This was one of the most interesting classes I've taken at UCLA so far; there are so many (negative :( ) reviews detailing how overwhelming and disorganized the content is, but I think that's just the inherent nature of the class & its curriculum. With that being said, these reviews aren't wrong—there really is a very wide range of topics crammed into 10 mere weeks. HOWEVER, Avi did a really great job at breaking down these concepts and providing insightful examples that helped with my understanding. He always began the weekly lectures with big-picture ideas and concepts and broke them down into their respective neurological mechanisms. Additionally, the workload for this class was SUPER manageable: 0 homework assignments, 7 quizzes (2 were dropped), and 2 exams (1 midterm & 1 final). I didn't have to worry about any busy work at all; all I had to do was to watch/attend lectures and to take the weekly quiz when the time came—super simple and straightforward. I cannot say more good things about this class!

Other bonuses: Avi's also super funny (both intentionally and unintentionally). He would physically act out his examples and it made class just that much more pleasant to be in. You can see that he really does love what he does & knows a lot about it. I would LOVE to take more classes with him with the future but there really aren't that many undergraduate courses offered :(.

TLDR: great professor, super funny & engaging, loved the way he structured the lectures, loved the workload and thought it was very effective & fair.

I don't know how he was Pre-Pandemic, but I think that Professor Avi himself was super sweet and was a wonderful lecturer (might have been the fact that it was asynchronous). I treated this class like an in-person class and memorized almost everything for both the midterm and final, and breezed through the exams because they were pretty straightforward. This class is definitely hard in the sense that there is so much material in 10 weeks, but if you truly study maybe a week or few days in advance, the exams/quizzes will feel relatively easy. YEs, the material is definitely not hard to understand, especially if you've taken harder classes like Chem153A. I personally thought Psych 110 was harder cause I took it with the worst prof ever. The quizzes were TA-based and they were somewhat sort of poorly worded, but not impossible to do. I rarely used my notes during the exam so I honestly think this in-reality is what you study and what you get in the end, even in the in-person perspective. Again, I don't really know how he taught before so I wouldn't judge the past reviews, but what I can say is that he definitely was amazing this quarter.

My Grade Breakdown for an A+:
-Quizzes: 30/30 (2 out of 7 quizzes dropped // 30% of grade)
-Midterm: 49.50 (35% of grade)
-Final: 50/50 (35% of grade)

Honestly, I think if you go in with an open heart and don't take this class with another heavy-intense load class, you will be fine and do well in the class! Good luck and stay safe y'all :)

This class is probably the hardest class I have ever taken, and the fact that it was taught by Professor Avi made that even more complex. This professor does not lecture clearly and just goes over the slides without any additional information. I also did not like the format that the class was going with, there was only one final with no midterm, and he expected us to know everything and every small detail in every slide is a fair game of the final. The final was not handled greatly as online, it was probably the hardest final. Since they knew it was going to be online, they made the final as hard as possible. I do not recommend taking this class, wait another quarter for a different professor if you have to.

Highly recommend for anyone interested in neuroscience or looking to fulfill a Psych/Cog Sci/Psychobio requirement! The class consisted of quizzes, a midterm, and a final, and all of them were not bad if you watched lecture and understood the material. Lectures were really clear and informative.

I've seen a lot of bad reviews for Professor Adhikari, but I have never had a more engaging and caring professor. Even though lectures were online for half of the quarter, I would always look forward to watching his lectures, as his personality and way of teaching made it fun to learn the content. His class was the only class that I wanted to go to in person and it proved very helpful. He kept the online option open even when classes in person opened up, which gave lots of people freedom to choose which style they liked more. He made sure that the class taken online would balance out the class taken in person, which is something I didn't get the privilege of having for my other classes.

The content is indeed dense, which may contribute to why Professor Adhikari has a low rating, but it is just the nature of the class, and he does his best to cover everything in detail and tie them together.

His quizzes and tests are also extremely fair. There was not one question on the test that we had not covered in class. As long as you review his slides and take good notes, you will succeed in this class. It's a lot of memorization and hard work if you take it in person, and a lot of note-taking online.

Super straightforward class. Watch lecture, answer questions. Nothing unexpected. It might be boring to some so you need some self discipline to pay attention. I got an A without too much effort. 9/10 class and I do recommend this professor.

He is a great professor. He is one of the most understanding and organized professors I have ever had. Ignore the negative comments. He is great!

I never check Bruinwalk before enrolling in classes. Maybe I should, but I'm so glad I didn't when I was enrolling in Psych 115. After taking 115, I made a Bruinwalk account just to rate Prof. Adhikari, and I was shocked to see the scathing reviews. I think that the class was structured very differently when he was teaching with Prof. Izquierdo, because I only had Adhikari and had a very different experience than those who took it with both professors.

Prof. Avi is a very encouraging and kind teacher. Whenever people posted questions on the discussion forum, he answered very thoroughly and never put anyone down. In fact, he praised curiosity. He was also accommodating when necessary. His lectures are dense, but he still managed to make them engaging and structured. The quizzes and exams cover a LOT of extremely involved material, but everything was open notes, which made it much more manageable. Adhikari did not make us use Respondus, and participation didn't factor into the grade at all. Like somebody else said, discussion sections were useless to me personally.

The takeaway: Adhikari is GREAT. If you enjoy psychobiology and pay attention to the lectures, you will do just fine.

Psych 115 is a lot of material to study, but very interesting. I loved how Stan teaches the lecture as he is very fair and knowledgeable about the subjects. If you are interested in the pdf copy of Behavioral Neuroscience 8th edition for cheap, text me at 661-292-9419.

*This class was asynchronous*
Despite his previous harsh reviews, I thought Adhikari was great. This course requires a lot of memorization, so if you plan on taking this class in-person be prepared to study hard, but I felt that Adhikari is a pretty engaging lecturer. Although the lectures were very dense, I was never really bored and I actually found that material to be quite interesting. However, I will admit that this class would be much harder with in-person exams because there's so much to know. This is probably what frustrated students who took this class pre-covid, but Adhikari was very helpful and understanding the past 6 weeks so hopefully he won't change once things are back to normal. Ultimately, I would definitely recommend that you take Psych 115 with Adhikari!