The professors (izquierdo and Avi) for this class do not care about you AT ALL. The night before the final they chose to make the exam optional, but were complete unclear about how your grade would work without it. When students emailed them for clarification, they sent out a mass email that they will not be answering emails anymore and to post on the discussion forum, instead of just getting it together and coming up with a grading scheme. They are COMPLETELY disorganized and straight up ignored the discussion forum, so everyone pretty much went into the final blind. I only took the final because I had a borderline A-/A, but instead I got f*cked by these professors. After the final, I emailed them for clarification on the final and i was IGNORED again. These professors are not cut out to teach a lecture as large as this one. They are disorganized and clearly cannot handle it.

Also, they made extra credit based on how well the TA’s remember you, but my TA DIDNT SPEAK FLUENT ENGLISH. I don’t have a stereotypical white name, so of course she didn’t remember it, despite asking her questions several times outside of discussion. I feel that I did not have the same opportunity as my peers to get the same grade. Moral of the story: if you’re not white, don’t plan on getting extra credit.

This class was one of the most problematic courses I've ever taken. There is a quiz every week, and depending on your TA you will either have simple definition quizzes or incredibly complex, not worth studying for quizzes like myself. The professors do not care about the discrepancies and ignored all emails and discussion posts asking if the quizzes would be curved within TA's.

Additionally, the manner in which the professors handled the cancellation of classes was heartless. Some of the students took the quiz Week 10 and others didn't due to the remote classes, so they removed the quiz grade from students who had taken it. I received my best grade on that quiz and pleaded for some compromise to include the quiz grade, and the other professor teaching this class denied any other option because his solution was "detrimental" - yes, he said detrimental - to the smallest group of students (including myself) as most students had not taken the quiz.

Finally, the professors were incredibly unclear about grading when making the final optional, leaving many students stressed the night before trying to decide whether or not to take the final. The final included information from neither the lectures nor the textbook (which I read every page of) and it took everyone in the class 3 hours.

Overall, Professors Izquierdo and Adhikari do not care about their students or their wellbeing. Avoid this class at all costs.

The amount of work you have to put in this class to answer a mere 10 questions correctly every week is insane. In addition to 40-50 lecture slides twice a week (total of 90 detailed slides), students have to read about topics in depth in the book which consists of about 60 pages a week just to be able to answer some of the tricky quiz questions given out every week. My TA's first language was not English so I often had a tough time understanding what she was saying and the quizzes were often worded in incredibly tricky or vague ways. I got an 81% quiz average and scored one point above the average final grade which was a 76%. With perfect participation I ended up with a solid B. When I talked to other TA's they said their class quiz averages were 70-80%. So how is it that in a class with 421 students that the quiz average is 70-80%, yet the grades are not curved higher than a B if they participate 100% and even score above the class average on the final? It seems to reflect the professor and TA's issues more than the students.

Unlike the other reviews before me, I didn't think this class was super terrible. Like the other reviews, I was part of the Winter 2020 class, which unfortunately had the whole online final situation.

What the other reviews are missing, though, is that they previously required the use of Respondus on the exam. They later changed it to an open-book exam without the use of monitoring software. Then, the evening before the exam, they chose to make the final optional and warned students that their grade would be hurt should their final grade be low. I think that this was a fair warning, and that they were nice to make the final optional (I had other classes that made us use Respondus). In addition, I am confident that the exam would have been just as difficult in-class and online with Respondus, so I am actually thankful they allowed us to use our books on the final. I wonder if the other reviews would have been this negative if the course finished normally.

I do completely agree though that their communication was terrible. I was part of the group of students who emailed them the evening they made the final optional, and was disappointed to know that they weren't going to explain how the final would be graded before we took it. The final was difficult and I wasn't able to look up some answers, so that sucked too. But, I am mainly comparing the situation we had to if the class finished normally, and I am sure we had it easier this quarter if anything.

The average grade was curved to a 85% (a flat B). The grade distribution was released by Prof. Izquierdo and Adhikari, and the most frequent grade was an A (not an A-). From a quick eyeball, it looks like around 30% of people got a flat A. I don't think that is unreasonable at all for this course. The distribution was better than Schein's and the previous distribution for Prof. Izquierdo.

I am selling the PDF Version of the textbook required for this class (Behavioral Neuroscience, 8th Edition) for $5. Hit me up if interested and I can send it over to you - **********.

[redacted]

Psych 115 is a lot of material to study, but very interesting. I had schism who teaches the lecture as he is very fair and knowledgeable about the subjects. If you are interested in the pdf copy of Behavioral Neuroscience 8th edition for cheap, text me at **********.

First and most important, this isn't an easy class. As mentioned below, the professor cut several slides due to the duration of a Summer class. Nevertheless, I think we learned the most relevant aspects of Behavioral Neuroscience. Attendance matters (it's 30 points), you get these points just by going to class and answering short questions in a piece of paper. Discussion is 60 points based solely on your performance in 6 tough quizzes that worth 10 points each, BUT there are only 5 questions (2 points each)... It's a little bit arbitrary, in my opinion. I think it would be better to get at least 2 of those 10 points just for going to the discussion. There's no place for error with a grading system like that for the discussion section. The final exam was 110 points for a total of 200 for the whole class. It was fair! She included what she told us she was going to include during the lectures. She really cares for her students and she's willing to have dialogues regarding our concerns about grades. I wasn't able to go to office hours, but I can't wait to take another class with her. It was a VERY challenging class, but everything on the final was fair game.
-My only complain: the arbitrary grading system for quizzes.

I really enjoyed this class with Professor Izquierdo! This was my second time taking 115, which I really wish I would've just waited to take it with her the first time. I took it with Schein the first time, and he's AWFUL!

Anyway, Professor Izquierdo did cut out a lot of the slides as mentioned below, but that's because this was the summer session! Of course she had to trim down material because we have less time to cover material compared to the 10 week quarter.

Unfortunately I was never able to make it to her office hours, but she is welcoming as far as taking questions in class and after lecture. She is clear in explaining the material in class. She also threw in some extra credit questions on the final, which in my opinion was fair game! If you study the material, you'll be fine! I would definitely take another class with Professor Izquierdo.

Ah Professor Izquierdo is a nice lady. I believe she really does want people to succeed, but the organization of the class is terrible. I hated the fact that she would edit/cut slides out whenever she pleases. So it's confusing what material we needed to know and not know. I kid you not every lecture she'll slip in some comments about her pharmacology class that she also teaches. She goes into extreme detail on the slides, which made lectures brutal and long. Yes, it's summer and she's doing her best to squish all that material into 6 weeks, but we literally have ONE FINAL that determines our grade. Imagine. 10 weeks of material. Into 6 weeks. With ONE FINAL. That is CRAZY! I have discussion with Adam, and his quizzes are tough. Pretty sure most of my discussion class is doing poorly. And these quizzes are devastating my grade even more without even have taken the final!!! (insert Simpsons meme of "I'm in danger.")