Professor McAuliffe is super funny and engaging during his lectures. I felt that I learned something valuable and enjoyed the content we covered. I also appreciated the life stories and advice he sprinkled into his lectures. I highly recommend!!!

The class consisted of 2 take-home, non-cumulative, open-note exams and one final presentation where we presented a research study of our choice. Attendance in lectures and labs was not mandatory other than for the final presentation—everything was recorded and posted. The take home exams weren't hard—the answers are all in his lectures/labs.

*Note that I took this class during COVID-19, so my experience is only representative of the online class format. I think the class would have required a lot more time and effort if it were in person.

Tests are stupid, I guess he really worked hard to tricks you in some questions, and he makes terrible jokes. FYI, he makes loud noises to scare the shit out of you, don't take if you have heart conditions. And if you are here because this class does not require a paper, think twice, everything comes with a price. The funniest thing he will teach you if you are in the class is that bruinwalk reviews are biased samples from haters and lovers. Well, I guess he has more haters than lovers.

McAuliffe is absolutely awful. His tests are dumb -- he literally copies questions off his study guide, and the rest of the questions are on obscure details that have no relevance to the overall meaning of the topic. When he's not trying to be funny, his lectures are so boring. I'm so interested in psychology, but I was always so bored during his lectures. His grading criteria is ridiculous! Try not to take general psych lab if you don't have to!! For your own sake, really!

I looked through older reviews and felt a pang of disappointment when I realized that this man has been teaching for far too long for no good reason. I wanted to see how he was in the past, and it seems like he hasn’t truly cared nor put in effort into his teaching… ever. I know there are some who like him, but the negatives completely outweigh the positives. I thought this would be a standard class with mixed reviews, and at first, I found him to be really entertaining. This entertainment was made at the expense of any real learning that could’ve occurred in this class. I felt cheated of a real psych class because of his disorganized content and speech, and his grading breakdown is horrendous. He never asked for students’ feedback or how he could better support us--instead, he complained to his TA in class with a dismissive attitude towards students’ concerns and blamed us for his incompetency. At most, he addresses these issues by bringing up his nickname, Professor “McAwful.” It’s not so funny when you’ve been on the receiving end of his awful teaching.

“Grades more on whether or not you paid attention in class, and not necessarily about relevant info pertaining to the class.” - it’s been 20 years and he still has not gotten better, it seems. If you want to get a good idea of what to expect from this class, look through all of the reviews.

The main points about Professor Mcauliffe & this class:

Positives:
no required textbook/purchases; no assignments, just 2 exams, and 1 presentation on an article of your choice; entertaining tangents make classes less boring

Negatives:
no new psych material is taught, and the content probably makes up the equivalent of 1-2 weeks of a different gen psych class; professor does not care about you as a person or your learning; does not accept constructive criticism/doesn’t take feedback seriously; disorganized and lacks structure
-- He spends the majority of class time (1 50min lecture, 1 3hr lecture) going on tangents about his personal life. Entertaining, but a huge waste of time.
-- His “explanations” for concepts and general material are often convoluted.

I would’ve enjoyed this class more if he facilitated an effective learning environment and provided more effective ways to demonstrate learning. The questions on the exams were confusing and the presentation has nothing to do with the class.

He is clearly experienced and knowledgable, which comes through in the breadth of topics he goes through, but his delivery functions as a way for him to basically rant about his opinions on psych topics rather than to teach. It’s like listening to a podcast of someone who finds psych interesting but is just talking… not intending to teach or engage much.

I've never written a review before in my almost 4 years here at UCLA but I definitely knew I wanted to write one for Professor McAuliffe. This professor is super engaging, has great examples, and teaches you so much about life. I recommend taking psych 101 with him 100%

Take this class while it is online! I took this class in the Fall this year for my lab credit and it was honestly such a small workload, especially compared most of the other lab options. This class might normally be difficult, but taking it online was super chill. The midterm and the final were both somewhat difficult, but you have 24 hours to complete each one, and you can go back and watch lectures and just write what he says as each answer to the question for most questions. There is also a presentation at the end, which is what gives you the lab credit, but he graded these quite nicely. There are no assignments other than the two exams and the presentation, all of which it is totally possible to ace with the online format.

worst professor i have ever had at ucla. without a book assigned to the class, it meant i HAD to attend his lectures. normally, i'm all for classes without expensive books and normally i love to attend lectures and learn, but seriously mcauliffe's condescending attitude and overall lack of self-control makes it unbearable. if you can avoid him as a professor, please do. also, if you do end up taking him, make note of the fact that he's a self-declared non-researcher (and proud of it), yet when it comes to test time, you better remember the study he had participated in, because, well.. he's just that narcissistic. you will also be in for numerous anecdotes about his life that just waste a ton of time and have little to do with anything we should be talking about. with all of that said, he did give us candy and sang us a song right before we filled out our teacher evaluations.

Does not explain lecture material very well, often felt lost in the class. Presents a few graphs and points on slides without adding much detail to them. Exams are pretty difficult.

I would say this class has sort of mixed reviews from my perspective. As a class, it’s a good class. It covers most, if not, all the psychology topics from many of the courses offered at UCLA so if you take this class in your junior/senior year, you should be able to remember most of the topics. The professor however is a different story. Professor McAuliffe is a great person but honestly, a pretty bad professor. In the beginning he said that he had more haters than supporters and I now see why. As a professor, he tries to incorporate jokes and personal stories into his lectures, which side tracks him a LOT. He can’t stay on topic for more than 7-10 minutes without bringing up his wife and daughter which isn’t a bad thing but sometimes the stories don’t relate to the topic at hand. His exams are horrible which only consist of a midterm and final. He gives you a study guide a week before each. The exams are basically what is on the study guide, however they are slowly tweaked a bit. What was most confusing is he would tell us to study one thing but then would leave out a lot of other crucial information that we should’ve paid attention to as well. His labs are pretty self explanatory, just him going over or expanding on the information from the lectures which ranged from slides to videos. If you’re looking for a class that has virtually no work with the exception of a midterm, final, and presentation at the end of the quarter, then take this class. However, it is advised that you take every little thing he says seriously, even if he makes a joke out of it because it will most likely be on the exam. Even if he brushes past it, review it and get is stuck in your mind.

I feel like he's a nice guy (kinda weird, but nice) but also, his tests are kinda difficult. I think my biggest tip if you're taking the class is to remember the answers from the study guide he gives you because many of the questions that were on the test were pulled from there verbatim. I say that the tests are kinda difficult because besides that aspect, it's basically a toss-up of what the rest of the questions on the test are gonna be. You kinda have to know a bit of everything, even small details that he might've discussed during his lectures and labs. If you're looking for a lab where you actually learn something useful, I probably wouldn't recommend this one.
I will say however that there are no homework assignments except for a presentation that you present during either week 9 or 10, and attendance is optional, which is a huge plus. I don't know what my final grade is yet but I know he said that he's probably going to have to curve final grades so even if your class does badly, just know that he probably will curve. Anyways, wanted to give you a more devil's advocate perspective bc I know a lot of people in my class aren't happy with him (which is valid cause the tests are just weird), but I don't think the entire class is terrible.