Took this class during COVID but I will say there was so much information to learn for Gorlistky's portion of the class. There about 10 ppts and each had 80+ slides and seemed to include a lot of information that wasn't even tested. I preferred the ecology section of the class but also the exam was MC and missing a couple can set you back a lot

The professor:
- Gorlitsky teaches the animal behavior portion of the course, which is the more difficult portion.
- She is clearly passionate about the course material and always has examples to give regarding the concepts she wishes to illustrate.
- Gorlitsky is clear during lectures and often seeks student participation during lectures. She seems generally nice and is approachable after class and office hours. She does talk kind of fast, though, and I found it helpful to record the lectures since the class isn't Bruincasted. Everything you need to know for the exams is mentioned in the lecture.

The material:
- Animal Behavior portion of the class requires a lot of more memorization than the second portion of the class; generally, though, I found it to be really interesting. On average, I think most students will find portions of this class to be relevant and interesting.
- class material and lecture is supplemented extensively with relevant videos that are shown during lecture.

Grading scheme:
- the course is out of 550 points; 2 exams worth 200 points each, 60 points for attendance; the rest is for discussion section attendance (mandatory, 18pts) and for responding to weekly reading assignments (72pts)
- straight-scale i.e. no curve unless exam averages are below 80%, which they weren't.
--Exams: Relatively difficult due to sheer amount of information covered but honestly very fair with the question selection. She doesn't try and trick you in exams but it's difficult just because so much information was covered in lecture. Gorlitsky knows and is transparent about the fact that Exam 1 is harder and that exam 2 provides as opportunity to boost your grade.
-- Weekly assignments: Each week, you read a research article and have to generate three questions that show your understanding of the article. These are graded fairly harshly and generating good questions is more difficult than it seems. I would write 3-5 sentences per question in order to receive full points. Not incredibly difficult but it is incredibly annoying.
-- Discussion section: Pointless but mandatory. Each week, a group would be assigned to give a 20min presentation on the research paper of the week. As long as you had slides, read the article a few times, and lightly prepared, you received full points. The rest of discussion section involved answering the questions we generated for the weekly assignments (described above) in small groups.
-- Attendance is not taken every class but instead, the professor does "pop-quizzes" randomly, which you turn in at the end of class to provide evidence that you were present. The pop-quizzes are graded on effort and completion, not on correctness.

textbook:
- Not worth it. I rented the textbook for the first half of the course and I did use it but very lightly when studying for the midterm, if I was confused about a definition. Didn't bother renting it for the second half of the class (ecology).

Overall: Interesting material, passionate professors, and fair/decent exams make this a good class in my book. If you're a psychobio student, definitely try and take this class (though the EEB department severely restricts seats), instead of Psych118.

Dr. Gorlitsky was a very engaging and fun professor! Her lectures were filled with really interesting videos but she tends to go very fast. Lectures are not recorded and lecture attendance is measured by the pop quizzes they randomly give out that are graded based on participation. I came into the class without being as interested in animal behavior but ended up loving it even more! I feel that all the examples are very interesting. For the exam, do not memorize the examples shown in class. Study each of the theories and hypotheses and know how to apply them to various situations and animal behaviors. The animal behavior portion (first 5 weeks) was definitely a bit harder than ecology due to the sheer amount of concepts but the test was definitely a bit easier and was overall more interesting. I would definitely recommend Dr.Gorlitsky!

The content was interesting but participation and attendance was required for every single discussion section. Exams were difficult and no answer keys were given out after receiving grades. I am selling my 80+ pages of typed-up notes for both the ecology and animal behavior sections, my email is L*************.

The lectures were really fun and overall I really enjoyed the class, but the exams were a bit unfair in my opinion. A lot of questions seemed like trick questions, or the wording would just be very very weird. I was very confident before taking the final, but for so any questions it seemed like there was not a good solid answer. Not to mention that the "practice exam" was literally 9 super easy questions and nothing like the real thing.
Gorlitsky loved giving a lot of pop "quizzes" for attendance so participation really matters. Lectures aren't recorded but she never really said anything that wasn't on the slides. I really enjoyed her lectures and teaching style, my only complain for this class would be the exams and how long it took for our assignments to get graded.

When I was first thinking about taking this class, the reviews were a little offputting, but I had to take it anyway. I ended up really enjoying this class. Here is a breakdown:

Lectures: For this quarter the lectures were given as power point presentations with voice overs which are not very interactive. Some people complained that they were long, but if you played them in slide show they actually took the amount of time that they should have ( around an hour and fifteen minutes. She also held an in person class session on Thursday where she showed videos, answered questions, and clarified lecture material from the slides. There were times when the in class presentation was jsut going over the exact same material as the lecture slide, and that was not helpful. But I think watching the videos and talking about the behaviors was very helpful. The slide decks are about 80 slides long each and this might seem daunting. However, she gives you key terms at the beginning of the slides, and those are all you really need to know for the exam. Know the definition of the key terms and be able to apply it.

