class was ok!

only homework is the weekly assignments, which are actually really helpful for understanding and applying the things we learn in lecture. i wouldn't worry too much about reading the textbook since exams are lecture-based but it probably would be useful. no quizzes or projects. lecture is both in person and live/recorded on zoom.

midterm 1 was definitely a wreck for me because of the way the exam itself was structured and how questions were presented (online, not allowed to go back on questions, distracting names). but since a lot of people complained, she changed the difficulty to make questions more conceptual and less based on experiments, which was really helpful. i think the hardest part of this class is understanding each question and differentiating between each answer choice, since a lot of them are similar but have distinct differences that make them right/wrong. i definitely struggled, but she gives practice exams with questions that are repeated in the actual exams plus a bonus extra credit where you explain a topic of your choice.

tldr; not the easiest class, but doable with studying!

Listen, Professor Wassum is a true scientist who knows her materials very very well. If you are serious about research or are just slightly interested in how to train your pets, take her! Whether you want to be a neuroscientist working in a wet lab or a psychologist working in a dry lab, Professor Wassum uses relevant experiments to support the concepts learned in class -- a way to see the experimental effect of psycholology. Professor Wassum's tests are challenging but fun -- as you get to read about Beyonce, Olivia Rodrigo, and Drake in her tests! She also posts weekly discussion boards that clarify confusing concepts and she constantly answers questions on them. And not I mention, the only assignments in class making memes about the class materials, and are weekly summaries that take less than 30 minutes to make!! If you just take the work to show up for class, ask questions to clarify concepts, take the practice exams, you'd totally be fine!!

I saw some of these reviews and was worried about taking this class but I found Professor Wassum to be very knowledgeable and willing to help. There's a textbook, but really everything you need to know is in her lectures (I never read from the textbook). The material can be difficult at times, especially since it all builds on each other. Discussions are not required, but very helpful to go to, since the TAs will cut down the lecture to the most important parts, and leave a lot of time for questions. The grade is based on a midterm, a final, and weekly assignments (which very simple and kinda fun because part of it is designing a social media post to represent the information [but don't worry, you don't have to actually post it haha]). The exams are both online during lecture time, and you can drop into Professor Wassum's Zoom room if you need clarification about exactly what a question or answer choice means.
I really enjoyed this class and unexpectedly actually got me really interested in behaviorist psychology as a career. I got a good grade in this class without working super hard either. I would just recommend keeping up with lectures and going to discussion sections.

Review for all the 101C professors during Spring 2022

The legend is real, 101C is SO much better than A and B and makes it all worth it. It will no longer consume your time and I think I ended up with a 99% and this was the module I studied for the least. Everything is bruin cast.

GRADING: 25% for each exam (ALL MULTIPLE CHOICE!! OPEN NOTE!! 30 qestions in 1h15, with 1 or 2 bonus point questions), no mandatory discussion, 20% for research paper summaries which will take you at max 1-2h a week and I got full credit every time (only need to do 7 total and you can drop the rest). 5% for clinical correlation (only one clinical correlation needed as you can drop the second). No seminars this time.

Wassum: My favourite professor of the entire series. Good and complete slides. Talks about addiction and a lot of cool psychology stuff. Watch her lectures and make some additional notes to her slides and you are fine. I could understand everything the 1st time I watched as the concepts are much more psych based. No more memorising random ion channels and electrode potentials and stuff… I loved her module.

Adi: His slides have less text so you end up having to make more complementary notes. 90% of the stuff I got the first time watching, others I had to watch again to clarify it. But once again it’s so much better than A and B. He’s a good and clear lecturer and easy to follow.

Suthana: my least favourite because her slides really have no text and she’s a bit all over the place when teaching some parts. However, still better than any A and B module! Either get old notes form someone or just take a bit more time writing stuff down during her videos. I let all her lectures pile up and then just watched them all in 3-4 days during finals week and got a 97% on her exam (my worst score of the 3 lol). The majority of the stuff is very easy to get, a couple concepts you might need to go back a bit. But again, the contents are so much easier and interesting to follow along than A and B.

Tip: try to get good notes form someone that already took the class. I did this from someone that had really good notes and essentially all I had to do was watch about 6 lectures per professor, read the notes as I went along and add any extra info that might be missing, and I was done. So took me about 12-15h to do this for each module and I was good to go to get an A. Read it all once or twice before the final so you can find stuff quickly during the test, and you’re good. If you don’t have any notes, then it will take you a bit longer to get through each lecture so that you can make notes (exams are open note, so it really is worth having good notes), but again, the class is really easy to follow so you won’t have any trouble doing this!

Overall 101C is SO much better than the rest of the series. The professors are good lecturers for the most part, the concepts are actually cool and interesting and easy to follow. Even if you don’t have a neuro background you can probably follow the majority of the lectures. I really enjoyed the stuff we leant, and it felt so good to not have to put in that much effort into the class to do really well on the exams. Also it’s all multiple choice, and no more quizzes. So can’t get much better than that!

Professor Wassum was a great teacher! Any of the previous negative reviews definetly do not apply to her last quarter. Our grades were soley based on weekly assignments and exams. The weekly assignments were pretty much a guaranteed 100% - it was just a short summary of what we learned that week and you had to create a social media post. Her exams were pretty straightforward, and were online which definetly helped. She also had quite a few exam questions that were identical to the practice exam questions she provided, which really helped to buffer exam grades. She also offered extra credit on all the exams with an optional bonus question - this really helped my grade. Overall I loved this class and Professor Wassum!

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.

Wassum is a very nice and helpful professor. She really tries to help you understand the lectures during office hours and even gives you hints on what to study for during the exam. However, be aware that this class is mainly about rats, dogs and pigeons. I honestly didn't like this class since I had no interest in this topic. The lectures are also podcasted which helped a lot!

Breakdown of class:
20%- weekly quizzes (1 quiz dropped)
-consisted of 4 free response/true false questions (book-based)
80%- 3 midterms (all equally weighted)
- 20 multiple choice and approx. 10 free response + 1 bonus question
-ALL LECTURE BASED

Honestly, taking 110 with Wassum isn't as bad as all the reviews here make it out to be. And trust me, it's not because I studied extremely hard or already understood the material. I entered into this class expecting to be miserable, but it was extremely doable. Her lecture material is extremely organized, and although the material can get confusing, podcasting and rewatching lectures helps a lot! Her exams were very lecture based and fair. She's quick to respond on the discussion forum, and her office hours are really helpful as well.

AVOID THIS PROFESSOR! Her lectures only consist of research & graphs. Her exams expect you to know every little detail of those studies which is impossible. She doesn't even help you to understand what will be on the exams which are short answers and multiple choice. The short answers are graded way too harshly. There is no extra credit and your grade is made up of 2 midterms, a final, and weekly quizzes with your TA.

I love her. She's one of the most caring professors, she's really funny, and super receptive to student feedback. Her class is a hard class but the test was okay. Neuro is supposed to be hard, and I thought . She was easier than most of the other neuro professors.