OVERVIEW
- 9/10 would recommend
- Personally didn't experience any negative interactions with Professor Wassum in discussions/office hours like other reviews have mentioned
- Very clear powerpoint slides, but requires viewing lecture to get full content
- No textbook— all sources are provided (bless up)

GRADING
- Midterm and final are essays. You are given the prompt ahead of time. Do not be lazy. Do not skimp on details. Better safe than sorry! These exams are not graded loosely— if you do not thoroughly cover everything mentioned in class and provide your own thoughts on the necessary questions, you will NOT get an A (learned this personally on midterm yikes)
- 3 research summaries/twitter threads. Given ~20 paper options. Some of the papers are definitely harder/longer to read, so choose carefully. These are graded less strictly than the exams
- Participation in discussion is mandatory. One free absence. You can do a short write-up to opt-out of discussion if you can't make it.

COMMENTS
- Professor Wassum was very clear in lectures/office hours
- Content itself is rather interesting
- Discussions require you to do reading/lectures ahead of time . Otherwise you will be lost and not be able to contribute.
- Workload is on the lighter side
- Only downside to the class is pacing— there's quite a bit of downtime during discussions while breaking off into groups

I thoroughly enjoyed this class with Dr. Wassum. I think the material is very interesting, so that was a bonus. Dr. Wassum is VERY clear in her slides, but the material does have a lot of details and intricacies that could trip people up. She does require some amount of participation in class, which is not easy for everyone, but I found it very doable and I get very anxious speaking in front of classmates. As I mentioned before, the material is deceptively tricky, but definitely doable. You will learn about past theories and deconstruct issues with them. I think people may struggle with this class if they oversimplify the material and don't consider the detail to which Dr. Wassum is lecturing and is on her slide.

tldr; I would definitely take this class again. I learned a lot and I didn't spend a ton of time outside of class studying, just reviewing my notes from the week each week. She gives the test prompts in advance so you have plenty of time to prepare and show your knowledge. Would definitely recommend the class if you are interested in the neuroscience/psychology of learning.

I would highly urge you to avoid taking a class with Wassum at all costs. She is by far the worst professor I have had at UCLA.

She constantly belittles you with her vast knowledge in what she teaches and then expects you to learn EVERYTHING.The midterm and final were more or less "write in a blue book everything we have covered the first 5 weeks". Including reciting 30+ lab experimental procedures/key differences and results ... pointless memorization.

THE CLASS SUCKED.

I didn't miss a lecture and ended up with a C+.
i verified that my view was consistent with my classmates.

I loved taking class from Professor Wassum. It's very inspiring to see a very knowledgable and successful woman in psych research too – you can tell she loves what she does. I think I saw a review about her being condescending when you ask questions but I never got that vibe from her when she answered my questions or anyone elses. She is very engaging and gives a lot of individual guidance for class assignments and the final essay. The workload is not bad at all and if you show up and pay attention the material is interesting and not too difficult to grasp.
Would definitely take from her again!