Do not take this class, especially with Kennedy. The worst class by far I've ever taken in college. An unreasonable amount of information was taught that you were expected to remember. Seriously a very dense class with an apathetic professor that does not care when more than 50% of the class got a 69% or lower (shown on grade break down on study list grading tab). The class did so poorly overall that at the end she had to curve it. I just finished the final exam and there were multiple trick questions. I will update my review if the curve is so high I actually end up getting a way higher grade but unless you plan on studying for at least 12-24 hours a week good luck. The material was also on such a micro scale it was both very dry and extremely difficult. Take a different class to check off your degree requirements.

Don't be fooled by the positive reviews- Kennedy is the worst professor I've had throughout my four years at UCLA. She posted her video lectures late, and her lectures were dense and often went over the allotted class time. There were also random beeping noises in her lectures, but she would argue that not many students complained about it so there must be no issue on her end. Each lecture had over forty slides filled with information, and everything was "fair game" so you had to memorize every single slide to do well on the exams. She was blatantly condescending and rude throughout the entire quarter and even rescheduled office hours three times to avoid student concerns about the second midterm, with the final date being the day after Thanksgiving when people would be with their families. She refused to budge on her testing format; every exam and quiz was sequential (meaning you can't go back to a previous question) and used Respondus. She always argued that her testing format was supported by "many experts" even though it is stricter than in person testing and ALL of my other professors thought it too harsh. She does offer up to 2% extra credit (1 for SONA and 1 for class evals) and 1 extra point for the Respondus check on the midterms and finals, but the class averages were still low and most students averaged a C+ according to my TA.

The breakdown for her class was as follows:
25% 8 Discussion Sections: (7 points each- 1 for attendance, 6 for quizzes) 42 points in total because the lowest 2 weeks are dropped
25% Midterm 1
25% Midterm 2
25% Final Exam
She let students choose if they want 2 of the exams weighted 30% and 1 exam weighted 15% because the averages for the second midterm were so low.

Overall, avoid taking this class with Kennedy unless you can devote most of your time to studying for this class. She is also a tenured professor, and she clearly has not nor will be receptive to student concerns because she has no reason to. She lacked transparency and decided to take a stricter approach to teaching during the pandemic. At least there was no required textbook for this class.

I have never dealt with a ruder professor my whole life. Asking questions on the content you are teaching is not a sin, especially when you are teaching it so poorly that the average on the Midterms are 50% ...... (Finals Score Distributions pending) She did not have a "No questions" rule until halfway through the quarter, yet shamed multiple students for asking basic questions SINCE DAY ONE

The slides are word salad but everything is capable of being on the test, including facts and information NOT WRITTEN ON THE SLIDES!!!! TAs are not able to be as helpful as they can be due to the restrictions of the class. I believe this lecture is meant to be a weeder class with how it is run and has def made me less interested in Psychology after taking it.

Does not take questions during class. Midterms are so convoluted that the majority of the students (over 50%) failed. It is clear Professor Kennedy does not teach her course in a manner where she facilitates success. Kennedy glosses over subjects and does not connect concepts proficiently. She aims for 40% of the class to receive a C. Something is clearly the matter when the professor has more than half of the class failing. She is also incredibly rude. I suspect the only reason she is still employed is because she is on tenure.

Avoid taking this class with Dr. Kennedy. I say this even after receiving an A-.

Dr. Kennedy is not a super effective lecturer. However, she does seem like a warm and welcoming individual, and she did seem to be genuinely concerned with student learning. Unfortunately, her lectures are dull, and she does not seem to be prepared for student questions. I will give her the benefit of the doubt, as she mentioned that she was going to re-structure the class to account for questions. My issue with this class stems more from the TAs and the writing of test questions.

Extra credit: 3% on top of final grade
2 points for SONA, 1 point for class evals. Pretty fair, and hard to argue for a grade boost when you get 3 points on top of your final grade.

