Do yourself a favor and avoid Stan at all costs. To give you a glimpse of what kind of professor he is, on the very first day and on the syllabus, he said "Do NOT whine" when answering questions about extra credit opportunities. Additionally, he does not provide a study guide/ practice midterms so you're really going into the exams blind with dense and material that can seem simple at first but he can make difficult questions out of them. The weekly discussion quizzes are the same but they depend on your TA and only one of them is dropped (lowest score). I never thought I'd write a review but after taking the class with Stan and remembered thinking that the reviews were exaggerating, I knew I had to warn you to NOT ignore everyone else's reviews like I did.

Dr. Schein is truly an amazing professor. His class is not easy, but it definitely is the most engaging and interesting upper division class.

To succeed in this class, you must be a good reader and a good note-taker. Many of the test questions come from things that he SAYS rather than just the bulk content on the slides. Re-watch lectures as many times as possible and know the material by heart.

Quizzes are based on the TA so remember not to lose points there as it will add up. I got consistent 12/12s and 10/12s and he allows for one quiz to get dropped.

If you get the chance, take his paired research seminar (PSYCH 189) because (1) he gives you a PTE, (2) It allows you to explore certain topics of interest and find labs that may be looking for help!

All in all, Dr. Schein is very knowledgeable and has a very good grasp on all material. Would take again 10/10!

The topics in this class were really interesting and I actually enjoyed watching the lectures. I did well on the midterms solely because I liked the topic. Contrary to what the professor says, THIS CLASS DOES REQUIRE MEMORIZING. I knew this class was memorization-based thanks to Bruinwalk, but I do sympathize with those who followed the professor's advice. The way I did well in this class: Memorize as much as I can and rewatch lectures. I had the slides on my tablet and would only annotate while actively listening in class.

Stan is extremely intelligent but the way he teaches the course is too fast-paced and it is a lot of information to retain in just one quarter. Since I took it online, the quizzes and tests were all on Respondus Lockdown Browser and the quizzes were weekly whereas the tests were once every two weeks. Some of the test and quiz questions were very tedious and mentioned only once in lecture, so be careful for that. Also, he was not very lenient and failed to accept that he made mistakes in lecture or worded questions in a vague/confusing way.

This class was honestly really interesting and you end up learning A LOT! I'm pre-med/psychobiology major and honestly the topics he would go over were really helpful if you plan on taking the MCAT. If you have a pre-med or bio/chem background you will definitely have an advantage compared to non-science majors sadly. BUT its curved so an 85 is an A!

For discussions, it's mandatory and there is a quiz every time you meet thats only 6 questions and mc (they drop the lowest attendance score if you missed class and lowest quiz score).

My discussion scores:
4x 5/6's
2x 6/6 scores
We're almost done with week 7 and there's a total of 9 quizzes so I haven't accounted for 3 quizzes

For exams, I would start thoroughly studying on Thursday/Friday before the exam (which is on tuesday nights 50 MC). I would download the powerpoints and present them as if I was the professor. I would make sure to say things that weren't on the slide as well as explain things out loud on the slide. I would highly recommend doing this for your other classes as well! I wouldn't go to live lectures or read the book but I would make sure to rewatch the lectures a few times.

My exams:
Exam 1: 94/100 (median: 72)
Exam 2: 96/100 (median: 80)
Exam 3: (we're in week 7 rn so we haven't taken it yet)

Dr. Stan is very passionate so that was helpful but lectures were sorta boring at times. It's A LOT of information but very interesting and doable!!

