This class is pretty bad. Don't really take into account the Covid-19 reviews because they are skewed to be more lenient since you are able to type up essays and it just seems like it might have been more lenient with grading. With that being said, being a freshmen taking this class was honestly pretty horrible. It's not even that the professor is so terrible, its just the grading is SO SO HARSH. The class itself consists of this breakdown: First Paper 15%, Second Paper 20%, Midterm 15%, Final Exam 25%, in class exercises 15%, section participation 10%. The class itself seems pretty easy not accounting the papers, because all you do is just watch these pre-recorded videos he made from a long time ago and then take a little quiz or writing exercise in class (super easy, should get a 100 in all this). But when you're writing the papers, it's so apparent that the grading is just so so harsh. And the communication between Rescorla and the TAs is horrible. A lot of people said get to know your TA or make sure you write your paper early, which is true and valid advice, it just didn't even matter at that point because they will always find something to mark you down (5/10/15/20 points) on automatically. You could feel so good and confident about the midterm (3 written essays) and the final (10 written essays), but in the end, no matter how much you study or think you know the material, you will get marked down and you will not get a proper answer of why. And good luck with your TAs office hours, because mine broke theirs down into 5 minute intervals to read over your whole paper and get advice on what to fix. Five minutes is an impossible amount of time to get any actual feedback you might think, and that is absolutely the case. My TA just told me that they weren't even going to try to read my paper, they just said point at the part you think you need help on. And from there they only nitpick like one word you are using and try to find that word in the rest of the paper to say "Oh, that's wrong." That is all the feedback you get. And don't be surprised if Rescorla says that you definitely shouldn't do something or use a certain phrase AFTER we turned in the paper. The TAs didn't even know that we couldn't use these words or phrases, so they didn't say to correct them when we were getting feedback. But you'll definitely see it marked down in your grade. That was one of the most frustrating parts. Additionally, the only grade we knew before taking the final was our first paper grade (which everyone that I talked to in my discussion somehow got an 86 on) and the midterm (which he said the average was "in the teens out of 30." Everything else you don't know. And it's not like everyone just doesn't study for this class, we are really trying. Additionally, Rescorla says to ignore everything on bruinlearn because he doesn't input correct grades and it doesn't reflect our true grade, so we just didn't even know what our grade was before the final. The second papers weren't graded before the final either. I don't want to be super negative because I do think that I learned a lot by the end of the class, but I just feel like my grade didn't reflect that as much as I would've wanted, and I know for a fact that even if I studied more or I tried to get my paper looked at more, I still would've gotten the same grade, which is kind of frustrating.

Anyways, my advice for those who have to take the class is just to expect the grading to be harsh, and try to connect with your TA in as many ways as you can. Who your TA is is honestly just luck, so just try to make the best of it because they are the ones grading everything. Rescorla's office hours are helpful though, more helpful than the TA in my experience. If you don't need to take this class, don't. I didn't, I just took it as a GE as a STEM major, and now it's my first B lol. If you do need to take this class, I don't know who else teaches it, but maybe try to wait and see if there is someone else that has a different grading scheme.

Anyways, good luck, because you'll need it.

Prof Rescorla has gotten an unnecessarily bad rep and the fact that he openly acknowledges it it hilarious. Yes I agree this class as a GE may not be the easiest but that is because of the content that is covered, not because of the professor. The units are structured well and we explore different theories of the mind.
It consists of 2 papers, the midterm and the final, where the papers focus on explanation and cohesion while the exams are solely based on understanding the concepts.
I learnt a lot from this class, not in terms of the verbatim content but of how cool different theories are.
USE THE TAs, all of them seemed very helpful, and that was my biggest key to success in this class. Go to office hours, finish papers in advance so you can get feedback, and take writing exercises seriously!