I honestly never write reviews but this is so necessary. Yes 100b has become much easier than what it was before. The lecture content and class content is really easy in my opinion to understand, but when it comes to the midterm and final its a whole different ballgame. The practice exams and lecture content are not a reflection of what will be asked on the exams. The questions are definitely meant to trick you as much as your TA's and Firstenburg says they aren't. There isn't really a way to prepare yourself for these exams because the practice questions are much easier. The only advice I have is to analyze everything in the scenarios to an extreme before choosing an answer choice. Basically become a pro at reading these scenarios as if you're the researcher doing them. Not being able to go back to the question after answering it also makes the exams even more hard. Overall, exams are hard but the class itself is easy. Curious if other Professors for 100b have easier exam questions similar to the ones on the practice exams. Good luck!

Professor Firstenberg is a great teacher, but this class is just awful. I had 100% in this class until week 5 when we had our first exam (the midterm). My grade dropped significantly after that point and it was too late for me to do much about it besides work as hard as I could on the rest of the lab assignments and the final. There are extra credit opportunities, which if you complete them all, raise your grade by about 1.5%. The one thing that killed me in this class were the tests. I don't feel that they reflected what we learned during lecture and she kept changing the grading scheme throughout the quarter. The labs are rough for no reason. A large portion of the class did poorly on the two large lab assignments in this class and from what I heard and experienced, it wasn't clear why. She absolutely will not curve the class so keep that in mind because with the average midterm grade being a 73 (or around there) you're bound to run into some issues. I wouldn't recommend this class unless you are an absolutely perfect student and dedicate every hour of your day to this class.

Lecture - 240 pt
Lab - 120 pt
ALM - 40 pt
E.C. 9 pt
400 pt total

The instructors for this class could not have been more thorough in their explanations, expectations, and organization. When they redid the PSYCH 100B class, they really went all out. It was incredibly manageable if you put in the time. I didn't do much practice outside of watching the lectures and attentively doing the ALMs and labs. Most labs were completion based but the ones that were graded on accuracy were graded super harshly. I got Cs on those. Even then, doing well on the exams carried my grade. The ALMS were all for completion credit so that was easy points. Overall, this class was well run. Although the concepts were sometimes dense, the course was manageable and full of useful information for research.

I can’t even begin to explain how horrible this class was. I worked my ass off the entire quarter only to end up with a C+. The material is not difficult, but the class setup is horrible. 60% for two exams which have extremely tricky questions. It’s like the exam is testing your test taking skills and not the actual material. Now let’s talk about lab, I had pretty high grades in comparison to everyone in the class averaging about B+/A- range. The TA Jenna Felkey was a strict grader. She’s a great person and she’s really helpful, but in the end she really doesn’t give a shit about you. I got a 71% for participation even though I showed up every single day. The class mean for participation was 74%. I just can’t explain how horrible this class is. The people who got A’s are either extremely smart or extremely lucky because those exams are basically guessing games based on luck. Everything they say about this class is true, but 10 times worse. Too bad it’s required. Firstenberg is trash

Writing this review after having completed the class almost 4 months ago, which should make this review pretty objective.

PROS
- You will learn a ton!
You will literally study your ass off to even pass this class, with that amount of dedication comes a deep understanding of the concepts.

- You will probably become a better writer
Writing papers for this class is like walking on egg shells. These papers- or rather the way the are graded will challenge you to question your writing, and push you to become a better writer.

CONS
- If you have a job your gonna have to quit!
Let me just be super clear on this.... you are not going to be able to get an A in this class if you are working more than say, 8 hrs a week, and a full time student. The more responsibilities you have, family and etc- the tougher this class is going to be.

- This class is uninspiring
To me, this is the biggest con. I'm a transfer student and had already taken research methods at Pasadena City College (yes despite this prior experience I still only managed a C+ in this class!) My experience in research methods at PCC was inspiring, here at UCLA with Firstenberg it was rather uninspiring, difficult, and boring. Which is super disappointing because I know that this material is interesting and important, its just Firstenberg makes it kind of dull.

NOW that I've attempted being super objective I will rattle off a couple random opinions. Feel free to stop reading at this point.
- Professor can be kind of rude.
- Ive heard its better to take during the summer.
- Your asked to rate your 2 group members near the end of the qtr, kind of a crazy idea given that the class is curved!
Let me explain- there is three to a group. You could potentially go to each member individually and say, "hey I think (other group member) kinda sucks, how about we both rate each other super high on the evals and other group member super low?" If you are cunning enough to do this you'd end up getting more group participation points then either of your group members! LOL! Which due to the curve could be the difference of an A and B. CAUSE THIS CLASS IS COMPETITIVE AF. The worse others score, the better your grade is! How FUN. :( Makes me sad that this class even inspired such a thought in my head- and no I didn't do this to my group mates.

