After finishing Psych 100B, I have a strong desire to de-mystify this class for aspiring psych majors. Below you will find a guide that I would have found helpful when beginning this class.

Please note that this class’s structure will be changing in Fall 2018, but I still feel as though the basic advice I have can apply.

Is this class impossibly hard? Not really, in my opinion. By and large, people find this class to be extremely difficult, impossibly graded, and just plain unfair. I came into the class thinking that all the negatives you see here on this BruinWalk page would be the reality. In my experience, it really, really wasn't the reality. Was it a stressful class? Yes, it was, but all my classes give me stress. Truth be told if you actually put in the effort, you will be rewarded. However, a few baseline skills help to do well:

1. If you are an excellent writer, this class will be a breeze. I am double-majoring with History, so I have been through the gauntlet when it comes to challenging and long papers. The writing assignments in this class are on the easy side if you are an experienced writer. You get automatic style points if you know how to write with clarity, good grammar, and nice flow. However, the majority of psych majors (in my experience), are not as used to writing, and writing a lot.

2. You need to have good study habits. If you take the class in the summer like I did, the final will creep up on you because it happens around the same time as the first submission deadline. However, if you are taking stellar notes during lecture and are studying them many days in advance of each quiz, you will be well-prepared for the final without even doing dedicated studying. If you last-minute study for quizzes just by skimming over your half-done notes from lecture and then begin studying for the final at 10 PM the night before, you will not do as well. Treat the class like a job – put in the effort consistently and throughout the quarter and you will wonder what all the fuss about the class is about.

3. I think general communication skills are important just so you can easily talk to your TA and the professor and communicate what you need help with. If you are afraid of your TA or the professor, you will be left with unanswered questions and confusion. If you want a good grade, you have to push past any fear of a bad interaction with your TA or the professor. It is imperative that you show your instructors that you’re there to fight and are willing to learn and grow from this experience.

If you have all, some, or none of those skills, there are some other ways to help you succeed and learn in this class:

1. Take it in the summer with no other classes. It is only 6 weeks as opposed to 10 weeks, and it will be your main focus. I worked alongside this class (usually more than 12 hours a week) and still did very well because my only academic attention was directed towards this class. If you are directing your brain into to many different classes, it will be tougher to do well because this class requires your full attention.

However, the grading scheme is flipped in the summer: 60% section and 40% lecture (it is the other way around in the normal school year). If you find that you are not a good writer and would rather not have more than half your grade focused on section where all the writing is, you may want to take it in the school year. Also, in the school year, you are given weeks to write assignments, while in summer you are given a few days to one week to do all the writing assignments. Since I am an experienced writer, this time pressure didn’t really get to me, but I know it can be a lot for those not used to writing a lot in a short period of time. If you feel that either of these facets of the summer version of this course concern you, maybe you should bite the bullet and do it in the school year. I still recommend pushing through in the summer.

2. How to overcome not being the best writer? Start your assignments as soon as they are assigned. Read over them daily, making edits along the way. Always make sure they line up with the APA guidelines in the course reader and APA manual. The longer you spend with a paper, the better it will be, believe it or not. Also, you can take your papers to the writing center to get a second set of eyes on it. Finally, you can also ask your TA questions - they have a limited scope with what they are allowed to help with, but it is still important to ask as many questions as possible to clarify content.

Now let’s talk about Professor Firstenberg: she is absolutely lovely. She is a wonderful lecturer and makes the concepts very accessible and interesting to learn. However, I think her stand-out quality is how kind, responsive, and helpful she is. It is easy to get wrapped up in section and forget that she is there to help, but I would recommend to talk with her at least a few times. She is the quickest professor I have ever had when it comes to answering emails: she answered one of my emails within 3 minutes of me sending it! She was also helpful when it came to section, believe it or not. She sat after lecture and helped students run through their group experiments and gave feedback on all of them, and even offered ways to improve them. She is so kind and helpful and I wish more professors were like her. Also, I hope students don’t blame her for how hard the grading can be. The class has been taught this way since the 1970s according to my TA and is consistent across professors.

