Ok, this class was a rollercoaster ride. Hardest material (Chandler), medium material (White), easy but a lot of material to understand (Piri). Chandler's midterm was conceptual and having only about 1hr for 10 free-response questions was pretty stressful to do. However, the grading was lenient for this exam. Avg was about 80% and that's what I got. now the second module which was fun to learn was White, the midterm was so much better and easier than chandlers.... or so we thought! We were told to keep it simple and answer the question straight forward. This is what the class did, but when we got our scores back it was a complete disaster. The rubric was totally against what we are asked to provide on the exam and that totally screwed us over. Avg was about 68% and we got 10 pts back to bring it to 78%avg. Got a 75% after that. At this point, I knew I wasn't gonna get an A so I switched to P/NP. Piri is a great guy, but it's hard to listen to his lectures, his voice is very monotone, but he did give us a 40 MC choice exam which was the easiest out of the three modules. Advice: watch the lectures, read the book, and go to office hours! Good luck FALL 2021 !

Personally, most of what I learned in this module was what I taught myself from the book. The Purves book--and any other neuro textbooks you have--are gonna be your saving graces. His lectures were really unorganized, constantly jumping around, slides out of order, and a lot of what he mentioned seemed to have no relation to anything else. It was also a near impossibility to take notes on his lectures, because his slides were all pictures and diagrams and he would just put it up and talk through it. Which may have been more helpful if the diagrams weren't unnecessarily complicated/advanced. It would also be difficult to understand him sometimes, as he would kind of go off on a side note, end up somewhere else, go back three slides, somehow tie that in to the first slide, and suddenly the lecture is over and we didn't get through the whole powerpoint. I think most people just started watching them recorded, but personally I felt that this made them even more difficult to understand. Nothing against Piri, he seems like a nice guy and you can tell he really cares about the students, it's just that this module could probably be more organized. He also held a review session for us before the exam that went for like 4 or 5 hours, so no one can ever say he isn't dedicated. Probably my least favorite of the three modules, but I'm pretty sure there are people in the class who would be willing to fight me over whether Chandler's was the hardest. Not that bad, just again, probably not a course to take unless you're a major taking the course series. I think there are better elective options if you're a nonmajor.

