Professor Givvin is AMAZING.

I truly loved taking this course and would take more classes with her if I could without a doubt. All reading materials are online. They were daily quizzes! (Just 3 mc questions that are based on the reading used via CLICKERS). Please do not miss your chance taking it with her.

Karen is very personable and concerned with her students' learning, she has been my favorite Psych professor so far. Psych 133F is a great diversity/major option to take! The material is relevant to everyday life, and the workload is more-than-doable.

This class is easy, but at the same time, it's hard to get an A. You literally have to make zero mistakes because each exam is like 30 multiple choice that's worth 45% of your overall grade!! That means if you miss just ONE question, you're already down to a 98.5%. On the final, she made each multiple choice 2% of our overall grade. So even if you got a 100% on the midterm, you could only miss 3 multiple choice to get a solid A in the class. As you can see, there is zero room for error in this class.
The best thing about this class is there is NO TEXTBOOK and literally no homework aside from a weekly 5 page article you have to read. This class has had the lightest workload out of ALL my courses at UCLA.
As for the professor, Dr. Givvin, she's AWESOME. She's super nice and funny and pretty good-looking for a 50+ year old! One of my favorite professors at UCLA!

AMAZING LECTURES and a wonderful class!! I genuinely learned a lot about cognitive development, pedagogy, and ways to improve as a student through this course. The research is intriguing, the quizzes are rarely too difficult, the exams are fair, and I was interested in each lecture. The only unfortunate part is that her slides are not posted, so in verbatim laptop typing is a good chunk of the course. Getting an A is doable 1000%; attendance is mandatory (on time too because clicker quizzes begin at the start of class on the dot) but people typically get them all right (and she drops the lowest score), TAKE HER CLASS!!

The word on the street was this is the "easy" psych class to take. Maybe being my first quarter at UCLA and coming from community college, my idea of easy meant literally no work at all and I underestimated the fact that it is still UCLA and will be easy compared to other rigorous classes. It wasn't a difficult class and part of why that is so I think is because the subject is interesting and you can see that most students are genuinely attentive and interested. Also, she uses as slide show however she doesn't post them so you pretty much have just the notes you were able to take during class along with the 2 research article readings you need to do for each class (and there is a clicker-quiz on the readings every class) I would say there are a total of about 30 research articles you will analyze and read for the whole quarter. Just take good notes ad study in advance because its very easy to underestimate this class since during lectures and while reading it all seems fairly easy- but the midterm and final are tricky and can be easy to overthink- would say this is the reason for the A- and not the A as there are also no other assignments just the clicker quizzes, midterm and final.

Very helpful professor. Clicker quiz every class meeting. Many of the topics she taught about were applicable to the students. Tests were definitely harder than the clicker quiz questions. Test questions were often tricky.

One of the best courses and professors I have taken at UCLA. Take this class if you would like to learn of clinically effective tips to improve academic performance and to clear up misconceptions regarding various educational practices. DO NOT underestimate this class; its easy to look at the grade distribution and think it is a walk in the park. You need to be present in every class lecture to earn participation points and complete the readings that are assigned. Rigorously study the class material and I suggest studying in groups and utilizing the retrieval method. ( google it and you will also learn about the method in class). The test questions are tricky and there is not much room for error as the midterm is approximately 30 questions( the final is longer with short answer questions). Stay on the top of your game, study effectively, and you will earn an A in this class.

Professor Givvin is life, I repeat LIFE. I have never had a professor who cares so much about her students. Her lectures were extremely helpful and it helped me understand the studies that were assigned every week. There is no textbook for this class, and you study the weekly research articles. The articles are on average 5-10 pages long so they do not take a lot of time. Totally doable. Her midterm is not tricky at all, if you actively re-read your lecture notes, you should be totally fine. It is very doable to score a good grade on the midterms. Go to her office hours if you have any doubts or if you would like to have a productive conversation. Initially, I wasn't interested in the content of the class but Professor Givvin changed that I would actually anticipate lectures.

Professor Givvin is a great professor. She really knows what she is doing! She is very approachable and knowledgeable. I highly recommend her as a professor! She makes the class interesting even if you're not that interested in the topic. There are usually 2 studies that you're assigned to read every week which she posts online. I never read them in depth because she goes over everything you need to know in the lectures. Although the lectures are almost completely about the studies you read, she talks about them in a way that helps you understand how the results can be applied in a real classroom.

Professor Givvin was amazing, I'm so very glad that I ended up taking this course. I loved that it wasn't an overly difficult course and that her explanations were so clear and she was so helpful in case you still didn't understand. I think in general she is just a very kind and compassionate teacher and academic professional. She's certainly well informed and passionate about the material, and she tries her best to impart the same to her students. She was always cognizant of our opinion and genuinely wanted to give us the best experience possible in an active way, which I think is rare for the department. I really liked that the class focused on learning through direct studies, which I think is a much more effective way of teaching an upper div, none of that route memorization of bullet points and definitions. She also took the utmost care and respect to be accomodating given the quarantine and the riots which some professors were not, I so appreciate her! The readings are manageable and I liked that there weren’t a bunch of assignments that were busy work, or an expensive textbook. There aren't any homework assignments beyond the readings or graded material beyond the exams. While I think doing some sort of mini-paper or assignment might have been interesting, its nice to not have to worry about so much in a core course. Gia was an excellent TA, she knows her stuff and her guest lecture was really well put together and interesting. How all upper divs should be!