How about TAs? It is luck of the draw, pretty much. Some are easier graders, and some are harder graders, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what type of grader your TA is because (as I understand) the curve applies within sections and between sections. This means that if you have a hard grader, you won’t be punished, your grade will be adjusted accordingly. This also means that if you have an easy grader, you won’t necessarily get a better grade. The danger is running into a TA that a) you do not get along with b) is not well-versed in the class or its material c) or is just generally bad at communication, answering questions, and teaching. I would say I was lucky because my TA was very well-versed in the class and its material and was in-tune with student concerns. I have no gauge to say what type of grader my TA was as I do not know of the averages of other sections, but as I mentioned before it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is performing above the mean in your own section.

Speaking of grades, here is my grade breakdown which can be helpful when gauging where you might stand in the class*:

Method section: 91% (average: 79%, SD: 6)
Group project: 83% (average: 77%, SD: 6)
Quizzes: 100%
First submission: 92% (average and SD are unknown)
Grade for the in-class final: 37/40
Final submission: 94% (average and SD are unknown)
Final grade in the class: A+

* Please note that due to the curve, the actual percentages really don't matter. All that matters is that you perform above the mean, ideally 1-2 SD above the mean. Easily my grades and the section averages could have been knocked down 20 percentage points each and it would be the exact same grade in the end. Students get caught up in the percentages, when in reality if you scored a 68% on an assignment where the average was a 50% and standard deviation was 6, you would be easily at an A. Please always keep this in mind, the percentages do not matter and are usually not consistent across sections and across quarters. All you need to care about is if you are consistently above the mean and are performing at the top of your section.

Here is what actually makes up your final grade (in the summer):

40% Lecture (1 multiple-choice exam that counts for 40% of your final grade)
60% Section (15% quizzes, 10% participation, assignments 75% - which are broken down into: 5% method section, 10% team project proposal, 60% project report [which is split into 35% for the first submission and 65% for the final report])

SUMMARY:
If you are a dedicated and driven student who puts in the effort and wants to succeed, you should do well. Start your assignments early, take your papers to the writing center, get to know your TA and professor, study early and consistently for the exam, become well-versed with the APA manual and its requirements. In the end, there is no secret formula to this class: if you put in the work, you will be rewarded.

It is incredible how you can read the book, do the practice exams, and still do miserably poor on the actual exams because the exams are created to trick you. They want you to fail. Make sure you know how to decipher cryptic messages because there is nothing clear about this class. The professor needs a lesson in proper email etiquette; super rude.

First off, don't be too afraid of this class. I was absolutely terrified because literally everyone tells you how bad it is. However, after taking this class, I can say that I learned a lot and that as long as you really try your best, it shouldn't be THAT bad as everyone says. I got an A+ but I definitely worked my ass off for it.
I can say professor Firstenberg was one of the best lecturers I had in college so far. Extremely clear and actually kept me awake for every lecture despite it being an 8am. There isn't that much material each lecture and I really liked that she wrote on the board instead of using slides so I could actually write notes by hand for once because I could still keep up with her. She used good examples that actually helped me understand the material. Overall, super glad I had her as my 100b professor. On the other hand, lab can be draining just by the fact that you spend 4 hours a week in lab. But even then, it's not too bad. It's mostly the group project that can be annoying.

Just as a reference for what I needed to get an A+:
<Lecture>
Exam 1: 39/40 (avg: 31)
Exam 2: 36/40 (avg: 29.9)
<Lab>
Method edit: 4.5/5
Advice proposal: 70/100 (avg: 73)
Group project proposal: 89/100 (avg: 83ish)
Final write-up: 95/100 (avg: 78.8)
Poster: 4.5/5
Quizzes: 15/15
Participation: unknown but I think I participated in discussion quite a bit, went to office hours, asked a lot of questions so I assume it was good
I only wrote the mean scores for stuff I knew/remembered.
I think my TA was on the harsher side of grading things but lab grade is curved for each section so as long as you're above the mean within your section you should be okay.
In terms of the group project – yes, this is the shittiest part of the whole class unless you have good teammates. I did 80% (if not, ALL) of the work but I was lucky because our group got a research topic I was actually interested in so it wasn't as painful as it could have been.

