DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS!

While the professor is a nice guy, that is about all the positives I have to say about this course. First off, the entire course is majority test-based so your grade relies on the two quizzes and midterm and final almost entirely. So if you have a bad day, you will not get an A. Secondly, the professor is very hard to understand. Unfortunately, this is due to a strong language barrier that makes the 2-hour lectures hard to bear. Most students do not even show up to class after week 2 even though classes are not recorded. This barrier also makes the lectures monotonous as he gets caught up in his own train of thought constantly. He also cant answer questions very well and makes you feel dumb for asking them when students would during class. Third, The course has a $25 course reader that has all the info that most people just read along with his slides and skip lecture. The reader is never directly required but acts as basically a supplemental textbook if you need it. Fourth, almost 6 lectures are devoted to student presentations where you and a partner must prepare a 10 slide powerpoint presentation on a research paper that you have to read assigned by the professor. You must give a 20 minute presentation on the paper and some students do it before the midterm and others before the final. Unfortunately, these take up about a 1/3 of the actual lectures and are kind of a waste of time though somewhat interesting.

Overall, I do not recommend this course at all. Take any other neuro or physiology class if you can! The structure is awful, grading harsh, and professor hard to understand and hard to ask questions to. You can honestly get the info of this course from any other neuro or endocrinology course and I cannot strongly recommend more to do so instead of suffer through the 2 hours of confusion this class will bring you twice a week.

I... basically read the textbook and taught myself everything in this class on my own and that's how I did well. The professor is not very clear and the slides can go on tangents. However, their exams are very straightforward and trust me, you don't need to study as in-depth as the textbook goes or maybe as in-depth as you think you need to. There was one partner presentation which gave me a lot of anxiety because its 5 whole minutes per person, but It was all about explaining some figures from a research article and the grading is very lenient. We also had a few guest lecturers.
This class definitely wasn't my first choice bc I'm not into neuroscience or neural pathways. To do well I'd recommend reading the textbook sections beforehand (even skimming and taking light notes) and then making concept maps on your own as you prep for the midterm and final (which was non-cumulative).

Dr. Gomez has an accent and talks pretty slowly, but when you speed up the lecture to 1.5x his explanations make more sense because its easier to follow along at this pace instead of when its really slow. I only used the slides and lecture to study, and took this class during COVID, where there were 2 quizzes (10%) each, midterm and final (30%) each, and a group presentation (20%). The examinations were all open note free response questions and timed on CCLE, but if you take good notes on the slides and lectures, then you will be just fine. I thought it would be my hardest class of the quarter, but it ended up being my easiest class of the quarter (I took this class with two other PhySci upper divs)

This class started out bad because the professor didn't think he needed to accommodate any international studies or post any lectures slides.. like what?? The first quiz came around and he gave us 15 minutes to do something that required maybe 25 minutes!! The class complained and this guy turned the whole course around. When the midterm came around, he gave us enough time AND it was pretty fair. The final also wasn't too bad. There are two quizzes, two tests (not cumulative), and a presentation. The grading was also super lenient for us!! I actually liked this course because the material was amazing. But be warned, most of this class is almost identical to Phy Sci 107 and 111B, which means that the neuroscience students struggled a lot with the material. Phy Sci 111B carried me through this course. I honestly don't think neuro should be allowed to take it; it was a bit unfair how much of an advantage phy sci was at compared to neuro.

This class is so boring. No hate but the prof speaks very slowly and with a strong accent. He just reads off the slides for an hour and a half and barely elaborates on the material. The textbook will be your best friend. If all the students from the previous reviews thought this class was bad, imagine how bad it is as an online class LOL

This class is okay. An A is very easy to achieve but the professor is very very, and I mean VERY boring. If you've had Piri for NS 101A, just know that Piri is a ton better than him and probably more enthusiastic. The averages on the midterms are around 90%, its non-cumulative, and the course reader is super dense. I'm not sure if I would recommend. An hour per week studying for this class earned me an A, but I already knew a solid chunk of it from neuro classes

I agree with many of the reviews below; the material is pretty fascinating, but wow is this professor dull. His voice has the power to put anyone to sleep, and since this class was right after lunch it was easy to just fall asleep and take a nap. He had a few guest lecturers that were a lot more engaging and specialized in their topics, so definitely show up for those.

While studying for the final (noncumulative btw) I realized that I didn't really have to go to lecture. If you look at his powerpoints, then read the corresponding material in the course reader, then review the powerpoints again, you should be pretty set. Everything he actually said in lecture was either on the powerpoint, in the course reader, or wasn't relevant or tested on. Most people I know made diagrams of the pathways/circuits for things based on diagrams in the powerpoints/course reader, since that is primarily what he tests you on. His quizzes have similar questions to his tests and neither were too difficult. The class is out of 100 points to it's easy to keep track of how well you're doing in the class. Our quiz averages were around 80% and our midterm average was around 90%.

For the presentations, he hardly wrote anything down during them. He had the list in front of him with everybody's name/article, but I think I saw him write something down twice during the entire quarter. I don't know if the grading is done for the powerpoint material itself, or if it's participation points, or what since we never got our scores back, but I'd guess that as long as you stick close to the time limit and follow the guideline he posts for them, you'll be fine. He does ask test questions based on the presentation material so you do have to take notes on them.

Overall the class was pretty doable, but don't expect to learn the material just by going to lecture and listening to the professor. I took this class as an elective for neuroscience and thought the information was worth knowing, so I think I'd recommend it.

I agree mostly with the previous reviews. The class seems very interesting and easy, but the professor really sucks the fun out of it. He is extremely monotoned, has a thick accent, and just reads off the ppt slides. He looks for very specific answers in his quizzes/midterm/final. He does not look like he is happy to be there and seems like he is really disappointed in his students all the time lol.

One nice thing about the class is that it is curved. It's hard to figure out what grade you will end up with, because it took him forever to grade our presentations (which we never found out the grades for). I just know that I ended up with a pretty decent grade even though I was expecting to barely pass.

I also did an honors contract with him and got an A. He is pretty lenient on grading, and is more concerned about your interest in the topic than the paper itself.

Overall, I would recommend the class because the material is useful for medical school and other health professions. But if you want to really learn you should learn more on your own, because you will not get much out of his lectures.