was also very intelligent, helpful, and kind. She truly cares about all of her students and gives them a great deal of her time, even outside of class during office hours. Please offer more courses from Dr. Smurda so we can take them from her!

I was fortunate enough to take two classes from Prof. Smurda this quarter. I'm so glad that I took this class with her. It was a very rewarding experience! She is very patient, kind, and funny too. I feel like I learned a lot about doing research in psychology. Her lectures were very easy to understand and the midterm was fair. I like the fact that there were several types of questions, including short answer and essay. The group projects were really fun and I even made a lot of new friends in this class. If you can, TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROF. SMURDA!

Dr Smurda is one of my favorite professors at UCLA. I took her for psych 135 in the winter and now taking her lab class 136A. If you want to take Psych 135, take it with her or Lieberman. The exams are very fair if you study and understand the lectures, and read the assigned readings and understand the main points from them. You learn so much from this class that you can apply to your own life! Highly recommended!

Dr. Smurda is a really good lecturer. I took both social psych and social psych lab with her and both of them are really fun. Dr. Smurda tries her best to engage her students as much as possible and she is also really helpful if you come to her with questions. My TA in the social psych lab is Melissa and she is really halpful as well. If you have both of them, you are in very good hands.

I took psych 135 with Professor Smurda, and she is one of my favorite professors at UCLA. Her lecture slides are concise, and she also provides many examples to help her students comprehend the topics. Additionally, she is extremely helpful during office hours. Her tests are also fair as well because she does not just test you on pure memorization. If you study the topics and understand the concepts, then you will do fine on her tests. She is not out to trick you. I received an A by just studying her slides and making sure I understood the big picture of each concept. If you need to memorize anything for her tests, she also lets you know beforehand.