Tips:
- I'd try to keep up with the readings and take notes on them. The reading really isn't bad because a lot of it overlaps w lecture material but there are just some stuff she doesn't mention in class at all. I'd say max. 3 problems from the book for each exam. Yeah, it doesn't seem like much and not worth it but think of them as free points given to those who actually read.
- Even if you get shitty group members, don't lose all hope and motivation. Focus on the exams and ace them because at the end of the day it's 60% of your grade.
- Do NOT give up just because your group is shitty. I know it sucks to do all the work for your group but if they're shit, you just gotta push through and do all of it if they don't. You always have the teammate evaluation form at the end of the class to truthfully let your TA know that you had to do all the work.
- Definitely take advantage of the practice exams/questions. I personally think they are a pretty good representation of the actual exams. The actual exams are a little harder but not crazy harder. Exam 2 was for sure harder than exam 1.
- For the writing assignments for lab, really read the workbook (writing guidelines/rubric pages) and check off things to make sure you included every single component they asked for. I saw a lot of people get points docked for missing parts the workbook mentioned. Double check for APA formatting. Make sure to have a decent amount of relevant references for the final write-up. I had at least 7. The papers take up a LOT time so write ahead of time, try to get feedback from your TA as much as possible whenever you can and even from other TAs too.

This class was a pain mostly for the group stuff but other than that, it was one of those classes that didn't teach useless bullshit. I feel like I actually learned valuable research/analytical skills. If you're interested in going to graduate school for psych, I think this class is really great for getting a taste of what grad school would be like I assume. If you absolutely dreaded this class, maybe grad school isn't for you..?

What makes up for your final grade:

Lecture: 50% (midterm 40 + final 40 + weekly quizzes 15)
Lab: 50% (15% study strategy proposal + 10% group project + 40% final individual paper + 20% discussion assignment + 15% participation)

The lecture grade is curved based on the performance of all students. You can earn 1% extra credit by participating in a SONA study for your lecture part after the curve is applied.
Lab grade is curved based on the performance of students in your session. For both the lecture and lab part, if your grade is higher than the average, you will at least get some form of B (they said the curve would never hurt your grade).

I ended up in an A+:

Lecture (A+):
midterm (39/40, mean 33)
final (40/40, mean 32)
quizzes (15/15, mean unknown)
I did the 1% extra credit SONA study

Lab (A+):
participation 100%
study strategy (81/100, mean 78, sd 13, I didn't do very well, and I'll explain why later)
group project (98/100, mean 81, sd 14)
final paper (99/100, mean unknown)
discussion (59/60, mean unknown)

Tips:

1. The practice exams will give you a general idea of what the actual exams look like. Usually, the question will describe an experiment and then ask several questions regarding this experiment. I recommend you do all the practice exams (they gave us a short version, around 40 questions, and a long version, around 140 questions, before each exam). Ask questions and make sure you understand all the concepts before the exam. Almost every question was about concepts from lectures, but I remember one on the midterm that asked something from the textbook.

2. Bring DETAILED questions to your TA's office hours. I didn't do that before turning in my first graded assignment (study strategy proposal) and got a grade much lower than my expectation. After I got my grade back, I rewrote the part I got marked off and brought them to my TA's office hours, and made sure I understood why I got the point deducted (which was very helpful because then I realized that sometimes I didn't answer or just misunderstood what they asked on the instruction). For later assignments, I always brought MANY DETAILED questions to office hours and got them clarified.

3. Start to write your assignment ASAP; otherwise, you won't have enough time to ask questions and revise your assignment. Especially for the final paper, writing itself will take a long time (I'm not a fast writer, though). My final write-up was around 14 pages (of course, double-spaced), including a title page and 1.5 pages of reference.

4. For the group project, I think whether the experience is good or not will very likely depend on your group members. I'm SO lucky to have two great group members!! We shared responsibilities and went to office hours together, so everything went very smoothly for us. We also scheduled some meetings other than the regular discussion time. The group paper helped my individual write-up a lot (because the individual paper is also about your group experiment, although you cannot use any "group intelligence" from the group project assignment).