Lecture: 60%
Midterm: 30%
Final: 30%
Lab: 40%
Quizzes: 15%
Participation: 20%
Assignments: 65%

The class wasn't too bad, especially considering how awful I thought it would be. The textbook can be found on librarygenesis.com and the workbook (which you do need) is only $12. Professor Firstenberg is a nice lady. She seemed scary at first, but she's really nice and also adds some humor to her lectures. She seems like a really likeable person although I never talked to her personally. There are no slides for the class, so she basically speaks most of the time and usually writes things on the board. I think this is good because it makes you go to class for good notes and also doesn't rush you since she also has to write things down just as you do. My TA was Danielle Currin and I really liked her. She's an easy grader and really nice. I had a friend who took a different TA who said he was pretty bad. Rough grader and made them turn in a lot of different assignments (something Danielle didn't ask for). Would recommend her for sure if at all possible.

Like another reviewer has said, the first couple of weeks of Lab are really easy and laid back, but picks up as soon as groups are formed (randomly). I really liked my group, so I got lucky. It's important to communicate as that's really important. Don't wait to get the assignments done, try to finish early so that everything can be looked over and approved by everyone. Communication is key. Create a group chat right away and get comfortable with each other. There are also quizzes every non-exam week which are fairly easy. Make sure to do your best on them because they are basically free points. Lab isn't too bad, but it is more time consuming especially since you meet up twice a week for 2 hours compared to lecture (once a week for 2 hours).

The lecture exams are fairly tricky but doable. She gives a practice exam (~40 questions) and practice questions (~140) to prepare for each exam. Th wording is tricky so just try to figure out what exactly the question is asking for. There are a lot of "A and B, but not C" type answers so process of elimination is really helpful here.

If you're on Reddit and ever need help, go on there and ask. I'll be there and I'm sure there are others there too who are willing to help with anything.

Yes, the class is labor-intensive. There are a good deal of writing assignments due throughout the quarter, all culminating in a final research paper write-up. Do NOT fall behind and think these papers can be sat on until the last minute. Easily the best approach is to start early and write a section at a time. Details are extremely important and it is critical to make sure you aren't omitting anything.

The material is not nearly as conceptually difficult as the amount of work would indicate. Coming into the class with a general idea of the scientific method and how experiments are conducted will carry you through a bulk of the content. Tests - 50% of your grade - are all conceptually based, meaning that a hypothetical experiment/scenario is presented and you will answer questions about it. Plenty of review material is given to help studying before the exams (midterm and final). The rest of the lecture grade is based off 6 quizzes throughout the quarter.

The other half of the grade is in discussion section, where participation matters. Ask questions, clarify concepts, offer answers, and you will be fine. I cannot speak to any TA except my own, but he was friendly, helpful, and fair in his critiques of my papers. The rubrics for all the papers are specific enough where you can check your work against them pretty faithfully.

Lectures are all prerecorded and posted by the weekend.

god was this class awful. everything is weighted super heavily. exams weighted the most. you do alms every week which are the focus of the exams. that consists of participating in a makeshift study or answering questions. then watching a video explaining it and then writing a review of what you did wrong -- this is for completion credit but genuinely write something not just a sentence.
next is lab, which consists of a proverb that will be used the entire quarter. the lab hw's look easy but if you think you wrote enough you did not. write more detail. learned that the hard way bc it is weighted so heavily. missed one point on a lab and grade dropped 5%. so write, write, write. ask TA to look over it too. some of the labs are for completion, some are graded. lecture was not mandatory but it was boring and honestly was pointless. alms were the bulk of the exams.
ok professor. passionate about her topic just a boring class. would never ever take again.

I would enroll in this class with Fristenberg again if I had to with absolutely no stress. I had been hearing terrible things about 100B up until taking it, but the class was so mellow and manageable. The slides very clearly lay out what you need to know on the midterm/final, and the tests were multiple choice and easy. The class was Bruincasted. The labs built upon the lectures, and perhaps it was just my TA but the labs were graded fairly and we always extremely similar questions in class. The weekly ALM modules felt a little like busy work at times, but were easy points. This was one of my least stressful classes. There was no use of R, unlike 100A (which was sort of a bummer because I was looking forward to a refresher on that), and I do not recall ever doing math. We built upon building an experiment based on the proverb "laughter is the best medicine" throughout the labs up until the final project for the lab. I recommend :)

Hmmmmm... Dr. Firstenberg seems like a great person and is also an engaging lecturer and is very knowledgable about the topic, but unfortunately the material covered in this class was just not my favorite at all. It was pretty boring, but I mean I understand why psychology and a lot of other majors have to take it because it is really important to know about well-conducted experiments. This class, in my opinion, was pretty easy it was just so boring.

OMG also labs are like 2 hours long and are soooo boring. They are not very helpful and are actually optional. I went to them for the first 4 weeks and then I stopped and I don't think it effected my grade or how well I understood the course at all.