Professor McAuliffe is super funny and engaging during his lectures. I felt that I learned something valuable and enjoyed the content we covered. I also appreciated the life stories and advice he sprinkled into his lectures. I highly recommend!!!

The class consisted of 2 take-home, non-cumulative, open-note exams and one final presentation where we presented a research study of our choice. Attendance in lectures and labs was not mandatory other than for the final presentation—everything was recorded and posted. The take home exams weren't hard—the answers are all in his lectures/labs.

*Note that I took this class during COVID-19, so my experience is only representative of the online class format. I think the class would have required a lot more time and effort if it were in person.

Tests are stupid, I guess he really worked hard to tricks you in some questions, and he makes terrible jokes. FYI, he makes loud noises to scare the shit out of you, don't take if you have heart conditions. And if you are here because this class does not require a paper, think twice, everything comes with a price. The funniest thing he will teach you if you are in the class is that bruinwalk reviews are biased samples from haters and lovers. Well, I guess he has more haters than lovers.

McAuliffe is absolutely awful. His tests are dumb -- he literally copies questions off his study guide, and the rest of the questions are on obscure details that have no relevance to the overall meaning of the topic. When he's not trying to be funny, his lectures are so boring. I'm so interested in psychology, but I was always so bored during his lectures. His grading criteria is ridiculous! Try not to take general psych lab if you don't have to!! For your own sake, really!

Take this class while it is online! I took this class in the Fall this year for my lab credit and it was honestly such a small workload, especially compared most of the other lab options. This class might normally be difficult, but taking it online was super chill. The midterm and the final were both somewhat difficult, but you have 24 hours to complete each one, and you can go back and watch lectures and just write what he says as each answer to the question for most questions. There is also a presentation at the end, which is what gives you the lab credit, but he graded these quite nicely. There are no assignments other than the two exams and the presentation, all of which it is totally possible to ace with the online format.

I've never written a review before in my almost 4 years here at UCLA but I definitely knew I wanted to write one for Professor McAuliffe. This professor is super engaging, has great examples, and teaches you so much about life. I recommend taking psych 101 with him 100%

I looked through older reviews and felt a pang of disappointment when I realized that this man has been teaching for far too long for no good reason. I wanted to see how he was in the past, and it seems like he hasn’t truly cared nor put in effort into his teaching… ever. I know there are some who like him, but the negatives completely outweigh the positives. I thought this would be a standard class with mixed reviews, and at first, I found him to be really entertaining. This entertainment was made at the expense of any real learning that could’ve occurred in this class. I felt cheated of a real psych class because of his disorganized content and speech, and his grading breakdown is horrendous. He never asked for students’ feedback or how he could better support us--instead, he complained to his TA in class with a dismissive attitude towards students’ concerns and blamed us for his incompetency. At most, he addresses these issues by bringing up his nickname, Professor “McAwful.” It’s not so funny when you’ve been on the receiving end of his awful teaching.

“Grades more on whether or not you paid attention in class, and not necessarily about relevant info pertaining to the class.” - it’s been 20 years and he still has not gotten better, it seems. If you want to get a good idea of what to expect from this class, look through all of the reviews.

The main points about Professor Mcauliffe & this class:

Positives:
no required textbook/purchases; no assignments, just 2 exams, and 1 presentation on an article of your choice; entertaining tangents make classes less boring

Negatives:
no new psych material is taught, and the content probably makes up the equivalent of 1-2 weeks of a different gen psych class; professor does not care about you as a person or your learning; does not accept constructive criticism/doesn’t take feedback seriously; disorganized and lacks structure
-- He spends the majority of class time (1 50min lecture, 1 3hr lecture) going on tangents about his personal life. Entertaining, but a huge waste of time.
-- His “explanations” for concepts and general material are often convoluted.

I would’ve enjoyed this class more if he facilitated an effective learning environment and provided more effective ways to demonstrate learning. The questions on the exams were confusing and the presentation has nothing to do with the class.

He is clearly experienced and knowledgable, which comes through in the breadth of topics he goes through, but his delivery functions as a way for him to basically rant about his opinions on psych topics rather than to teach. It’s like listening to a podcast of someone who finds psych interesting but is just talking… not intending to teach or engage much.

This class is unlike other psychology/life science classes. It questions theoretical probabilities rather than simply lecturing facts and expects the students to form their opinions while remaining open-minded on topics such as consciousness, free will, and judgement.

The textbook does not help, although it is available for $25 pdf copy.

Pros: Professor McAuliffe respected the time of his students; he always started and ended in the designated time slot. His materials outside of his slides (videos, examples, personal stories) were engaging and interesting. He does a good job of not imposing opinions and encourages discussion.

Cons: However, his instructions for a video project (15% of grade) were vague. Although I appreciated the artistic freedom, it would've been nice to have more guidance. Lecture recordings were sometimes uploaded 3 days late. Sometimes, he accelerates and skimps his explanations of important topics for the sake of time, and in my class, explicitly said that he would skip a topic that later showed up in 5 questions on the final exam.

Especially for a class that relied on Zoom and slides, I would've liked more prompt email communication between the professor and student.

worst professor i have ever had at ucla. without a book assigned to the class, it meant i HAD to attend his lectures. normally, i'm all for classes without expensive books and normally i love to attend lectures and learn, but seriously mcauliffe's condescending attitude and overall lack of self-control makes it unbearable. if you can avoid him as a professor, please do. also, if you do end up taking him, make note of the fact that he's a self-declared non-researcher (and proud of it), yet when it comes to test time, you better remember the study he had participated in, because, well.. he's just that narcissistic. you will also be in for numerous anecdotes about his life that just waste a ton of time and have little to do with anything we should be talking about. with all of that said, he did give us candy and sang us a song right before we filled out our teacher evaluations.

I've never left a review on a class and likely never will again. If you can help it AVOID this class- at all costs. Prof is a sweet guy, but an absolutely TERRIBLE teacher. Extremely unclear and unorganized, exams do not reflect what we go over in class. Just... don't take this class.

Biggest asshole ever. Don't take him if you care about your grade. The class itself is not a difficult course but he MAKES it difficult on purpose. He has this ridiculous idea that formulas shouldn't be given to students so you'll basically send your whole time memorizing stupid formulas and trying to remember what order to do all the steps for problems. He makes his tests difficult with a number of questions that are meant to trick you - and he has no qualms about relishing in intentionally doing this. In fact he gloats about it.

Anyone who says this guy genuinely cares about his students are deluding themselves. He doesn't actually care about the students - he's probably just sick of all the negative reviews on Bruinwalk (he gives away on the first lecture that he reads through these reviews).

Anyway, I hated this course and him as a professor. He's not funny and he thinks his attempts at humor (especially on the tests) makes things less stressful but really they're just irritating. Save yourself a quarter full of tedious memorization/sucky jokes and take the course with someone else.