Dr. I was an incredible professor and lecturer. While I already had some interest in behavioral neuroscience as a whole, this class has opened me up to a vested interest in addiction science. The lecture topics are extremely engaging, and the selected research papers are extremely relevant to the course and interesting. Is this class easy? No, it requires a lot of time studying and drawing pathways to completely master and understand the material. With that being said, Dr. I sets you up for success with her detailed slides and is very willing to meet outside of her schedules office hours. I found that my critical thinking skills and question asking abilities have greatly improved because of the way this class has been taught. Definitely one of my favorite classes here at UCLA!

Overall, one of my least favorite professors. I took this class during a hybrid quarter (due to COVID), and she was very disorganized with lecture uploads and wouldn’t upload them on a schedule or even check to see if they’re current. A lot were obviously from past quarters and had information that was no longer relevant, which felt like lazy teaching to me.
Your grade is comprised of a term paper and a free response final, each worth 50% of your total. The term paper was not that bad, but her rubric is very vague; even if you clarify what you should include in your paper with her, expect tough grading and points taken off arbitrarily without an explanation and a refusal to regrade. For the final, you have a week, but it is very time consuming and not straight-forward. Again, expect tougher-than-necessary grading.
However, what I liked least about this class is how the professor would be very hard to get in contact with and blatantly ignore emails. If you are unable to complete an assignment due to illness, don’t expect her to be accommodating or even respond to your worries; she only responds to emails asking a question about the class.
TLDR: The class material is interesting, but the professor’s lack of caring makes this class one of my least favorites. Find a different professor for PSYCH119A.

This class could probably be really interesting, but the lack of guidance from Professor Izquierdo made it really tricky. In the summer, her grades were based on 50% midterm and 50% final, both multiple choice exams. The midterm was only 25 questions, so each question essentially was a full 2% of your grade. The questions weren't unbelievably hard or anything, and they were all somewhat covered in the powerpoints, but they were very ambiguous and tricky. For instance, answer choice A would have something, and then answer choice C would be "answer choice A+something else" and both of those would seem valid. But it's so tricky to decide between one or the other, and it feels like there's justification to go either way, so it was really frustrating that it would be a whole 2% of your grade if you chose the wrong one, even if it was somewhat correct. Since we took this online, it was open note, and we got a sufficient amount of time, but I truly don't think studying would help at all. It honestly just felt like a guessing game about what Dr. Izquierdo wanted. And if you messed up on her guessing game a couple of times, your grade basically tanks. She does offer a curve at the end, but it still feels like you're not in control of the end result – it's just a matter of luck on what you end up choosing on multiple choice. I felt like I never got a chance to redeem myself after being stuck on a few questions and having my grade knocked down from that. She's also extremely cold and unhelpful in office hours, like she won't go out of her way to help you or guide you to do better in the class. I don't think she took our concerns into account much. I personally think even if you study a lot and make an effort, that doesn't pay off in this class. It really just comes down to which decisions you make on the ambiguous, tricky answer choices, and if you go one way, you'll get a good grade. If you go the other way and get a few wrong even though you understand the material, you've basically lost all chances of getting an A in this class. Content wise, it's basically about NT signaling and different drugs.

So this is my first BruinWalk review. I think BruinWalk is very misleading IMO because you have a lot of people on the extremes who don't necessarily narrate an accurate description of the average student. I am a 4th year and one of the only Black women in my major. I read the reviews for this class and they were positive so I enrolled. I was at the point of my collegiate career where I couldn't withstand anymore "stereotypical" pre-med classes, where the students and teaching style was built on survival of the fittest. That had been my whole UCLA experience being that there's less than 1% Black STEM folk.

First the testing style:
She treats you like an adult and I love it. It's 50% term paper and 50% final exam. The term paper can be on anything you like that is either focused on the how drugs affect the brain/behavior, the effects of a psychotropic drug, and there is one more category. I choose the effect of marijuana on anxiety, which is so relevant because how many people think that smoking a joint has no implications - WRONG! I learned a lot by doing this paper. I kept my writing very organized and didn't interweave topics. You have to talk about animal and human models which is pretty dope.

The final exam is culmative - SO TAKE GOOD NOTES. I think in many classes is hard to build rapport with a professor but going to her office hours is really relaxed and she will answer any questions. I always was afraid of professors so I just choose to always skip them, but I had a wonderful experience in this class that definitely taught me the importance of going to office hours. There is this myth that Professor are so indulged in their research that they won't help you. I will challenge that and say that students are fearful to build relationship with the professor because of the dialogue us students exchange with each other.