Discussion quizzes: 35%
Each question is worth 0.5% of your final grade. Lowest quiz is dropped. These are written by the TAs, who are hit or miss. I had Evan Hart as my TA, and he was terrible. He was very clearly concerned with being the "cool" TA to the detriment of his actual teaching. He also seemed to favor the female students more than the male students. His quiz questions were ambiguous and unfair. Most of them required deciphering. He also does not seem to have a solid grasp on conventional rules of the English language, as most of his quiz questions were worded in a way that allowed for multiple conceptual interpretations due to syntactic and semantic ambiguity. For example, one question regarding pharmacology could be interpreted in two possible ways; determining an answer for both questions is fairly easy, but the difficulty comes in picking which interpretation to choose. Upon reviewing the answers for these quiz questions, there were multiple times when over half the class would say that they interpreted the questions a different way. If over half the class cannot understand the way you write your questions, then that is probably an indictment on the TA, not the students. I know that some of the other TAs, such as Michael, are good from previous classes, but if you take this class, avoid Evan Hart at all costs.

Midterms: (x2) and 20% each
The first midterm was pretty easy and straightforward. The second midterm was much, much harder, and the average was a 70%. There was also a miscommunication regarding midterm 2 - the TAs told us that it would be much harder, but Professor Kennedy told us that this was not true. Nonetheless, it was much harder. The midterm questions are also written by the TAs, and so they are hit or miss as well. I asked my TA, Evan Hart, for clarification on the wording of some ambiguous questions, to which he simply told me that I was "thinking too hard" (why this is a problem at UCLA, I have no idea). He also brushed me off and told me this while constantly looking at his phone while I asked him questions about the midterm. If you can't tell by now, Evan Hart is a terrible, rude, dismissive TA, so find a different TA if you can.

Final: 25%
Non-cumulative. Moderate difficulty. Similar to the midterms.

Overall, avoid this class. It is unfortunate, as Behavioral Neuroscience is actually one of my favorite topics, and I loved Psych 116. However, this class is in contention for one of the top 5 worst classes I have taken at UCLA. I think that Kennedy may get more negativity than she deserves, because she seems like a good person. I think most of the problems with this class stem from the TAs - such as Evan Hart - and the wording of questions on the exams. Your grade in this class WILL NOT reflect your understanding of the material, but rather your ability to decipher poorly worded questions.

I hated this class. Worst and most difficult class I took at UCLA. If I could go back I would not take it. Very tough grading and it's just memorization so you don't learn anything. You are expected to memorize A LOT and it's very very hard to get a decent grade. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS.

This professor seems nice but its only just a front. If you stay away from her, only communicate with the TA's, and avoid asking her any questions even content-based you should be able to get through the class with minimal stress. My interactions with her were not great and a few times she was extremely patronizing to me. I told her that I felt that one question on the final was ambiguous and I could talk to her about it to explain things. I then went on to compliment her and thank her for her work in the class (even though it wasn't deserved) and she responded with an extremely condescending response of "well you got it right, do you want me to change this because it was too ambiguous?" Of course not... but she felt that this was an appropriate response to me. The content of this course is tedious and what you expect from it, but the professor's attitude and behavior bring a lot of stress into this class. Do not take her during COVID. She's not accommodating and believes that all students should be able to succeed despite her not changing anything to fit with distance learning. This class is supposedly not any harder now than it was pre-covid, but this shouldn't be the case since there are so many things keeping students to be able to perform at their full potential, but she doesn't care.

This class was extremely stressful and tiring. There is a lot of material that is covered and that you are required to memorize and the info can often be confusing or contradictory and it is extremely difficult to memorize everything that is on the slides. On top of this, the questions on the tests are made to trick you with answer choices like "a and b", " a and c", " b and c", " b and d" " none of the above", " all of the above" all on the same question. The first test was not as difficult, the second test was extremely difficult and after the whole class complained about the second test, she made the final a lot easier in my opinion. All the tests are on respondus plus they are made sequential, meaning you have to answer a question and move on and you can't come back to that question. The good thing was that she did not require textbook and the exam material was only from what she lectured. The weekly quizzes are also on respondus and sequential and they include 6 questions about the material covered in the previous week. Compared to the tests, the quizzes are a lot more fair and straightforward (at least for the TA that I had). I would recommend enrolling in a discussion that is later in the week because you will have more time to study the previous weeks' lectures. Overall, if you put a lot of time into this class and study really hard, you will probably be fine. Good luck!

Psych 115 has such interesting material, but do not take it with Kennedy. Literally avoid her at all costs. Interesting class though!

Tbh i don't know if she just changed teaching styles but i really like this class. i know there are bad reviews but i like the way she lectures. she's engaging and funny. additionally, exams aren't hard if you pay attention in class. overall i would take this class again!