Exams: The exam we were given was about 36 questions and we had an hour and 15 minutes to take it. A lot of people complained about time constraints, but I honeslty finshed the entire exam in around 45 minutes. For in person exams they normally give 50 questions, so I thought the time was actually generous. It really was not that hard if you studied. If you were unprepared I can see how the timed exam would feel like a lot, but if you studied then the time was mroe than enough. I think studying for the exam was also pretty easy. I started a week before the exam and simply memorized definitions. You DO NOT have to memorize the behavior of every animal to do well in this class. All you have to do is understand definitions and be able to apply them to new examples. Some people complained about not being able to flip between questions, but it was to prevent cheating. If you know the material you should be able to answer confidently and move on.

Discussion: TAs take the homework seriously, and you will likley get points taken off if you can't show that you actually understand the article. If you can show that you read and understood the article and provide a thoughtful question then you will do just fine. We also had to do a presentation on a paper for this class. We weren't allowed to have note cards, and reading off the slides would also result in point loss. Basically just practice your presentation and you will be fine. Participation in discussion is worth points, so you will have to show up.

Weekly quizzes: This was another complaint that came up alot. In my opinion if you paid attention in class you would know the answer. There were quite a few times where the professor literally gave the answer to the quiz question in the power point slides. So pay attention and you will do well on the quizzes.

Extra credit: They offer 10 points of extra credit for doing an off campus volunteer program that is related to habitat restoration. You attend the event, and do a write up on it. It's pretty simple and easy to get the points for it.

The TLTR: The class has gotten way better since the previous reviews and I enjoyed it. If you pay attention and study for the exams you will do well on them. Pay attention in class and you will also do well on quizzes. Discussion Homework grading is harsh so don't BS it or you will pay for it. I thought that overall the exams were fair and so was the class.

I took this class is session A of summer 2021 as an asynchronous class, and she taught the animal behavior section. She uploaded narrated lectures that we listened to. Her office hours were EXTREMELY helpful and if there was a lull in the OH session she would give you more information to study!! We had weekly quizzes and when the animal behavior section ended we had a cumulative quiz, then the ecology section started which had the same. The ecology section was taught by Dr. Rachel Chock who also uploaded narrated powerpoints. She was also extremely helpful and also works with San Diego Zoo and Wildlife Alliance. Overall really great and if you can take this course with them I 100% recommend it!

I took this class with Professor Gorlitsky and Professor Lipman. Professor Gorlitsky taught the first five weeks and I really enjoyed it. The material was super interesting (animals do the WEIRDEST things!) and she included tons of interesting videos that I loved watching. The way her class was structured was she gave narrated powerpoint on each week's material, and then had live not-recorded sessions where she just went into more detail and had us to activities together. But you weren't required to go to live sessions, and she said for exams all the material you needed to know should be in the powerpoint videos. They were pretty long and you can't watch them sped up which was slightly irritating. The midterm took an insanely long time to grade, we took it Week 4 didn't get it til Week 9, so that was a bit stressful. But the workload isn't too bad, there's a weekly quiz, a midterm, and final, and a few short paragraphs due each week in discussion, plus one group presentation.

I could tell that Dr. Gorlitsky was very passionate about what she teaches. She tried to incorporate many examples and videos showing different animals and their behavior, but she goes incredibly fast through lecture. She covers ~40 slides every lecture, and to be honest, it was very difficult trying to pinpoint 1) what was important 2) what was the takeaway / purpose of presenting all of those examples. The lecture felt extra long just because of the sheer amount of material.

The midterm covering animal behavior was unnecessarily confusing such that multiple answers could be correct. After reviewing the questions with the TA's (who were very unhelpful), I still do not understand why the answers were correct compared to other choices. This felt very similar to LS in the sense that you walk out of the exam feeling like you knew all the material but just unsure if you picked the answer they were looking for. Overall, the concepts were fairly easy to pick up.

Discussions were pointless and reading the articles and writing questions about them were unhelpful.

Not an easy class, but doable if you stay on top of the material and know going into it that it is going to be a little bit more difficult than some EEB classes you take. Make sure to do the EC field trip because it can make a big difference at the end of the class! Going to office hours before the exams really helps and both Gorlitsky and Lipman are very nice and willing to answer any questions you may have.

Selling the Animal Behavior Textbook, $45 **********