Despite doing averagely on 2 out of 3 of her exams and her weekly quizzes, I would avoid taking her. However, it is not impossible to do well. Her lectures are organized well. She is not a good lecturer, but it does not matter. Her exams (will be taken with Respondus) are 1/3 conceptual understanding and 2/3 MEMORIZING. She does not design them to be that difficult. Advice for doing well for those who have no choice but to take her is to read or at least skim through the book and to really not get behind with the lectures. Rewatching them over and over again would also be helpful. Midterm 2 was the most difficult because it was a lot of information. Right now is a difficult and unusual time for me and everybody else. We all have reasons to not do as well, but Pamela expects us to still function normally. Either way, we cannot do anything about this. There was 3% of extra credit and a very small curve towards with final grades, regardless.

AVOID KENNEDY AT ALL COSTS.

I didn't have as much of a struggle as other people did with this class during COVID, but I will list a few positives:

-she does the 2% SONA extra credit
-she dropped one of our discussion section quizzes in addition to the two dropped on the syllabus
-gave us the choice to change how our tests were weighed (30%-30%-15% vs 25%-25%-25%)

The class is entirely multiple choice exam based so there isn't as much of a need to participate, but going to office hours to clarify concepts helps a LOT since sometimes she glosses over things in lecture. Also, if Maggie ever teaches as a TA for this class again, highly recommend you pick them. If you're pre-med, try to study for this class like the MCAT. Flashcards all the way and maybe flow charts for some of the systems and pathways. Overall, tough class, but its a lot easier with study methods that test memorization and office hour clarifications.

Course material:
I took this class concurrently with Psych 100B, and 115 was definitely the harder of the two for me. The material was pretty interesting IMO, but there was just a lot of dense information in what felt like a relatively short period of time. Fortunately, Dr. Kennedy doesn’t assess anything in the book that hadn’t been covered in her lecture slides, so I basically never opened the textbook and did fine in the class. Unfortunately, however, Dr. Kennedy’s lecture slides are pretty obviously outdated (some of them are even missing/contain incorrect information) so make sure you pay close attention to her lectures and/or clarify things in her OHs.

Quizzes/Exams:
In the quarter I took this class, there were 8 discussion sections, each worth up to 7 points (1pt for participation + 6 M/C question quiz), but only the 6 highest discussion section scores counted towards your overall grade. As much as I hated being quizzed every week, it was effective in keeping me on-schedule with the material. In addition, the class was split up into 3 parts (~3 weeks each) with a non-cumulative, ~32 M/C question exam at the end of each part. She also offered 2% EC for SONA and course evals.

The unfortunately thing about the M/C exams was that they were all administered through Respondus and were all “sequential”, meaning you could not go back to previous questions once you clicked “next question”. Also, some of the exam questions were a bit tricky. Personally, this combination made these exams extremely stressful for me, but as long as you are really familiar with the nuances of the material, you should be fine.

Grading scheme:
25% Discussion (your 6 best discussion scores)
25% each exam (midterm 1, midterm 2, final)
* Dr. Kennedy later added a options to weigh each exam slightly more or less than 25% if you wanted

Professor:
I only had a few encounters with the professor throughout the quarter, but she was always perfectly fine to me and to the other students I heard her speak with. She was admittedly a bit rigid about the whole sequential exam situation despite a lot of students complaining, but I thought it was pretty generous of her to let us choose to weigh certain exams more than others towards the end of the quarter. I thought her lectures were manageable, and she was able to effectively explain all of the important contents in the class.

Overall:
Personally, I didn’t feel like this class was nearly as bad as some of the reviews made it out to seem. The exams were a bit of a pain and there was a lot to learn in just ten weeks, but I thought the material was pretty interesting, and there were no other assignments other than showing up to discussions and exams (at least, during COVID). Apparently, some of the other Psych 115 professors aren’t the best, so if you have to choose between taking this class with Kennedy or waiting for a future quarter, I’d say just go for it.

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Do not take this class with Dr. Kennedy. Coming into this course, I did not think it would be too bad as I had already taken Psych 15 (which had some neuroscience) and AP BIO back in high school, but Kennedy failed to realize this was an INTRODUCTORY neuroscience class and expected everyone to understand the course without even bothering to build a foundation first. She talked about her own research during the lectures too- while its all very interesting, she should have focused more on doing her job of teaching. She posted video recordings of her talking over the powerpoint and said everything on the slides could be tested, even things that were mentioned just once throughout the entire quarter. She was rude, condescending, and refused to listen to students, even though we all sent emails asking her to at least reconsider the testing format, which did not let you go back to old answers and used Respondus. I could look past her being a bad teacher, as most researchers focus more on their own research and are forced to teach by the school, but her attitude and refusal to help her own students made this class unbearable.

This class felt like the culmination of other classes I've taken in the past that have included anatomy and a similar bio-psych class, therefore, I found it to be a refresher course. As a result, I didn't put in much effort into studying, never went to class, and didn't pay attention during the mandatory section. Harvey was my TA and he was great (but I don't think that each TA wrote their own separate quiz questions for their own sections because that would not be congruent/fair). He at least reminded students that certain questions would be asked. My issue was that I didn't feel as though I could learn much from Kennedy's class. You can attribute it to my having prior knowledge of the fundamentals of the class, or to how I personally thought she taught the class. I felt confident due to thevfact that her lectures simply seemed to delineate processes, structures and their functions. It's just a lot of material to keep straight in your head; there is nothing conceptually difficult about the class.

I liked Psych 115. If you took 100B last quarter, you know which TA to look forward to. Be like Mike.

This class is definitely not an easy one. But it's honestly not that bad. You just have to put in the effort for the class. There is no curve which isn't that great. Make sure to keep up with the notes of the class for the quizzes because those quizzes count towards your grade and are a big portion. There are two exams which are the midterm and final. She podcasts her lectures which is good. I would go to lecture and also listen to the podcast again and rewrite my notes. I know, a lottttttt of work. But, it paid off. I have all my notes, very detailed, basically every word she said during lecture. I took my notes in powerpoint form. Just make sure to study the notes well and you'll get a good grade! My email is maryblue289@gmail.com.

As for class material, it’s a lot but don’t get me wrong, the material is very organized so it makes it easier to study. She has a good system going on.