GOOD LECTURER! But trust me, you are either going to do very well in this class, or very poorly. Class is designed to trick you it is after all, a weeder class. I say, take this course with Firstenberg if you ABSOLUTELY have to, but keep in mind that EVERY single question on the midterms and quizzes will be tricky. Just try your best to pass the class, do not set high standards for yourself because 40% of students are expected to receive a C of any form (c-,c,c+) anyways, That's almost half!....On the bright side, I PROMISE THAT AFTER HER CLASS EVERY PSYCHOLOGY CLASS THAT YOU EVER TAKE WILL BE CAKE!...ps, take Geiselman if you want a more pleasurable 100B experience.

I can’t even begin to explain how horrible this class was. I worked my ass off the entire quarter only to end up with a C+. The material is not difficult, but the class setup is horrible. 60% for two exams which have extremely tricky questions. It’s like the exam is testing your test taking skills and not the actual material. Now let’s talk about lab, I had pretty high grades in comparison to everyone in the class averaging about B+/A- range. The TA Jenna Felkey was a strict grader. She’s a great person and she’s really helpful, but in the end she really doesn’t give a shit about you. I got a 71% for participation even though I showed up every single day. The class mean for participation was 74%. I just can’t explain how horrible this class is. The people who got A’s are either extremely smart or extremely lucky because those exams are basically guessing games based on luck. Everything they say about this class is true, but 10 times worse. Too bad it’s required. Firstenberg is trash

Yes, the class is labor-intensive. There are a good deal of writing assignments due throughout the quarter, all culminating in a final research paper write-up. Do NOT fall behind and think these papers can be sat on until the last minute. Easily the best approach is to start early and write a section at a time. Details are extremely important and it is critical to make sure you aren't omitting anything.

The material is not nearly as conceptually difficult as the amount of work would indicate. Coming into the class with a general idea of the scientific method and how experiments are conducted will carry you through a bulk of the content. Tests - 50% of your grade - are all conceptually based, meaning that a hypothetical experiment/scenario is presented and you will answer questions about it. Plenty of review material is given to help studying before the exams (midterm and final). The rest of the lecture grade is based off 6 quizzes throughout the quarter.

The other half of the grade is in discussion section, where participation matters. Ask questions, clarify concepts, offer answers, and you will be fine. I cannot speak to any TA except my own, but he was friendly, helpful, and fair in his critiques of my papers. The rubrics for all the papers are specific enough where you can check your work against them pretty faithfully.

Lectures are all prerecorded and posted by the weekend.

Lecture: 60%
Midterm: 30%
Final: 30%
Lab: 40%
Quizzes: 15%
Participation: 20%
Assignments: 65%

The class wasn't too bad, especially considering how awful I thought it would be. The textbook can be found on librarygenesis.com and the workbook (which you do need) is only $12. Professor Firstenberg is a nice lady. She seemed scary at first, but she's really nice and also adds some humor to her lectures. She seems like a really likeable person although I never talked to her personally. There are no slides for the class, so she basically speaks most of the time and usually writes things on the board. I think this is good because it makes you go to class for good notes and also doesn't rush you since she also has to write things down just as you do. My TA was Danielle Currin and I really liked her. She's an easy grader and really nice. I had a friend who took a different TA who said he was pretty bad. Rough grader and made them turn in a lot of different assignments (something Danielle didn't ask for). Would recommend her for sure if at all possible.

Like another reviewer has said, the first couple of weeks of Lab are really easy and laid back, but picks up as soon as groups are formed (randomly). I really liked my group, so I got lucky. It's important to communicate as that's really important. Don't wait to get the assignments done, try to finish early so that everything can be looked over and approved by everyone. Communication is key. Create a group chat right away and get comfortable with each other. There are also quizzes every non-exam week which are fairly easy. Make sure to do your best on them because they are basically free points. Lab isn't too bad, but it is more time consuming especially since you meet up twice a week for 2 hours compared to lecture (once a week for 2 hours).

The lecture exams are fairly tricky but doable. She gives a practice exam (~40 questions) and practice questions (~140) to prepare for each exam. Th wording is tricky so just try to figure out what exactly the question is asking for. There are a lot of "A and B, but not C" type answers so process of elimination is really helpful here.

If you're on Reddit and ever need help, go on there and ask. I'll be there and I'm sure there are others there too who are willing to help with anything.

Writing this review after having completed the class almost 4 months ago, which should make this review pretty objective.

PROS
- You will learn a ton!
You will literally study your ass off to even pass this class, with that amount of dedication comes a deep understanding of the concepts.

- You will probably become a better writer
Writing papers for this class is like walking on egg shells. These papers- or rather the way the are graded will challenge you to question your writing, and push you to become a better writer.

CONS
- If you have a job your gonna have to quit!
Let me just be super clear on this.... you are not going to be able to get an A in this class if you are working more than say, 8 hrs a week, and a full time student. The more responsibilities you have, family and etc- the tougher this class is going to be.