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You have to take this as a neuro major, so no point in dwelling over if its a good class or not... I personally have mixed feelings because I thought they could make a neuro class much more interesting by focusing on diseases instead of spending so much time on electrophysiology and graphs... if you want to be a neuro researcher you will love it, if you want to be a clinical doctor you might not love it as much. If you're not a neuro major do not take it, its not worth it.
All modules are non cumulative, so think of it as 3 short classes you take with a test at the end of each one and weekly quizzes.
Chandler's module: electrophysiology on steroids. I hated the content but respected the professor. Use his course reader and take notes directly on it during his lectures. Make sure you add any text from the slides to the course reader. It took me about 3h to get through each 1h50 lecture so that I could pause it and make notes or go back on the recording when I didn't catch something. His tests are short answer and open book, 1h long and about 10 questions. Really make sure you do the study questions each week with your study group, as they help prepare you for the test. You really don't need to read the book if you have all the info from the reader, lectures and the study questions. His study questions sometimes took a whole afternoon to do. It's definitely the module you need to study for the most unless you are a physics and electrophysiology lover. Go to all the OH as he explains the study questions there and its actually helpful. His quizzes are the hardest but you can score above a 7/10 if you're well prepared, I managed to get full marks on one of them. For the midterm I got 89.
White's module: she is a bit all over the place in lectures sometimes. The content is more bio and science and less physics which I appreciated. For her module the study questions are also helpful and less hard than chandler's. The quizzes require you to read a research paper, but the paper won't be useful for the midterm. The midterm is also short answer and open book. The textbook is actually helpful for her module, as I found her lectures confusing sometimes, and a lot of the figures she uses are from the book, so you can just study from there and its easier to understand. Still make sure to watch all lectures though because some stuff is not on the book and some parts of the book are not needed. I can't remember if her OH were that helpful. I got full marks or close to it on her quizzes, and about an 85 on the midterm. The midterm was really long for the time that you have, so since its open book I recommend writing out all the study questions really well and even writing extra stuff for the main topics that are likely to be on the midterm. That way you can copy paste some sentences form your notes and save time. I was sick the week of my test so didn't finish studying as much as I could have, but if you prepare well you can probably do better than I did.
Piri: for me it was the easiest module. The lectures are awful, I fell asleep on every single one of them, didn't matter the time of day. I feel bad saying that because he is a sweet man, but he just speaks so monotone... The slides are extremely bare on text, and its super hard to understand his accent sometimes. My recommendation would be to read the book. 90% of his pictures are from the book and follow the chapter order. Honestly, I would just read each chapter and then watch the lecture to make sure he didn't mention any extra info that wasn't on the book. The last couple vision lectures have a lot of content that's not on the book, but these are the only two that you can actually follow along well. His quizzes were very straightforward. The midterm was MC and I got a 95% even though this is the module I studied for the least (finals week got way too crowded with other classes). Being open note definitely helped, as the questions are super straightforward. So if you make notes from the textbook + any new concept mentioned in lectures and have this plus the textbook open, you can find all your answers to the test even without memorising the details. Study questions were a nice review, but he didnt go over them in OH, so unless you have a specific question you want to clarify its not worth attending them.
Overall the class has a positive which is that each module works almost as its own class.s So its easy to keep up with material for 2-3 weeks, take a test, and then start fresh with a new module. You will definitely appreciate this finals week! Study questions are helpful as a practice (but dont count for a grade). Quizzes will help keep you on top of studying and for the most part you can get a B or A average on them. Make a lot of good notes and know where the info is, so that open note exams become easier. There's some extra credit stuff that's impossible not to get full marks on, so this will be a nice grade boost. It's possible to get an A even if you don't do super well on a module (either you hated it, were sick, let it pile up, whatever), so don't stress if it doesn't start off well as you'll get a chance to improve! I personally felt that each module was easier than the previous one, so keep at it and if you're organised and work at it you can get an A

HAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAH.
Sorry, I just needed to get that out. Out of all the jokes I have heard in my twenty years on this earth, this class was by far the biggest one. Actually, maybe if Natik learned a couple jokes this class might actually be bearable. I cannot tell you how to pass this class, but I can tell you how not to fall asleep in one: sock yourself in the head so the pounding headache keeps you awake. That is, if Natik hasn’t given you one already. To really excel in this class though, pay attention to the things he quickly glosses over, and do not even attempt to listen to the things he drones on and on about. Seriously, that is how he teaches.

Content-wise, I thought this was a very interesting class. When I took it tests were open note and taken online (they watched us over Zoom however). There were also weekly quizzes that we would either take before the discussion or during discussion depending on the professor.

This class has three modules:
Module 1: cellular physiology by Dr .Schweizer
- Schweizer is not the greatest of lecturers and there's never any writing on his slides
- read the assigned textbook pages if you want to understand the content
- the test is very straightforward if you read the textbook and are able to conceptually understand the equations he gives you, don't worry about doing any math with said equations
- considered the "worst" module in this class so if you feel its hard, the rest of the class probably would agree with you
Module 2: motor systems by Dr. White
- White is a terrific lecturer with lots of words and she does reviews of her past lectures
- i read the textbook for this but I don't think it was necessary
- this test was hard for me, things were very oddly worded and a big chunk of your grade was from true or false questions (that were also vague) so i did the worst on this exam
Module 3: sensory systems by Dr. Piri
- imo Piri is the best professor
- why? good at lecturing (provided you pay attention to what he is saying) (writing on his slides but not too much) and his tests/quizzes are very straightfoward
- don't read textbook for this, he tells you multiple times that it will confuse you

Quizzes were relatively easy and also open note. The rest of your grade is attendance (for discussion only) and seminar write ups.