Great professor! I would definitely recommend taking Psych 10 with Dr. Smurda. She was entertaining and I learned a lot. She's also very helpful, but you do need to study for the exams. If you do, then you'll do fine.

If you want to take notes in this class, I hope you either write at lightspeed, or type like a crazy mofo, because Professor Smurda flips through slides quickly and at an extremely erratic pace, so that half the time I was so busy writing or typing down what she said that I couldn't really absorb much of it. You could just look at the powerpoints online (and not go to class, really), but she also has a tendency to not fill out the information in some of the slides in detail, so you're kind of stuck either way, attending class and scrambling to write down everything she says (and you WILL be tested on it.)

Overall, I got the impression that she was a nice enough person, but not a terribly effectual teacher. Lecture wasn't very engaging, and occasionally she talks to us like kids. On the other hand, Psych 10 covers some pretty interesting stuff, and interest in the material can make up for the lack of it in lecture. Smurda is okay, not great, but not bad in any real distinct way.

Midterms were mostly memorization. The Psych textbook is dense, but written in an entertaining way, and it's worth reading for review and reinforcement.

Got a 73% on the first midterm, missed the second midterm because of sickness, and then got a 92% on the final exam, and Smurda drops your lowest exam grade so I ended with a B in the class. I thought the first midterm was bullshit and much harder than the final exam, so that was annoying but the class as a whole didn't suck that bad. 3 exams, all noncumulative, and all weighted the same. Only homework there was was weekly reading and completing 6 units of research in research studies. If you don't like studies you have an option to write about articles instead. Smurda was nice, but the exams were always harder than necessary for the material we learned.

gosh she is sooooo boring, i took this class spring 2009 and i totally regret it. Friday classes with prof smurda are especially painful, particularly because she just talks on and on with arbitrary slides which are presented too quickly to grasp. Although she did try to entertain the class by integrating the concepts with relevant youtube videos it still didnt' help the fact that her lectures were hard to sit through and attendence is detrimental to doing well as she asks questions from the videos for the final and midterms. Her exams are also very poorly written leading to much confusion and her having to readjust the grading scale and scores, not always for the better of the class. Ta's are useless, they just read off the study guide at review sessions. she is a nice lady but try to AVOID this class with smurda if you can.

I completely disagree with the other comments below. Prof. Smurda made the class very entertaining and this was by far my favorite class. She was also the best professor that I have ever had. She was intelligent, very concerned about students' learning, and had a great energy about her. Her exams were also very fair. I would highly recommend that you take a course from her if you get the chance.

I really enjoyed this class. Prof. Smurda was a very effective teacher. She made the material so interesting by adding videos, demonstrations, and guest speakers. Her tests were very easy as long as you came to class and paid attention. I would highly recommend that you take this course from Dr. Smurda. She is the most approachable, helpful professor I've met at UCLA so far.

Dr. Smurda was a great professor for this class. I learned much more in this class than 100B. She makes the lectures very clear and only covers the topics that pertain to the class. She is very helpful during the group project/ research lab stage and will go over your topic and the things you need to work on as you progress through the weeks. The textbook for the gives clear guidelines, and using an older version (much cheaper) gave me the same results-only the page numbers were a little bit off, material was the same. The tests are extremely fair if you pay attention in class and do all the homework.

Dr. Smurda was very engaging and funny. I always looked forward to class because it was so interesting. She podcasts her lectures so you can actually participate in class rather than worry about typing everything she says. She is also very helpful if you go see her during office hours. She will spend as much time as it takes explaining everything until you understand it.
Her tests are not easy, but they are very doable because they are right out of the lectures and readings.

The reviews for this class and professor were very misleading. I came into the class confident that I would succeed, but it was the opposite. Her tests were extremely hard and covered so much information. Office hours were not as helpful as I hoped. Really wanted to get an A in this class, but it wasn't possible. I would take it with another professor!

If you're gonna take psych 10, take Smurda!!

> 1 hour and 50 min classes sometimes cut short
> 3 midterms for a 1/3 of your grade each
> and she curves but it also depends on how well everyone else does

> lectures may be long, but they're pretty interesting
> her lecture notes are online, but it's a lot better to go to class and really retain the information
> she engages the class a lot and shows a lot of related and interesting videos
> the material may be a lot especially if you didn't take AP Psych, but if you complete and know the study guides, you can do pretty well.
> study guides are pretty ample to do fairly well, but it doesn't include everything that may be on the test
> but if you do the readings, it'll definitely help in the exams
> She's overall a very nice person, really lights up the room, and really concerned with you feeling comfortable and knowing the information

> i ended getting a B, A-, and C+ on the midterms with a curve and a B overall despite having taken AP Psych
> because i stopped doing the readings
> the first midterm i thought was fair, but i didn't do very good
> and the Final was pretty hard but if i studied the study guide more thoroughly, i could have done a lot better