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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

The coursework is REALLY dense. Every lecture has about 45 slides; and every single slide EITHER has a mountainous amount of text OR a complex diagram. And no matter how minute a detail is… it is fair game to be on the test. There is also no buffer to your grade. Just your discussion quizzes merged with your attendance grade, Tests, and 2% SONA. The weekly Quizzes also Usually have about one or two very specific questions, so it’s difficult to get a 100% each time. This quarter we could drop 3 weekly quizzes (instead of 2) because of the COVID situation. Something important to note is that during midterm week, you STILL have weekly quizzes, so if anything, you have even bigger workload during midterms. AND if you had COVID during one of the other weeks, you *essentially* are forced to “use up” your quiz drops for that week, Meaning that for midterm week Quizzes, you probably had to do well to compensate…
The tests (32q midterm, 35 q final) are all multiple choice, and could be finished in about 40 minutes (although we are given 1.5 hours). Every question is kinda like “you know it or you don’t”, so the test itself goes by pretty quickly although the wording could be better. I’d say about 5 out of the total questions are just so unnecessarily specific. And that’s already 15% of my test grade that I have to Wing.
Now for people who insist on taking the class with Kennedy (just b/c they have to Or b/c they think it won’t be as bad as people say) here are some tips to help alleviate the Pain!
(1) Take a Discussion Section LATER in the week! Please! You don’t want to be burned out from a midterm, then have to take a quiz in the next hour -especially if you haven’t studied at all for the quiz b/c of the midterm…*sweats* -
(2) Study off the Discussion Slides first THEN study the lecture slides. The Discussion Slides pick out the most important concepts and Then that’ll help you piece together what is Actually happening in lecture (lol). As I mentioned before, a lot of this course is memorization, but there is only so much you can memorize if you don’t understand it! So try to understand at least the major concepts.
(3) Study consistently BUT for the nitty gritty stuff, memorize the day of the test. There is quite a bit of the nitty gritty, but don’t prioritize that over the other major concepts.
(4) do the SONA! (Don’t forget the deadline)
(5) Understand the Pathways! Compare and Contrast between the Structures/Pathways and Know what they do! (especially for Midterm 2)

But hey! If there’s any good part about this class is that the final is noncumulative :D Also p.s. Maggie is a good TA! If you don’t understand something, I would go to their office hours.

Kennedy is awful. Just awful. She is rude, condescending, apathetic towards her students, and overall unreasonable. I had to devote so much of my time to this class to barely get an A, and I usually do not leave reviews, but I felt so strongly that I had to warn other students.

Her tests are hard. She has trick questions, explains concepts differently than the TAs, and includes information that wasn't ever included on the slides. Her questions are also vague, and you will need to use the entire time to finish the tests. She has a continual habit of ignoring emails, and on the few she responds to, makes an effort to talk down to students or belittle them for asking about basic course questions. She blames students for the scores instead of her teaching; if her students constantly score failing/ barely passing averages THROUGHOUT THE YEARS, she should do some reflecting on her own teaching and conduct instead of telling the TAs COVID made students lazier - the reviews written during online learning and even before speak more about her.

Being premed makes the class much easier, but I am honestly appalled by the way she treated her students, and I do not even know why UCLA would hire someone who seems to show no interest nor put in any effort into teaching her own students. You need a lot of background knowledge for this class, and even then, you will need to devote the bulk of your time into studying.

I understand that COVID cases are going down, but requiring a doctor's note THE DAY OF the test despite the quarantine period is so unreasonable and was so unfair to students who were exposed to COVID who could not yet test negative but had to quarantine per school guidelines. She backtracks on any promises she makes about listening to her students, and instead blames them for any lapse in judgment on her part. I have never had a teacher that focused so much blame entirely on her students, rather than accepting responsibility for consistently low performances. She seems to not understand that test scores are also a reflection of her teaching. I feel so bad for my classmates who did not get the grade they worked for and now have their futures ruined because of her course. There are better professors out there - take this course during the summer - or get a good therapist if you start her class.

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

Do not take this class with Dr. Kennedy. Coming into this course, I did not think it would be too bad as I had already taken Psych 15 (which had some neuroscience) and AP BIO back in high school, but Kennedy failed to realize this was an INTRODUCTORY neuroscience class and expected everyone to understand the course without even bothering to build a foundation first. She talked about her own research during the lectures too- while its all very interesting, she should have focused more on doing her job of teaching. She posted video recordings of her talking over the powerpoint and said everything on the slides could be tested, even things that were mentioned just once throughout the entire quarter. She was rude, condescending, and refused to listen to students, even though we all sent emails asking her to at least reconsider the testing format, which did not let you go back to old answers and used Respondus. I could look past her being a bad teacher, as most researchers focus more on their own research and are forced to teach by the school, but her attitude and refusal to help her own students made this class unbearable.