Lastly, I want to say that I'm a TRANSFER student, and this class is NOT as HARD as many people (including myself before taking it) imaged. It's definitely not the hardest class I've taken (but it's the most time-consuming one LOL). Please believe in yourself! If you'd like to devote your time and energy, you will learn A LOT from it.
BTW, my TA is Grace, and she is so supportive and sweet (:

The professor is very nice and helpful, but it was just the class itself and the material that made me hate it. There are just too many questions on both exams that have similar answers and these questions are gonna confuse you. The lab work is definitely a heavy load, but if you communicate well with your TA and ask to clarify the requirements of the rubric you'll do well. As for the lecture, I would say read the book because although she only put 3-4 questions from it, these questions can help boost your score. These exams were definitely stressful and the best way to prepare for them is to complete the practice exams they post. Start your papers at least a week ahead so you have time to edit and ask your TA questions.

So it's finally time to review perhaps the most daunting, difficult class of the psychology major. After reading so many reviews for this class and taking it in Fall 2020 online, I feel obligated to provide my own insight into this class now.

Fall 2020 was the first time that the psych department accepted P/NP for this class in accepting it as a prereq for the major, so I took it P/NP to try and preserve my GPA. Turns out that was a good move; if not for the P/NP I probably would end up with a B/B+.

The lecture part of this class is deceptive. There's only about 7 lectures, all prerecorded and released every week. The content for this class is very easy and the 5 quizzes are also fairly easy; however, the exams are NOT easy whatsoever. You will get two practice exams ahead of the actual two exams, but despite the content and question formatting being similar, the actual difficulty of the real exams is MUCH GREATER than the practice exams. By this I mean that the questions and answers of your actual midterm and final tests are far more confusing and difficult; looking over the correct answers afterwards and trying to make sense of what the TAs offered as explanations did not help much at all. The mean for every exam was a 33/40 by the way, and I scored around that mean for both exams despite going through all the practice exams. The quizzes and exams were all open notes though, so that might help a little. There is a possible curve that only helps for your lab grade and 1 point of SONA extra credit.

By far the more difficult half of the class is the lab portion. The TAs are pretty hit or miss; I personally found my TA quite helpful. They do grade very harshly on the assignments that count, so you not only need to follow instructions to a tee but also ask ask ASK your TA about anything you're confused on for clarification. When in doubt, it's better to write more, even if redundant, than to leave something out. If you think you covered everything, you probably didn't. So make sure you participate in the labs and put your best foot forward on all assignments. The difficult part about lab is that you are pit against your classmates on a lab curve where the mean score is usually a low 80% (B-) and your score is relative to the mean based on standard deviations. If you don't know what this means, the short version is that grading for lab SUCKS unless you score at the top of your lab above everyone else.

A brief breakdown of my grades for the lab portion:
High 70s on the Method Editing (15% of the lab grade) and Project Proposal (10% of the lab grade)
Presumably full points/near full points for Participation (there's a lot that goes into participation despite it counting only 15% of the lab grade)
90% on the Final Project Proposal (40% of your lab grade - please try to finish this a few days AHEAD of time and not last minute so you can proofread the next few days, trust me on this)
83% on the Discussion Short Answers (20% of your lab grade - this is the final assignment for the class and although I got 83%, the mean for my lab was a 50% so obviously I scored very high in comparison lol)

All in all, because this class ultimately aggregates everything to letter grades, I got a B+ in lecture and a B in lab. I'm just glad to have passed this class. It was definitely stressful at times (especially towards the last few weeks with group presentations and the final project) but it's possible to do okay in it. It's definitely not a GPA booster by any means though. I will say this; while you do need the Workbook for lab (costs about $9 on RedShelf) you don't really need the Morling textbook. I downloaded it and NEVER USED IT and did fine. Everything on the quizzes/exams is covered in lecture anyways so just take good notes every week.

