Professor Smurda is easy to talk to, friendly, and displays a true curiosity for the burgeoning field of self psychology. I took this class during covid, so the online format probably differs from what the format would have been if in-person. The material we were tested on consisted of readings from Jonathon Brown's "The Self" (which was only about $15 for e-book), lecture slides, and select research articles. We had two exams (a midterm and final), although Professor Smurda allowed us to skip the final and make the midterm count for the entire testing category. The other assignments in the class included weekly piazza posts (pose one question and respond to one of your classmates') and an essay in which we had the choice of applying the principles we learned about to a life experience or designing a research proposal. Overall, I learned a lot from this class and felt comfortable in knowing Professor Smurda was looking out for us students during a difficult quarter. Just be sure to keep up with the material (lectures, readings) and you should be good—it can be deceptively easy to skip a week and then feel overwhelmed. Also, go to office hours. You can get any questions answered and have some fun discussing consciousness!

Honestly thought this would be an easier class due to it's elective nature but man this class was HEAVY. work heavy that is. May have been due to covid but the lectures were so hard to listen to and she talks really fast, I got confused easily, and my notes were 20 pages per class.. She's a nice human but I wouldn't take another class with her. I had so much anxiety in this class and I was taking it to balance two impacted classes. Turns out this was the hardest class I took that quarter.

Interesting material and great lecturer, would take again. 2 exams, higher score weighted 45% and lower score weighted 35%. 20% for section attendance and discussion seeds, which is a paragraph on the readings. You need access to 5 books for discussion, which can be found online. I didn't read them all and you can get by with reading a little from each of the books for the discussion seeds and attending section to understand the books. Other people have concerns about the tests, but I think they were fair, you just have to review your lecture notes and discussion material again to prepare for the test. They give us resources like practice exams and review sessions so you can get an A, along with 2% extra credit for SONA participation and lecture attendance.

I took this during lockdown. I rented the e-version of the textbook for a reasonable price, and I think there was at least one more book she required if memory serves. Professor Smurda's lectures were very interesting to me. Her voice was clear, and the content was clear and pretty transparent. Personally, I am stunned to read some of the reviews here that the readings were too much. I have ADHD, and if a professor is unengaging or boring, I have a lot of trouble being engaged and absorbing the information. But I admit I am probably pretty biased because the topic of this class was of great interest to me. I still maintain that her lectures are clear, as well as her tests. She is extremely accomodating and understanding of her students' struggles. She expressed her preference of engaging with students in a physical classroom, but she still moved from generally requiring students to have their cameras on, to allowing them to be turned off for the sake of connection stability. She made a lot of effort to make sure the internet connection was good on her end, calling her internet company many times and ensuring that everything was fine. When connection on zoom was still an issue, she changed her lectures to pre-recorded instead. She also cancelled finals, recognizing the great impact that the lockdown had on students, as well as the unrest revolving around extreme racial injustice. School stresses me out a ton, and I tend to complain a lot about unfairness revolving professors and class structure, and I still cannot say anything negative about Porfessor Smurda. I don't recall ever once feeling like she was being unfair or un-understanding. Extremely the opposite.

This was definitely my FAVORITE class at UCLA. I took this during my last quarter at UCLA during the pandemic and not only did I learn a lot but I enjoyed the lecture material and how it was taught. Her lecture slides are SO clear and I wrote my notes directly on the slides to review for the exams and got an A on them. Because of the adjustments to remote, Dr. Smurda was super helpful and understanding with everything. When we had internet connection issues in class, she switched to prerecorded to ensure that we were still learning the material. In addition to her office hours (HIGHLY recommend going to get into the material more), she had an optional class to attend in addition to the prerecorded lectures in case anyone had discussion questions they wanted answered. Overall, the lecture material was interesting, Dr. Smurda is super approachable and understanding, and the experience of taking this class with her made it all the better. HIGHLY recommend!!

I love learning about social psychology and this class is definitely one of the reasons why. The lectures were clear and easy to understand and I enjoyed having discussions during class and office hours since there's SO much you can get into with the material being taught. A big part of it was review from Social Psychology but it definitely goes into the specifics of the material which I really enjoyed. Dr. Smurda also made the experience amazing, she is very clear and the exams aren't difficult at all. I had a rough end to the quarter but even then, I got a decent grade on the final. Would definitely take again if I had the chance!

I was scared to take lab class because I had terrible experience with 100B which I put lot of time and effort and ended up with C+. Dr. Smurda was very clear and does not trick students in terms of exams or grading which were helpful. I was taking this class with Psych 115 and were not able to put in lot of effort into my final paper and midterm, but ended up with B+ which was a lot higher than I expected. Definitely require work in research, group presentation, and writing paper, but it was definitely doable and seemed to reflect your effort in class unlike 100B. Definitely good lab class and I am taking another course with Dr. Smurda currently!

This was my second time taking a class with Smurda and honestly, I felt the class was pretty simple and easy. This class is really easy to understand if you have already taken Social Psychology with Smurda as most of the material is basically the same but even if this is your first social psychology type class you should do fine. As long as you show up to class, pay attention, and do the reading assignments then it's easy to understand the concepts. I felt the tests were fair and the paper assignment to be pretty simple as long as you followed the directions. Each test is worth 35% of your grade and there are two of them for a total of 70%, 20% of the grade is the paper, and 10% is little quizzes. Plus she gives 1 extra credit percentage too. Overall I would recommend this class the material is interesting and Smurda does a good job explaining it.

Overall, I enjoyed my experience in this class. Exams were largely fair although the questions could be very specific – it is recommended that you know understand each of the studies she covers, and make sure you do all the readings because questions from there will show up. The material is fascinating, but lectures are based on PPT slides and are very content-heavy (50-60+ slides per lecture, sometimes more) and can be a little dry – although most of the slides consist of pictures and graphs. I would DEFINITELY recommend writing out notes on everything she mentions or using audio to text to transcribe everything because solely studying off her slides may not be enough/they may lack important information for exams.

In replacement of a mandatory textbook, the professor assigns several social psychology readings to do that are relevant to discussion sections. The readings were interesting and I honestly preferred them immensely to your run-of-the-mill dry textbook, which probably would have succeeded in making a subject as interesting as social psychology sound absolutely boring. Sections are also useful and engaging, and help you understand the readings and prepare for exams! I really enjoyed my TA, Ben.

The professor can be accommodating but sometimes can seem to get a little irritated by students' persistent questions, which is honestly understandable.

This was essentially how the class was structured during Winter Quarter of 2021 (online):

SECTIONS: There are 6 sections, you can miss 1 without penalty. Section grade is based on attendance, thought questions, and in class participation; no curve. You have to submit a discussion seed (short, thoughtful response) for every reading, and you have to be engaged during discussions.

LECTURES: Attendance/participation is optional/recorded.

GRADES: Based on 2 exams (40% midterm, 40% final) and section (20%). Exams are MCQ, no make-up exams offered except for with thorough documentation.

EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES: Total of up to 2% added to final grade through –
1. Research participation: Earn 1 extra credit % point by participating in experiments through Psychology Dept Subject Pool.
2. Earn 1 extra credit % point by participating in at least 70% of polls during regularly scheduled class time.

This class was pretty interesting. I did not really enjoy the books assigned however, because I found the connections to lecture somewhat confusing. But overall, the lecture content the professor teaches is very straightforward and useful even in daily life. Like others have said, studying the content on the slides is not enough for the tests, it is helpful to rewatch the lectures or read the transcripts. This class wasn't too bad but the exams were somewhat tricky.