This class is not nearly as hard as the reviews make it seem!! I took it Winter 2021 (online) and just finished the final and got a 108%. Although the lectures contain a lot of information, I HIGHLY recommend typing up very thorough notes. Then, for the quizzes, midterm, and final, you can just search through your notes and find all of the answers easily! Seriously not bad and Professor Adhikari does not deserve this low of a rating!

This class was perhaps one of the most challenging class because there are a lot of materials to cover in such a short time, constant weekly quizzes during the discussion section, iclicker quizzes, and so on. However, what I found most challenging was understanding the lecture. He speaks too fast and seemed to have problem with mic so it was extremely hard to hear and understand his lectures. I was hoping I would get used to it after few week, but it was still extremely hard throughout the course. I never had any problems listening and understanding lectures in UCLA so far which sucked. Adding on the location of the classroom was near frequent construction which exacerbated this problem. Probably one of my worst lecture experience. I would have personally opted out to not go to lecture and just study on my own if it wasn't for iclicker. I often had to relearn lecture material and supplement with other sources because I would not be fully learning and understanding the lecture material due to that issue. I personally benefited more from discussion session with quiz and answer review than lectures. There was only 1 final exam and other grades depend on iclicker and discussion section grade (participation and quiz grade). Although professor made final exam optional as Covid 19 was declared pandemic and final had to be administered online, there was no flexibility in grading scheme so it was either taking grade you currently have or take final and risk getting worse grade. I understand professor's choice of rigid grading scheme in regard to fairness, but I would have appreciated more flexibility and empathy as it was extremely difficult time for students to focus on studying for final in the tough time. I do appreciate that final was open book and notes, but the I personally found final to be extremely difficult even though it was open book and notes. Also, I personally wish professor would have given more flexibility on final (like completing it in 24 hour window like a lot of online final), but it was during the fixed window time frame of Tuesday 8am. Overall I think he is average professor, but I personally did not enjoy the lectures due to a lot of mixed issues.

Do Not take this class if you need a high GPA. I got lucky with the coronavirus and that was the only reason I pulled an A. If I would have had to take the final, I would have received a C+. There is an absurd amount of information expected to be learned. No midterm, one final. 7 quizzes. Do not take this class if you don't have to.

Not as bad as everybody says

Sigh. This was the most disappointing class I've taken as an undergraduate. If the material wasn't difficult enough, powerpoint slides are dense, and we went through about 100 slides every week. There are weekly quizzes on these hundreds of slides, worth a big portion of your grade. The final exam, even considering it was open note/open book due to this quarter's circumstances, was nearly impossible. Finally, participation counts for a huge chunk of your grade, and even if you miss one clicker, you lose 2% of your grade.

The professors are nice, but are not engaging lecturers whatsoever. I'm glad I've passed, but really do wish this class was taught in a way that it is, at the very least, interesting. Try to avoid it

The coronavirus saved my grade by making my final optional. This way, 25% of my grade came from attendance, which will not happen for anyone reading this. It was fabulous. How did I get a B-? The world may never know!! My quiz grades were awful. I gave up on studying for them because my TA wrote the HARDEST questions imaginable and even when she was wrong, and we showed her in the slides she was wrong, she insisted she was right. So I lost so many points because the quizzes are made by each TA and are of different difficulty levels. My friend's class got free points just because they didn't like the wording of questions, and here I was struggling to read my questions with no help whatsoever. I lost points on a clicker question because he put it on the second slide and decided to start class a little early that day. I was literally 3 minutes late (coming from the other side of campus) so I missed it. The professors were not helpful at all. My TA eventually gave us back 3 points on different quizzes, but not for my grades! I told her and she fought me on it, so I emailed the professors and they. did. nothing. This class was basically the TA's running it themselves. Plus, this guy doesn't know how to talk into a microphone, so if you have hearing troubles like me, good fkn luck hearing anything. Basically, don't take this class with Adhikari or Izquierdo-Elder

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 Avi refused to consider 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.

I don't know what this class was like pre-pandemic, but I found it to be very enjoyable. The professor is very passionate about the material he lectures on and it shows in the lectures. I don't think he deserves these bad ratings. Yes, there is a lot of information to learn in this class but I think it's an overall challenging class no matter who is teaching it. For us, it was open note exams so it really was not that bad. You just need to dedicate time to learning the material. I personally think he is a great professor and very helpful.

This is my first ever bruinwalk review, but I felt like I needed to say something, because I had a bunch of friends not take this required course cuz of the prof and his bruinwalk rating! I was also SO scared to take this class due to its reputation, so I want to ease your fears if that’s how you’re feeling!

Given this is under COVID circumstances, in which we were allowed to use our notes and obviously things are different on a virtual platform!

The bad...
I found the timed nature and not being able to go back to questions once you answered them challenging! Also, I personally am not a fan of my whole grade being made up of quizzes and exams as I’m not the best test taker and often felt rushed! The quizzes were rough (but he did drop two of the lowest scores), the midterm was also tough and weirdly worded, but the final was very similar (with more straightforward questions). The material is quite dense and it honestly feels like there’s too much that you need to know from all the pathways to the differences between mechanisms and brain regions!

The good!
He gave four extra credit problems on the final that helped boost your grade if you needed which definitely gave me hope!! Our PLF was absolutely amazing and I found her midterm and final review session and weekly worksheets instrumental to condensing the material and ensuring I had the basic concepts down! At the end of the day, I genuinely enjoyed the content and really loved the material! I found it so interesting and engaging and loved sharing some fun neuroscience facts with my friends!

Takeaway
Yes, the grading was quite stressful, but the prof was very helpful in the end by providing the extra credit q’s and also apparently he is rounding up final grades! If you take extensive notes and keep up with the material (which kind of helps with the weekly quizzes), you should definitely be good to go!! Just believe in yourself and know that you are totally capable of doing well in this class as long as you put in the work!

i never write reviews (I’m a senior and this is my first one lol) but HAD to for adi! Tbh i found 115 easier than my psychobio electives and it was even more interesting. He gives practice exams before every midterm and final that are pretty representative of the actual thing. The only problem is that tests/quizzes were made so that u cant go back once u finish a question. Quizzes were also worth kind of a lot (each question is 1%) but tbh he drops 2 of the 7.

Take 115 with this dude! He even has questions on Star Wars and Harry Potter. He super approachable at OH too. ofc I get it may have been diff pre-pandemic but tbh he’s not at all bad and if anything, this is one of the best classes I’ve taken/learned the most in since COVID.