This class wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I love abnormal psych and I understand it very well but Chavira's exams were confusing and often included random material that was 1. never mentioned in class 2. from small charts on PowerPoints that no one paid attention to. I hate that it is entirely based on exams because there is not room to make mistakes. Book is absolutely useless, study her slides to the T. I was lucky enough to get a B- in this class; never received an A on any of her exams.

Really enjoyed Dr. Chavira's lectures as she was very engaging and informational about the material. A tip honestly is just to take good notes when she's giving lectures, even the little details (cough cheese and wine is her favorite food) --> Will be beneficial knowledge in one of your tests in the future. I got a solid 48/50 for the first test but kinda messed up badly in the second one but managed to pull it back up for the remaining which is why I ended up with an A-.

I think you just need to work consistently for this class and you should be fine. If you have time, listen back to the podcasted lectures and see if you've missed anything in your notes because it might be a difference between an A and A- for you. She also offers easy extra credit just by completing the 2 surveys throughout the quarter. Dr. Chavira gives out participation points by using iClicker questions, often 2-3 questions each lecture and you only need to answer at least 1 out of the 2 or 3 to get full points.

Discussion sections were fun too and I had an amazing TA, Sarit who would clarify things or get further clarification from Dr. Chavira if we were ever unclear about something. It was a fun class and I'd definitely take another class with Dr. Chavira again in the future!

First I'll just talk about the class's structure, and then I'll go into my opinions.
The grade is based on a point system, with 176 total possible points. To get an A, you needed 164/176 so you can only miss 12 points total all quarter. This was pretty tough considering 150 of the 176 points come from three exams (50 points each). The other 26 points come from discussion section (20 pts) attendance and participation (talking about a weekly article) and attendance in lecture via iClicker (6 pts).

The discussion and iclicker points should be easy and self explanatory, so I'll cover the exams. All three are non-cumulative and only an hour and fifteen minutes long, which helps relieve some stress during finals week when you take the third and final exam. The thing about the exams is you can basically only miss about 12 points throughout the quarter (depending on if she gives any extra credit), which means about 4 points (4 questions) per exam. They are pretty detail-oriented, but luckily basically everything tested is from lecture, so I would highly recommend watching the bruincast and taking very detailed notes on everything she said, and only supplementing with the textbook when you feel like you need more info on a certain topic. I did this for exams 2 and 3 and did pretty well, but for exam 1 I wasn't really sure how to study so that's why I finished with an A-.

my experience with this class was pretty negative. the exams are intended to trick you. they're based off of her lectures (every single detail). clarity is definitely a problem in her material. often times she teaches material that contradicts itself or the text. i would not take her class again if i could.

This is a great class. If you're like me and you're someone whose been through years of therapy and already knows a lot about mental illness, this class will be a piece of cake for you. Don't bother buying the textbook even though Dr. Chavira insists. I didn't buy it and I still got an A-. I also didn't participate at all this quarter! Like not even once. If I had I probably would've gotten an A but I'm satisfied lol. Overall I liked Dr. Chavira as a professor because she explains things really well, and unlike a lot of professors at UCLA she takes it slower and doesn't blow through the lecture material. I took it as an opportunity to take really good notes and that really paid off for the exams. That's all you really need to succeed. My TA was Vivian and she was great, so take her if you can. Discussion section was such a supportive environment for everyone to talk about their mental health, and it was honestly so refreshing because you don't really get that from any other classes at this school. I felt like I learned a lot of valuable information in this class.

Being my first quarter at UCLA, I was definitely worried going into this class because essentially your entire grade is worth three exams (three exams worth 100 pts each and a small amount of points dedicated to participation). But honestly, while you have to be a good memorizer/test taker to do well in this class, I found it to be pretty easy. The averages on the first two exams were in the B+ to B range, respectively, so it seems everyone else did okay also. There is no curve tho which was nice in this situation. Also, this was apparently the first quarter where Chavira offered extra credit. It was only two points but it can definitely come in handy, as it ends up being about an extra 1.5%ish bump on your grade. All you had to do was participate in the SONA studies but I'd recommend signing up as soon as the quarter starts cuz it is very difficult to get a spot in a study towards the middle of the quarter and later. I put it off for awhile and I was only able to get 1 EC pt tho I didn't end up needing it.
The questions on the exams were straightforward as someone detailed previously... virtually no trick questions and very few "none of the above/ both C and B but not D" stuff. The questions are framed in a practical manner rather than just asking for plain definitions (tho there are a small amount of those types of questions) so don't just memorize definitions of illnesses. Listen to her examples and watch the videos required for the class.
Also you barely even need the book at all... the book goes into way more depth that what she covers in class. I'd still recommend buying it if you have the $ to spare since it was nice to refer to it if I wasn't so clear on a topic or wanted more context into a particular illness.
Essentially all you need to do to ace the exams is use her slides and write down anything she says that is supplementary to the slides. For instance, she'll read something on the slide and then say some extra things to provide context and/or detail. The lectures are recorded so you don't have to go to class (I didn't show up to any lectures and got an A+) and it's nice because you can really write down everything she says since it's recorded. Tho you don't really need the book, anything she says is in lecture is fair game for the exam so I'd highly recommend using BruinCast to your advantage. Keep in mind tho that the BruinCast for this class is audio only and not video, if that matters to you. Also to even better help you on the exams, I'd highly recommend going to the extra review sessions the TA holds before an exam.
There is a small amount of points dedicated to participation, which are rewarded by attending discussion. The discussion is completely supplementary to the course and none of the material in discussion we're on the exams, unless it was something we covered in lecture as well. And lastly, the "final" is not cumulative and simply covers the material that is taught after exam 2. All in all, Chavira was a great professor and is very clear on her expectations for her students. For the last chapter, we didn't cover all the material that was planned so she chose not to test us on that on the final, unlike many professors who would test on that anyway. I'd highly recommend her for psych 127a

Professor Chavira is very kind and understanding. I was about to drop this class because of personal problems, but I talked to her and she kindly let me continue. The workload was light (no participation grade and assignments at all, just 2 midterms and a final) and there was no discussion for this class. However, I would recommending going to her lectures, which I found very helpful for the exams. I'd also suggest reading the textbook. (You don't have to read every single page. Just read the sections she covered in the lectures.) The exams were not that hard, but only if you do some study. Make sure to know stuff she mentioned in the lectures because she usually added a couple of questions about what she discussed in the lectures that were not in the textbook (such as videos and some studies on the slides). Personally I think this class is very interesting and I really like Professor Chavira, but it's definitely a class for someone who's good at taking tests because it's all you're graded on.