I took this class online during spring 2021. The structure of this class is as follows: There were 5 2-week modules, for which we had hour-long recorded lecture videos every Monday, Wednesday, Friday (3 hours total, regardless of whether or not we had an exam that week). On top of this, we had a (lockdown browser) midterm/exam every other Monday during the scheduled class time, with a live exam review during the scheduled class time the Wednesday after the exam. Additionally, Schein had live lectures every Friday where he reviewed the material for the week. As you can see, we had nearly twice the amount of class time more than the 3 hours lecture + 1 hour discussion that we originally signed up for. This was also the first time Schein taught online. Needless to say, he had a difficult time with technology, often giving us wrong information about when/where the exams would be posted, causing a lot of stress for many students. Furthermore, Schein was extremely condescending and not understanding for students who asked questions and tried to talk to him about the really confusing questions. He was bad at explaining the difficult material during the second module and then when the class average for the exam was in the 60s, he shrugged it off as "hard material." He stresses that this class is "not about memorization, you don't need to memorize" but then one of the questions on our exam specifically asked the width of a synapse... how are we supposed to know that if we didn't memorize it? The class is curved, with the top 35% of the class receiving A's. This was probably the only reason why I got an A- I really depended on other students doing worse than me on the exams which also made me feel like an awful person. All of this in combination with the burnout I felt from a year of online learning, I truly hated this class.

Tests are based on minute details.

A lot of materials covered in 10 weeks. Difficult tests, and his advice on how to study for this class isn't helpful if you are busy with other classes and extracurriculars. Know the slides well and rewatch his lectures if needed.
For final (3rd exam), there is a large emphasis on the visual system (his field of expertise/research) so study well.
Participation/attendance matters since clicker is used in class and only the correct response will count as score for the day. The maximum clicker point for entire course is set at 36. There is a required attendance for movie night (watched An Inconvenient Truth).
Study for weekly discussion quizzes (not too difficult but definitely need to study). There is one 3-page paper (20 points) based on research article that you need to write a 1.5 page summary/critique and a 1.5 page follow-up experiment.
Overall, a doable class but not interesting.

If your any other major than psychobiology, do not take this class and avoid this professor if you can. Although this class is curved which is nice, it requires you to memorize (like numbers and details on slides) way too much. Each ppt had around 50 slides and each test had around 6 chapters so you had to memorize 300+ slides for each test and the information you think is not gonna be on there, IT IS. For example, percentages and numbers on an image so most of the time you just had to blindly guess if you didn't know.
Also, the prof expects you to memorize wayyyyyy too much. He didn't even have time to go over an entire chapter in lecture but put it on the midterm and expected students to learn it on their own. My two cents but if you physically don't have time to teach an entire chapter, how do you expect students to have time to learn all that information on their own??
Bottom line: If this was the only class I was taking and had no other activities then I probably would've done well but this class is definitely too much information in too little time

I took PSYCH 115 with Professor Stan Schein & TA Adam Gold during Fall 2019 for my Psychobiology major requirement. The lectures are Bruincasted and discussions are mandatory.

Grades are calculated as follows (447 points total):
3 exams (non cumulative, 2 hours each) - 300 points
Participation via iClicker (points for correctness, not completion) - 46 points
Discussion attendance & quiz (drop 1 lowest score) - 76 points
3-page paper on research article - 20 points
Watch "An Inconvenient Truth" - 5 points

Professor Schein is an engaging lecturer and makes jokes during class, but he often covers materials too quickly or skip over slide materials to finish on time. He would tell us to focus on the big picture of the overarching concept of each slide packet, but will test us on pure memorization (ie. where is object recognition memory located? what is the size of a synapse?) of minute detail. The exams were incredibly tricky with many "all of the above," "two of the above" or "none of the above," which requires crude memorization to get the right answer. I heard that he is also very condescending in office hours and just tells the students to "follow his formula." I got a D- and D+ on the first two exams and a C- on the final, but because of his generous curve (35% A, 30% B, 30% C, 5% D/F), I ended the class with a B-. I really liked my TA Adam and feel that his quizzes were more fair in covering important topics discussed in lecture while maintaining the integrity and rigorousness of the course. Adam also gave the final lecture and lead the review sessions, and I feel that he did a better job than Professor Schein. Overall, this is a difficult course that requires a lot of crude memorization to pass the tricky exams, and I would not recommend this professor for 115 if you're looking to keep a decent GPA.