Professor
Kate Wassum
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Kate Wassum is an incredible professor. You can really tell she takes time to precisely organize every lecture and slide. I especially benefited from her use of Break & Review slides every 10 -15 minutes, as they really helped me to solidify my knowledge of the material. She seems like a very intelligent person, and she even uses new and unique assignments, such as the option to post a twitter thread summary of a research paper, which I thought was interesting. Also, I found her on Twitter, and her page is pretty fun to read. Overall great professor, and great module!
Spring 2020 - Kate Wassum is an incredible professor. You can really tell she takes time to precisely organize every lecture and slide. I especially benefited from her use of Break & Review slides every 10 -15 minutes, as they really helped me to solidify my knowledge of the material. She seems like a very intelligent person, and she even uses new and unique assignments, such as the option to post a twitter thread summary of a research paper, which I thought was interesting. Also, I found her on Twitter, and her page is pretty fun to read. Overall great professor, and great module!
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - I was honestly terrified to take this class after reading the reviews, but I was pleasantly surprised with how this class turned out. Professor Wassum is one of the most amazing professors I have ever had. She genuinely cares about student learning, and would often be found answering student's questions on the BruinLearn discussion board into the early hours of the morning. However, there are a couple of things I wish I knew at the beginning of this class: 1. You don't need the textbook. I didn't read it beyond the first week of class. I found her lecture slides & lectures to be perfectly comprehensive. 2. Take very, very detailed notes. Dr. Wassum talks superrrr fast. She knows her stuff. With that being said, I'd often leave in-person lectures feeling pretty confused at times, but I'd go home & re-watch the lecture video about a day later & take notes to fill in any gaps I may have had. This often took a very long time, since I would pretty much pause the video every few minutes to write anything important down, but this process was soooo essential to my ability to understand & retain the information. On my first exam, I didn't perform very well, but was able to get 100% on my last 2 exams simply because I started to re-watch lecture videos & take more detailed notes. 3. Make a study guide for exams. For my first exam, I kinda just winged it. I studied a little bit, but I relied a little too hard on just knowing the exam was open book. For the second and third exams, I made study guides that focused on understanding the experiments/concepts she presented during lecture. The exams focus heavily on your understanding of the concepts in an experimental/real-world context, so explaining each experiment (what it was testing, what happened, what the results were, what it told us about learning, etc.) helped me soooo much on the tests. My study guides literally consisted of just pages and pages of each experiment explained, and I referred to this often during exams. Overall, Dr. Wassum is a great professor who cares about her students and wants us to succeed. I would take this class again.
Fall 2022 - I was honestly terrified to take this class after reading the reviews, but I was pleasantly surprised with how this class turned out. Professor Wassum is one of the most amazing professors I have ever had. She genuinely cares about student learning, and would often be found answering student's questions on the BruinLearn discussion board into the early hours of the morning. However, there are a couple of things I wish I knew at the beginning of this class: 1. You don't need the textbook. I didn't read it beyond the first week of class. I found her lecture slides & lectures to be perfectly comprehensive. 2. Take very, very detailed notes. Dr. Wassum talks superrrr fast. She knows her stuff. With that being said, I'd often leave in-person lectures feeling pretty confused at times, but I'd go home & re-watch the lecture video about a day later & take notes to fill in any gaps I may have had. This often took a very long time, since I would pretty much pause the video every few minutes to write anything important down, but this process was soooo essential to my ability to understand & retain the information. On my first exam, I didn't perform very well, but was able to get 100% on my last 2 exams simply because I started to re-watch lecture videos & take more detailed notes. 3. Make a study guide for exams. For my first exam, I kinda just winged it. I studied a little bit, but I relied a little too hard on just knowing the exam was open book. For the second and third exams, I made study guides that focused on understanding the experiments/concepts she presented during lecture. The exams focus heavily on your understanding of the concepts in an experimental/real-world context, so explaining each experiment (what it was testing, what happened, what the results were, what it told us about learning, etc.) helped me soooo much on the tests. My study guides literally consisted of just pages and pages of each experiment explained, and I referred to this often during exams. Overall, Dr. Wassum is a great professor who cares about her students and wants us to succeed. I would take this class again.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - OVERVIEW - 9/10 would recommend - Personally didn't experience any negative interactions with Professor Wassum in discussions/office hours like other reviews have mentioned - Very clear powerpoint slides, but requires viewing lecture to get full content - No textbook— all sources are provided (bless up) GRADING - Midterm and final are essays. You are given the prompt ahead of time. Do not be lazy. Do not skimp on details. Better safe than sorry! These exams are not graded loosely— if you do not thoroughly cover everything mentioned in class and provide your own thoughts on the necessary questions, you will NOT get an A (learned this personally on midterm yikes) - 3 research summaries/twitter threads. Given ~20 paper options. Some of the papers are definitely harder/longer to read, so choose carefully. These are graded less strictly than the exams - Participation in discussion is mandatory. One free absence. You can do a short write-up to opt-out of discussion if you can't make it. COMMENTS - Professor Wassum was very clear in lectures/office hours - Content itself is rather interesting - Discussions require you to do reading/lectures ahead of time . Otherwise you will be lost and not be able to contribute. - Workload is on the lighter side - Only downside to the class is pacing— there's quite a bit of downtime during discussions while breaking off into groups
Winter 2021 - OVERVIEW - 9/10 would recommend - Personally didn't experience any negative interactions with Professor Wassum in discussions/office hours like other reviews have mentioned - Very clear powerpoint slides, but requires viewing lecture to get full content - No textbook— all sources are provided (bless up) GRADING - Midterm and final are essays. You are given the prompt ahead of time. Do not be lazy. Do not skimp on details. Better safe than sorry! These exams are not graded loosely— if you do not thoroughly cover everything mentioned in class and provide your own thoughts on the necessary questions, you will NOT get an A (learned this personally on midterm yikes) - 3 research summaries/twitter threads. Given ~20 paper options. Some of the papers are definitely harder/longer to read, so choose carefully. These are graded less strictly than the exams - Participation in discussion is mandatory. One free absence. You can do a short write-up to opt-out of discussion if you can't make it. COMMENTS - Professor Wassum was very clear in lectures/office hours - Content itself is rather interesting - Discussions require you to do reading/lectures ahead of time . Otherwise you will be lost and not be able to contribute. - Workload is on the lighter side - Only downside to the class is pacing— there's quite a bit of downtime during discussions while breaking off into groups
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Most Helpful Review
Neuro 101C After 4 years at UCLA, Wassum is absolutely the worst teacher I have ever had. Every lecture she reads off her slides. And there are around 80 slides per lecture! The way she communicates the information is terrible. The school needs to hire a Wassum translator that stands at the front of the class with her.
Neuro 101C After 4 years at UCLA, Wassum is absolutely the worst teacher I have ever had. Every lecture she reads off her slides. And there are around 80 slides per lecture! The way she communicates the information is terrible. The school needs to hire a Wassum translator that stands at the front of the class with her.
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