This class was pretty moderate, I didn't particularly dislike or like anything about it. Lecture material was interesting, but I didn't learn much since the assignments were largely irrelevant (paper critiques). The take-home final was easy and worth 10%, which was basically nothing compared to the paper critiques (75% I think?). Apparently grading for these critiques was harsh, but honestly the TAs were super generous during discussion and I received 95-100s on all of them with their help. I recommend starting the critiques a little earlier though because each one took me around 8 hours to complete (5-6 questions but the answers had to be thorough). Mini-labs were easy if you read through all of the book activities (had to pay the inclusive access fee for this unfortunately). The class was 90% on vision btw!

Shams is super smart but expects us to all be at grad student levels. The paper critiques were unnecessarily difficult and she tried to reject my disability accommodation. I don't feel like I learned much in this course which is a big disappointment because I loved perceptual development with Johnson so I thought I'd like it.

Like others have said, the lectures don't relate to the assignments nor the final at all. Throughout the entire quarter, I only attended the first lecture and immediately realized that they are all disorganized, uninformative, and irrelevant. Either way, I ended up with an A+ by doing all of the assignments, which were relatively easy. You are graded on:
- 3 Paper Critiques (i.e. answering questions after reading research papers)
- Weekly Mini-Labs (i.e. answering questions from an online workbook)
- One take-home Final Paper, where you select five scholarly journals of your choosing and write analyses about them
Grading on the papers was a bit harsh, as points would be taken off for very minuscule reasons, so I would recommend spending some time to revise these. You also get 2.5% Extra Credit by doing SONA studies, which is great.

Overall, I would recommend Psych 120B with Shams if you are looking for fulfilling one of your Column A requirement. The lectures are a little disorganized and somehow does not complete relate to the required assignments. You could get by without paying too much attention during lecture and discussion. The paper critiques are what make up the bulk of your grade, so I would definitely dedicate a good amount of time on those. But I felt that the grading was fair! Take this class!

For only the purpose of achieving a high grade in the class, lectures are useless because none of the material is tested in the final (the final lets you search for extra materials/research papers to write about). Lectures are bruincast recordings that are not of very high quality. 75% of the grade is based on three paper critiques, and their requirements are really detailed. I was very confident about my paper reading, writing, and editing skills and didn't spend much time doing the second paper critique, and my grade for that was only 80%. My suggestion is to look at the sample answers from the first paper critique (which was based on completion), look into it as deeply as possible, and figure out a structure of answering questions, and then write carefully to get a higher score.
Looking back, I think the content of the class was interesting, but is not really meaningful if you're not going to study vision in grad school or research. At the end of the quarter, this class became so unappealing that I didn't even have the motivation to watch the last 3 lectures or review for anything.

The class itself is pretty easy. You have 3 paper critiques in which you read a scientific paper assigned to you and answer questions about it, a minilab due every week, and a take home final that consists of you taking 5 topics from the quarter and essentially doing deeper research on. As for lectures, I never went to a single one beyond week 3 since all she does is post bruincasted lectures from fall 2019 (and shes not that good in them).

Overall: 3
Easiness: 4
Workload: 4
Clarity: 2
Helpfulness: 3

I genuinely do not know how this professor is still teaching at UCLA. This class is absolute hell and is even more hellish in the midst of all the crises. Please try to take another professor if you can. You will not learn anything in this class. It is important to enjoy the teaching style of your professor. I can't listen to this professor for more than 2 minutes without passing out.

Ladan seems like a really sweet woman and I'm sure an amazing professor, but in all honesty she should not be teaching. Lectures for this course were arguably some of the most dry, tangential presentations I've experienced—even at 2x speed on BruinCast. While she is very knowledgeable, she has a roundabout way of explaining things, making lectures difficult to follow while also being boring. As a psych major (as opposed to psychobio or neuroscience), I found that the material didn't even relate to any of my other courses (AKA where was the psychology aspect in this class). I honestly felt like I was taking a course to become an optomotrist. That said if you keep up with the readings and listen to the lectures you'll be fine. Also do the extra credit because it's a HUGE boost.

selling sensation and perception $10, text **********

The class focuses primarily on vision, even though it's called "Sensory and Perception." Professor Shams isn't exactly an engaging professor: she tends to spend 30 minutes on a concept that can be covered in 5 minutes, and even then she doesn't always present it in a way that's easy to understand. I prefer listening to her recorded lecture and putting it on 2x speed.

The TA (Susan) is extremely knowledgeable and I would recommend going to discussion if she's your TA because she does a great job explaining everything and summarizing the professor's lectures. Tests are reasonable so as long as you study, you'll be fine. Make sure you spend time on your paper assignment though because they tend to be graded more harshly than weekly assignments (which is based on participation)