The professor is a great lecturer and tries to make the material as entertaining as possible. However, unless you enjoy neuroscience, it's likely that you won't find this class too interesting. Since the class was bruincasted and the lecture slides were available online, not that many people showed up to class. Personally, I found the material extremely boring, but not particularly hard to learn. If you actually attend lecture, takes notes, and study the notes and lectures slides, it shouldn't be hard to get an A. The tests are extremely straightforward. They consist of multiple choice, short one-word answer questions, and a couple short responses (1 paragraph). For the tests, you either memorized the material or you didn't, there's very little hard thinking involved.

Homework consisted of some easy (but tedious) coloring pages, but are an easy way to boost your grade. He also offers a small amount of extra credit for doing clicker questions in class. Tests usually had an median of 79-83%.
In conclusion, this is probably a little too much work if you want a super easy GE, but if you are interested in neuroscience, I think this class is worth taking.

Overall I think the class was definitely fair and not too bad for a GE. There is a lot of material to cover and the lectures can feel long sometimes, but Dr. Babiec gives a break in the middle, can sometimes be funny, and is clearly passionate about what he's teaching. As some other people have said there are 4 non-cumulative tests that are weighted equally, so you don't have to worry about cramming for a final or anything, and as long as you study the slides you're good. There's no discussion for the class and some coloring assignments for homework, which can admittedly take a while but are really easy ways to boost your grade. It's a decent class and I definitely felt like I knew what was expected throughout the quarter.

I think that Walter changed the class since last year because the 4 tests now have a mix of multiple choice, very short answer, and short answer. This course is definitely not the easy A that the reviews above mention. There is a lot of material to process and the lectures get pretty boring sometimes. By the end of the quarter, barely half the class showed up on any given day. Overall, I would not recommend anyone to take this class for a GE.

This class was not enjoyable. At all. I took this as a GE because I was interested in learning the basics of the brain but the way this class was structured made it very difficult. Watching lectures on your own time while only having a grade consisting of 4 non cumulative module tests may seem easy but the lectures are SO DENSE. If you do take this class though I suggest writing super detailed notes.

I hope to retain the information I learned in this class, as it is all so applicable and interesting considering how it gives context as to how the body functions.
I took this class during COVID, and all the lectures are recorded. They are ridiculously dense, and you will need to pause every 10 seconds to digest what you just watched.
I got an A by taking notes on OneNote as I watched the videos. The exams are open note, but you won't have a lot of time to look back at them to find the answers.
The best way I can describe this class is that the lectures are way too hard for the easy exams.
You do not need the textbook, don't waste your money.

This is a fat course for only 4 units. I’m a humanities major, & I took this as a GE because I was interested in the brain. I don’t regret taking it, as the information was pretty interesting overall, but being asynchronous was a major blow. The lectures were ridiculously dense, dry, and just blew through information. Like, it took me about 4 hours to thoroughly understand a 30 min video. If you don’t know how to time manage an asynch course, I wouldn’t take this class. Anyway, the 4 tests (no midterm or final, just evenly spaced module tests) were not very difficult if you study enough. In fact, they were pretty easy. It’s just that you don’t know exactly what will be on it since the tests are only 20 questions on massive amounts of information, so you have to study all of it to be adequately prepared. Crash Course and Khan Academy help a lot with the material though, so it’s not impossible to do well in this class. Wouldn’t recommend for a GE you just want to get out of the way, but would recommend if you’re considering neuro or cog sci.

*Note: I took this class online during COVID

TLDR: I would recommend this class, at least in its online format, as an easy GE with low workload.

The course is structured into 4 modules, each with an exam at the end. Your grade is based entirely on these exams, as there is no homework or traditional final (the exam for the last module is during finals week, but is not cumulative).

At the beginning of each module, a few videos were posted that contained all the information for the module. You watch these videos and at your own pace instead of going to scheduled lectures, which I appreciated. These videos were super dense since they totaled only about 1.5 hours per module. Don't let the length of videos fool you; it's still a good idea to start working through the content early since taking notes on such dense information is time consuming. I wouldn't say the videos were particularly interesting, even if the material had the potential to be.

I didn't have much interaction with Professor Babiec due to the online format. He seemed helpful the couple times I went to office hours, but there wasn't much communication outside of that. I didn't find the lack of communication a problem, but I felt slightly disconnected from the course.

Again, there was no homework. There was some recommended reading associated with each module, but I never did it and fared well on the exams anyway, so I would advise against buying the textbook.

Exams were timed multiple choice, although you had a 24 hr period to start them. They were easy enough if you took detailed notes on the videos.

I took this class online, but I’m pretty sure it’s similarly structured to in-person classes. The class is divided into four units. He posts prerecorded videos on CCLE (it’s 4-5 videos per unit) at the beginning of the unit, and you have two or three weeks to watch them before the test. The videos, although short, can be very dense. It sometimes took me over an hour and a half to get through a thirty minute video. The material itself is interesting though and the units and material are organized in a logical manner.

Personally, I never met the professor since the only time you actually get to see him is in his OH and I never went to them. I heard that he was chill, good at explaining, and understanding though.

Your grade is made up of four tests at the end of each of the units. Each test only covers the material for that unit, so there are no cumulative questions. In order of difficulty, I’d say the third test was the hardest of the four, so watch out for that one. Each test is twenty questions and you have thirty minutes to complete them. He gives you a day to take the test, but once you start it, you only have thirty minutes. He also gave extra credit for answering a survey from the department before and after the course.

Overall, though, I feel like this course was dense but interesting and the grading wasn’t too bad. I would definitely take it again!

*** COVID-19 Review ***
Babiec does host a lot of office hours and can be very helpful when you reach out to him. However, do NOT buy the book for this class. It is over $100 and he blatantly says later on that exams do not reference the book, but rather will reference the module videos he supplies.
The content itself was very interesting, but Babiec is very monotonous in delivery and also has moments where he makes it incredibly difficult to understand what he's referring to (big words, although it is manageable when you take a second to understand it).
Exams kinda blindsided me if I'm being honest, I took this class as a GE for an easy A and it was far from it. There are 4 exams 25% each and they definitely get extremely hard and you need to be careful when reading answer choices.

If you're great at memorizing minutiae, this is the class for you. This professor's lectures are very long and boring, and you're better off skipping lecture and just memorizing all his slides a couple days before the exam. He also assigns 6 useless coloring homework assignments (yes, you will need colored pencils for this class) that didn't contribute to my understanding of the material at all. He has four non-cumulative exams that consist of multiple choice, very short answer, and short answer. If you take this class, be warned to memorize EVERYTHING on the slides. On an exam, this professor asked for things like who said that quote on one of the slides and the diameter of a synaptic vesicle. Overall, not the worst GE out there.