this is the WORST class I have ever taken in my life. Firstenberg is an engaging and clear professor; however, there are several reasons as to why generations of psych100b students claim this is the hardest and most unnecessarily stressful class.
1.) every testing strategy you can imagine having taken at UCLA is incorporated: midterms, project proposals, a first submission, a second submission, group projects, weekly quizzes, AND a final
2.) The class grade is almost entirely dependent on the subjectivity of the TA and their grading
3.) The random group you are assigned to will almost definitely determine how well you do in the class
4.) The discussion is almost like a totally different class-- it incorporates nothing from the lecture and TA's are not versed in anything from lecture (have specifically answered questions with the WRONG answer in discussion multiple times). There is little overlap in the content, if at all.
5.) this may not be the experience of all TA's but mine kept me in the lab for the full 2 hours even when the class only lasted an hour
6.) most of the grade is based on midterm and final, even though the most time is spent in discussion and essays work from there-- the grading is disproportionate in this manner
7.) the sequence of class work makes no sense:
a. we needed to make a poster presentation (summary) of our results BEFORE the paper is actually even written
b. the design proposal had to be submitted for discussion before the content was even covered in lecture (these points were not allowed to be made up or refuted at all)

I know that this course has been redesigned to be "easier" but in no way was this class easy. I almost want to know what it was like prior to them restructuring it. The professor's lectures were dry, boring, and made me realize that I NEVER want to work in a research position in Psychology. The exams in no way reflected what the practice exams she provided to us showed. Our midterm was formatted online so poorly that the class exam average was ~ 72%... We had to all as a class collectively email her, as well as the department to complain about the unfairness of the formatting and her refusal to change it. She eventually changed it and allowed us to "double" the final exam. (Her first solution was to require us to choose if we wanted to 1. Keep both final test grades, or 2. Double the value of the final exam grade. We would have had to submit that decision to her BEFORE Week 7.) That's when we decided to email the department head, who thankfully shut that down and "encouraged" her to allow us to keep whichever score was the best score without making a choice ourselves... Exams were also designed to be "sequential" meaning you cannot go back and review your answers or skip any before moving on to the next.. These exams were a LOT more stressful than they needed to be.

Her TA's were awesome - shout out to lead TA Ginny for her SUPER HELPFUL ALM VIDEOS AND CONTENT EXPLANATIONS!!! Ryan S. was also an incredible TA if he ever teaches this course again.

The fact that I managed to pull off a passing grade in this course is something short of a literal MIRACLE. I was able to enroll in Psych 100B course for the next quarter during my first pass and I was PREPARED to fail it. (I'm also an honors student BTW!)

When you get to this class, literally take it with ANY other professor - NOT THIS ONE!!! STAY AWAY AT ALL COSTS IF YOU VALUE YOUR PHYSICAL HEALTH, WELLBEING, AND SANITY!!

Lecture - 240 pt
Lab - 120 pt
ALM - 40 pt
E.C. 9 pt
400 pt total

The instructors for this class could not have been more thorough in their explanations, expectations, and organization. When they redid the PSYCH 100B class, they really went all out. It was incredibly manageable if you put in the time. I didn't do much practice outside of watching the lectures and attentively doing the ALMs and labs. Most labs were completion based but the ones that were graded on accuracy were graded super harshly. I got Cs on those. Even then, doing well on the exams carried my grade. The ALMS were all for completion credit so that was easy points. Overall, this class was well run. Although the concepts were sometimes dense, the course was manageable and full of useful information for research.

TAKEN DURING AN ONLINE QUARTER - Look guys, this class is probably gonna suck for you. Now that's out of the way, let's break the class down in what to worry about most and my advice if you end up taking it.

LECTURE (50% of final grade) - Quizzes, midterm, and final.
There are 5 quizzes through the quarter, each like 3 or 4 mc questions. Some were definitely easier than others in question difficulty.

Midterm and final were tough. Both mc. The average for both was 33/40 if I recall correctly. I got a 34/40 on the midterm, and I studied by doing the short version practice exam, that was kind of it. Same with the final, where I somehow got a 37/40. The exams are difficult, meant to confuse you, and can be deceiving. At least with it being online, we could use our notes. Unfortunately, you may be depending on getting your high grades in the tests and quizzes because the lab section can bite you in the ass. I suggest doing the practice exams, attending office hours, and review sessions (there was one for the final). The good news is that the material itself isn't hard to understand and Dr. Firstenberg is a great lecturer. I have nothing against her as a professor. DO NOT GET THE TEXTBOOK. I found an online version for free, but never even needed to use it.