As for the professor the class is doable - you can get an A/B if you put in the work. She sets it up for you to be successful if you want to be. She even gives you a study guide for the final that helps you adequately prepare.

This course won't be offered winter 2018, so make sure to take it Winter 2019! Amazing class and professor. It truly analyzes the intersection between psychology, neuroscience, and pharmacology.

I think that she's a great lecturer, very clear, very knowledgable but it is clear as day that she only likes a couple of people in the class and its people who keep asking questions. considering that a lot of people do not feel comfortable asking questions out loud, i think it automatically puts you at a disadvantage. she also doesnt make grade boundaries clear which is funny to me because i used to think 93% was an A but apparently to be on the border, you need to have a 93%+? however, the class was fun and i think that although she's really smart and a good professor, she's really rude and non-understanding and with upper divs i would rather have a professor who genuinely wants me to learn and wants the best for their students and i dont think that was her

I really liked this class. It focuses a lot on research and the methods on neuropsychopharmacology in the first half before talking about the disorders they pertain to in the second half. Dr. Izquierdo is really willing to explain concepts in office hours. The class is structured so half your grade is based on a paper and half on the final. Definitely make sure to read the prompt and ask any questions to clarify structure. For the final you will be given a midterm study guide given after the paper is due. Do it as soon as possible, so you can get any questions answered (the questions will be on the final). The final exam study guide will be given around a week before the final so plan your time wisely and practice the questions. The highlight in terms of topics has to be chemogenetics which is an interesting way of approaching learning more about the brain.

I have to say this class is by far my favorite upper-div course I've taken at UCLA, and I actually don't find the workload heavy. The lecture topics were engaging, and the readings assigned were interesting as well. Professor Izquierdo explained the concepts very clearly and was willing to answer all kinds of questions both in class and during her office hours. For the paper, I think as long as you start early there shouldn't be any problem. The final exam was extremely fair. All questions were from the study guide she provided a week before. So if there are any questions from the study guide that you're not sure of, just make sure to go to her office hour before the exam. Overall, I highly recommend this class.

I took this course as an upper division elective for psychobiology and it was one of my favorite classes at UCLA. The course is not necessarily an easy A but if you go to class and take decent notes it is definitely doable. I was a senior when I took this class and in comparison to my pre-med requirements like the chemistry and physics series, this class was not bad at all.

Your grade is determined by a 50% exam and 50% research paper. Since you are only graded on these 2 assignments, you have to keep up with the course material. The exam was fair. She actually provided us with a study guide that contained a good amount of the questions that were on the exam. Since all the questions were free-response, it was helpful to focus on understanding the big-picture concepts rather than memorizing the details of every slide. She explicitly stated specific details that we had to know so there weren't any curve balls. As for the paper, you are allowed to write about practically any topic you are interested in as long as you follow the basic guidelines. I thought her grading was relatively generous overall.

I had professor Izquierdo for Psych 119A and for a module in Psych 116. She was very passionate and knowledgeable about the course material. She tried her best to simplify and explain complicated topics. She always asked the class questions which allowed me to engage with and retain the course material. She was very approachable and her office hours were perfect times to clarify any topics we were unclear of. You could tell she wanted her students to succeed and even offered extra credit in the final exam for attending seminars relevant to the course.

Overall, this was a very interesting course with a great professor. I highly recommend this class to anyone interested in the treatment of psychological/neurological disorders.

The reviews on Bruin Walk are not consistent in my opinion.
I am a senior with a 3.6 GPA, 4.0 GPA in my major. This class has a very heavy work load. Your grade is basically 50% paper and 50% final. the final is all write out. the paper wasn't too bad. but you have literally 15 lectures worth of brain regions and neurotransmitters to memorize for the final. and its all write out. and she goes through her slides so quickly with so many details that are not in her lecture slides. She always goes over time. She rushes when she realizes she's running out of time. She's generous in that she gives you a study guide, but not all of her questions are from the study guide.
Its a lot of material, and not necessarily material that you have learned or heard of before (unless youre like a pharmacy tech).
Nonetheless, its still a very interesting class. She wants you to learn. She's always welcoming in office hours. but you really have to work for your grade

I'm very happy I took this course. It has given me a much more holistic view of psychology and a great introduction to pharmacology. Professor Izquierdo has an impressive knowledge and teaches her stuff in a way that makes this difficult subject easier to understand. Being more use to psychology from a social science perspective this course is def. not easy but totally worth the work. I would highly recommend the course to students, especially the ones interesting in Psychiatry/Clinical Psychology/treatment/pathology.