- This class is uninspiring
To me, this is the biggest con. I'm a transfer student and had already taken research methods at Pasadena City College (yes despite this prior experience I still only managed a C+ in this class!) My experience in research methods at PCC was inspiring, here at UCLA with Firstenberg it was rather uninspiring, difficult, and boring. Which is super disappointing because I know that this material is interesting and important, its just Firstenberg makes it kind of dull.

NOW that I've attempted being super objective I will rattle off a couple random opinions. Feel free to stop reading at this point.
- Professor can be kind of rude.
- Ive heard its better to take during the summer.
- Your asked to rate your 2 group members near the end of the qtr, kind of a crazy idea given that the class is curved!
Let me explain- there is three to a group. You could potentially go to each member individually and say, "hey I think (other group member) kinda sucks, how about we both rate each other super high on the evals and other group member super low?" If you are cunning enough to do this you'd end up getting more group participation points then either of your group members! LOL! Which due to the curve could be the difference of an A and B. CAUSE THIS CLASS IS COMPETITIVE AF. The worse others score, the better your grade is! How FUN. :( Makes me sad that this class even inspired such a thought in my head- and no I didn't do this to my group mates.

This class was absolutely horrible in the sense that none of the tools given to us including homework assignments, practice quizzes, and lab assignments actually helped us succeed on exams. The formats were tricky and the wording of questions was even trickier. The harshest thing was also that the Professor was not willing to help us and we were only able to fix a test formatting concern after we sent numerous emails to the department since she did not care at all. If you can, TAKE THIS WITH ANOTHER PROFESSOR. Try taking this course with a professor who gives easier exams, cares about their students, and actually teaches. I really don't understand why they make this class so difficult. Many psychology majors need this class to declare majors and some students were not able to pass which is very sad. I was barely on the cusp of not passing but am so glad to be done with this awful class. Many aspects of the class were made to seem like they were beneficial to us but the exams just slapped us in the face. While the professor is okay at explaining topics, the format and system of the class is a nightmare. Also, for all the smart A students, be prepared to receive your first B or lower grade because this class is impossible even for all of us A students. Good luck and make sure to really evaluate the teacher who offers this course as it really is a make it or break it grade for most UCLA majors!

I really loved this class – definitely one of my favorite I've taken for psychobiology pre-reqs at UCLA. Professor Firstenberg is one of the best lecturers in my three years at UCLA – everything is super clear from lectures and exam questions are drawn from them directly. Practice questions are definitely a really good resource towards doing well, as well as taking notes from lectures and reviewing them.

I was terrified going into this class because of all the bad stuff I heard about it. Luckily they redesigned the class to be easier this quarter, and boy it's now one of the EASIEST classes at UCLA. It's now very comparable to Psych100A. Very easy I think a monkey could get an A in this class.

DO NOT LISTEN TO THE BAD REVIEWS!! I was really scared to take this class because it's notorious for being one of the hardest classes for Psych majors, but this is not the case anymore! The department recently changed the curriculum so that the class is easier now! The class consists of:
Lec-240 points (2 exams)
Lab-150 points ( some completion, some accuracy)
ALM - 40 points (completion)
The first midterm was almost exactly like the practice exams. All I did to study for the test was do all the practice exams she gave us. I also timed myself while taking the practice exams in order to prepare for the real exam. She gives a good amount of time for the exams and I usually finish early. The exam is 40 questions and you are given 150 minutes to complete it. Although there were formatting issues with the first Midterm, this was just for 1 question. For the first exam I got 117/120. Though we were online, she mentioned that even if we were in person, the test would still be online! The final was also very similar to the practice exams she gave and I also got a 117/120 for the final. The questions on both exams are that there is a research scenario and you have to answer questions about it. So the questions aren't memorizing definitions, but more like applying concepts. Literally all I did was watch the lecture video and take the practice exams to prepared for both the final and the midterm. Professor Firstenberg is very good at explaining hard concepts and the TAs are amazing at further explaining concepts and applying them to scenarios. The class workload was the lightest I've ever had. We had 1 lecture a week that was always under 2 hours. We also had weekly optional lab. I never went to lab, but they did assignments that were similar to the assignments that we turned in. Some of the labs were graded for completion and others were graded for accuracy. For the labs graded for accuracy, make sure to explain literally everything you can think of. I got A's on all of the labs by doing this. These labs are graded very very harshly so make sure to ask your TA for help if you need it. The ALM portion of the class were assignments that were graded on completion. They usually took less than an hour to complete and were very similar to the test questions. The TAs went over ALMs and broke down how to do them in videos. Please watch their videos as these are the strategies that I used during both tests that were very helpful! The one challenging aspect of this class was that the tests had some confusing answer choices, such as all of the above or only a and b etc. The most useful tool for answering the test questions is by process of elimination. I literally wrote down why it can't be a certain answer choice for every single problem for the practice exams. This helps so much in solidifying concepts! Overall I really enjoyed this class and I definitly recommend Firstenberg to anyone that has to take psych 100B!!

I really think she's one of the best lecturers I have ever had in college. However, her tests were incredibly difficult compared to the practice materials provided. They are literally intended to trick you, but please don't get discouraged!