LAB (50%) - Participation (15), Study strategy proposal (15), Project proposal (10), Final project write up + materials (40), discussion section assignment (20)

Participation - each lab section your TA is grading you on a scale of 1-4 I believe of how much you "participated." Just ask one question or make some comment and that counts, at least when I asked my TA for how I was doing with participation, she gave me full credit on days where I only really said one thing. Obviously that may differ between TAs. Sometimes you'd get participation credit for doing whatever activity in class.

Study strategy proposal - this was basically a practice assignment for the actual project proposal, but counts for more - idk why. I turned it in expecting an A, or lowest a B as I consider myself a strong writer. I got a 76 on this - the average for my section was a 75. The grading is TOUGH. You need to be crystal clear in your writing - no "it," no ambiguity at all, nothing. Write more rather than less to make sure you have everything. Once you do that, you definitely still don't have everything they're looking for. Do the assignment ahead of time, take a day away from it, come back, and you'll probably see stuff you can add or change. This obviously applies to the other assignments too, and is more important for those.

Project proposal - you complete this with your group (randomly chosen). Like the above assignment, but for your actual experiment you plan to conduct, rather than the hypothetical one. Make sure everything is clearly stated, and that your background section is a logical transition into why you chose the research question you did. KEEP IN MIND that anything used in your project proposal is considered "intellectual property of your group" and therefore cannot be used in your project write up - it's considered plagiarism... dumb, I know. I was very frustrated with this because I spent a lot of time on the proposal, so when it came time to do the write up, I basically had to rewrite in different words the same stuff. I suggest that you keep this in mind, so you don't put too much time and effort into the writing on this so that you can really shine in the final paper (especially when you're being graded against your peers).
My group got a 86 or 7 (originally a few points less but I argued for some points back). We were a few points above average.

Final project write up - this is individual. Just so you get an estimate of the size of what this is, mine ended up being 12 pages. Do not do what I did and start it the day before. Professors always say this, and of course I ignore and I end up doing fine. In this class, DONT DO IT. I'm serious. What took up the most time for me was finding research papers to use as my sources. The actual writing didn't take long, as really you're just giving background to your experiment and why you chose to study what you are, and the other part is just describing your hypotheses and methods. Straightforward, but PLEASE give yourself time to proofread. Using the workbook was really helpful as a sort of template, and I used the writing guide (basically the rubric) as my bible. I turned this in literally a minute before the deadline, 10 minutes into class. This assignment ruined my whole week lol. I was very stressed and pulled an all nighter to get it done. It sucked my soul away. I ended up getting a 90/100. This is not evidence for you to wait till last minute. I suspect my TA started to loosen up on the grading as the quarter went by and I died writing this paper. Legit took me a few days to recover.

Materials - This is a group assignment. I hated it because I did almost all the work, but obviously this is an individual experience. You do get the chance to provide feedback about your team in the end to your TA though, so at least they'll know any struggles you had with your group when considering your grade. You basically just turn in everything you plan to use when you conduct your experiment. Depending on your group's design, this could be easy or very difficult. Just depends.

Discussion assignment - Individual. This was probably the easiest assignment. You just state your findings, flaws your experiment had, future implications of your results, and what you could do to fix the flaws. I got 56/60. I don't know what the average was.

FINAL TAKEAWAYS
I HIGHLY HIGHLY suggest going to office hours with your TA to go over your assignments. I only did this with my group for the proposal and materials, but I know it definitely gave us points we wouldn't have gotten otherwise because we were able to know exactly what needed working on. If I hadn't done my write up last minute, I'm sure going to office hours would have helped.

This class sucks, but it's not the content that will be your issue. If you put time and energy into lab section and ask for TA feedback, I feel like you will have higher chances of getting a good grade in the class. I almost took the class P/NP, but glad I didn't.