Dr. Smurda is an amazing professor who really cares about helping her students learn and develop valuable research skills. What really sets her apart from many other professors is that she genuinely cares about her students. During Office Hours, I feel like my concerns and questions regarding the class material are a priority to her. In addition, she is very warm and approachable.

Prof. Smurda is by far the best professor I've had at UCLA, my experience in her class was the best experience in all my Psychology courses.
As far as workload:
1 midterm 30%
group project 20%
final paper 25%
small paper 15%
attendance and participation 5%
in class group work 5%

I would recommend her for any class she teaches. She grades fairly, makes the lecture interesting, and she's very approachable. TAKE PROF. SMURDA !

Dr. Smurda is an amazing professor and I highly recommend psych majors who need to take a lab class to take her Social Psych Lab. This class luckily is nothing like Psych 100B, because you actually get to pick a topic for your project that interests you and your group. You also have a chance to find significant effects, which is really rare in 100B.

The meat of the class is one midterm exam, a group presentation (based on your group project), and a final report (based on your group project as well). The midterm is just the right amount of challenging, not difficult if you study and stay engaged with the material. It is also a mixture of multiple choice, matching, and written questions, which makes it quite fair. Dr. Smurda is very clear each step of the way in the class about what you need to do and how you need to do it, so as long as you pay attention you'll do well. Even though it's quite structured, there's always room for creativity when you're designing and executing your project, which is great. And Dr. Smurda is so helpful, always available to help with anything you're struggling with and willing to explain it in a different way so you'll understand it. Her lectures are engaging and I promise you won't get bored! Take this class!

Dr. Smurda is amazing! Most of the work is done in lab so not much is required outside of class time. There is a midterm, a group project that involves a paper as the final, a small paper (3 pages), and a few in class exercises. As long as you attend class, do the work, and study for the midterm, this class is not difficult. Dr. Smurda cares about her students, is available for help, and her lectures are engaging. I would highly recommend taking this lab with her if you have the chance.

Dr. Smurda is a really good lecturer. I took both social psych and social psych lab with her and both of them are really fun. Dr. Smurda tries her best to engage her students as much as possible and she is also really helpful if you come to her with questions. My TA in the social psych lab is Melissa and she is really halpful as well. If you have both of them, you are in very good hands.

I was fortunate enough to take two classes from Prof. Smurda this quarter. I'm so glad that I took this class with her. It was a very rewarding experience! She is very patient, kind, and funny too. I feel like I learned a lot about doing research in psychology. Her lectures were very easy to understand and the midterm was fair. I like the fact that there were several types of questions, including short answer and essay. The group projects were really fun and I even made a lot of new friends in this class. If you can, TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROF. SMURDA!

Professor Smurda was by far one of the best professors I've had at UCLA! I wasn't looking forward to taking a lab class, but Professor Smurda made it very enjoyable. She is very approachable and genuinely cares about her students. You can tell that she worked hard on her lectures to make sure they were engaging and fun for us. She made the class a very comfortable environment and always had a great energy about her.

I am very confused by any negative review on here. I think she taught at a perfect pace and her lectures were always enjoyable.

Overall I received an A, which I think is very doable if you put in the time and effort. I would definitely recommend her if you are looking for a lab to take!

I was scared to take a lab at UCLA because I heard that all of the lab classes were very difficult and tedious. I prorastinated until my last quarter, and I'm glad that I did so that I could take this class with Dr. Smurda! Not only is she an extremely nice and caring professor, but she makes the material interesting and enjoyable. She also makes her self readily available through office hours and outside office hours for any questions or concerns about the material. I would recommend this class to everyone, it's enjoyable, not too difficult, and this professor is amazing!

I'm not sure how often Dr. Smurda teaches this particular class, but she made it quite enjoyable for Summer '15.

Your grade is made up of the following:

A test reviewing some concepts from 100B (but not nearly at the same brain-melting difficulty) that she lectures on for the first few weeks into the course. - 30%

Participation/Methodology Exercises - 10% (I combine these because it's literally impossible not to get all the credit unless you don't show up).

15%: Compliance Paper (you walk through a study you conduct as a class and write up a small portion of a research paper, she basically walks you through it)

25%: Final Paper on the experiment you design during the second half of the class

20%: Group presentation that basically outlines your final paper for you

She makes things relatively easy to understand, and if the TA is still Melissa, she's a great resource for helping you through your paper and experiment and working out kinks in your design.

Ended up with an A-, and put in a reasonable amount of work for a relatively fast paced class (mind you, it's summer). Also you don't really get to choose your groups for the experiments, but you're likely to get the partners you want if you all put the same order for the preferred topics you want to design an experiment for.