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 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.

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.

I love Professor Smurda! She has the best personality and is more than willing to offer additional help/ get to know her students on a personal level. This class specifically can be challenging because there was so much information, and tests were open book but very difficult. I ended up taking the class pass/no pass, which was a good option for me as it was my last requirement. If you do not want to take it p/np, be prepared to put in some work. Not an easy A but a great professor and interesting material!

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!

I completely disagree with the other review. This class was my favorite psych course at UCLA. The material was really interesting and the professor went out of her way to help anyone who needed it. I would highly recommend it.

I hated this class. Based on reviews I thought it would be an easy A, but I think due to the transition to online learning it was HELL. The lectures were so tedious and long with so many details, and the midterm and final literally asked for the most random details from an example experiment mentioned once. The material could have been super interesting but the way it was taught I would rather bang my head against a wall then attend that zoom lecture again. Hopefully it will be better once it gets back to in person learning.

This was by far the best course I've ever taken at UCLA. Dr. Smurda is obviously very passionate about what she teaches and really likes her students. This class covers topics on the self that are fascinating. Students do presentations on the readings and discuss the material which made me learn it really well. Dr. Smurda did a great job of clarifying the concepts and leading the discussion. There were weekly thought papers and quizzes as well as discussion posts so it was a lot to keep up with, but it didn't really bother me because it was all really interesting. We also wrote a final paper which applies the concepts that we learned in class to our own lives.
Overall, I would highly recommend the professor and the class.