Do yourself a favor and TAKE THIS CLASS!!

THIS IS THE BEST CLASS I'VE EVER TAKEN SO FAR AT UCLA. Omg I don't even know where to begin. Professor Karney is one of the most enthusiastic professors I've ever had; he's clearly passionate about teaching this course and is extremely knowledgable on intimate relationships. I sort of just randomly decided to take this class as one of my electives for the psych major and I'm so glad that I did. I believe that the things I learned will stay with me for the rest of my life. I may not remember all the nitty gritty details of psychological studies or all the proper vocabulary words, but the overarching concepts about being responsive, validating, caring for, and understanding others will change the way I think, not only about intimate relationships, but all types of relationships!

Lectures: lectures are AMAZING. I'm not even kidding I would genuinely be so excited to go to class and just learn! We learned everything from what makes certain relationships more vulnerable than others, how to strengthen intimacy and promote closeness, what make sex satisfying, intimate partner violence, the effects of stress on intimacy, hook-up culture, how to properly resolve conflicts and stop negative reciprocity. And Professor Karney is so enthusiastic about everything. He really encourages audience participation and goes as far as to remember your name in a lecture hall of hundreds of students if you participate in class. And he's funnyyyyyy too.

Textbook reading: reading the textbook is extremely important and is crucial if you want to do well in this course. The textbook is long. By the end of the course i literally read the entire 500+ pages of the book, but honestly the material was so interesting and engaging I didn't even mind. The textbook is very well written (Karney is a co-author!) and the examples they used were so heartwarming, some of them literally made me tear up.

Test: there is one midterm and one final, both 50 MC questions. YOU MUST STUDY TO DO WELL. I would read the textbook just a bunch and even listen to the audiobook on the way to class before tests and I did really well. I think I got 48/50 on my first one and I am still waiting for the final score to come out. They are definitely doable you just need to know the material. We also have a short paper that was pretty straightforward which I got 100% on.

Office hours: Go to his office hours!!! I would go even if I didn't have questions just to hear other people's conversations and they were so interesting to hear. Sometimes I forget that we go to UCLA and are getting taught by some of the leading researchers/educators in their fields so def take advantage of it!

The material of this class is super interesting but the tests are definitely difficult. There is so much material covered and he does pull references to random sections of the textbook in both tests. he used bruincast which was nice, and I found it easy to get the important information while watching at 2x speed. he really tries to get to know students that participate in class, but attendance isn't necessary. in addition to the two midterms, there is a short paper where we talk about the application of two course concepts. the paper was easy and graded leniently; I think almost everyone got a 100. overall interesting, but only three things make up your grade which isn't a lot.

(137C) Karney is an amazing teacher. He is very passionate about his work. I got a B+ in his class. I would suggest to review your notes (a lot), watch the podcast more than once, and read (but reading should not take your time away from reviewing). He wrote the book and should go over the most important stuff in class. He does throw a few things from the book but, most of the test material is from lecture. I highly recommend this class.

Karney is the best. He is the most entertaining lecturer I have ever experienced. His classes do require work, in order to get an A it is necessary to read the ENTIRE textbook. It's worth it though, the subject and the professor are both awesome.