Schein was an awesome professor! It’s clear he’s an expert (MD/PHD), especially with vision. The material is super interesting too.

What I did to get an A:
Go to lecture (but really, only to get clicker points). Schein goes through slides SO fast, it’s nearly impossible to understand the material or take notes.
Listen to the bruincast of every lecture. Take notes while watching (pause the video anytime he says anything that may be important, which is pretty much everything). I spent 2 hours rewatching the lecture, pausing, and taking notes for each bruincast lecture. His exams are based solely off of what he says (at least 95%)! Even if it’s not on a slide, he may test on it.
Make flash cards of every slide/notes before the quizzes. (I seriously made over 400 flash cards throughout the quarter. I used them to study for the quizzes and exams)
That’s it. :)

If you stay on top of the material, this class is very do-able.
Grade breakdown: (all multiple choice, 50q)
Midterm 1: 82 (average ~75)
Midterm 2: 92 (average ~80)
Final: 94 (average ~80)

Discussion:
The quizzes (basically every discussion) we’re not particularly difficult, and pretty similar to test questions.
The paper is really easy, kind of a joke (3 pages, double spaced)

I would definitely recommend schein! He was really funny and the class was not that difficult

Schein is smart and really knows his stuff, but he tries to cram too much into just a few weeks. He would still be lecturing even the day before the exam, and speeds through lecture just to finish all the material. He also claims that you don't need to memorize, but please memorize. Several questions on the tests asks about small details that aren't necessarily "conceptual," and they can make/break your grade. The TAs also aren't the most helpful/knowledgeable so study hard on your own. There are three exams, discussion quizzes, one paper critique, and in-class clicker points that makeup your grade.

The workload isn't necessarily heavy, because he doesn't have too many things that are due. However, to do well you need to pace yourself and make sure you're staying on track with the material. Everyone has their own study methods, make sure to figure out yours early on and understand the material. Make sure to get as many points as possible outside of exams and they can really boost your grade.

Schein was wonderful.

I am selling the class textbook Biological Psychology, 7th Edition. It was incredibly useful for me during the course. Please message me at ********** for details!

Prof Schein is definitely passionate about the topic he teaches, especially vision. The class required a lot of memorization (although he thinks otherwise) and reading. I had to rewatch the Bruincast videos to take more detailed notes because he went over the material too fast during lecture. Watching the lectures again and reading the textbook helped me review the content and allowed the details to really stick. Most of his multiple choice questions were fair, but there were some questions that seemed to come out of nowhere and were totally unpredictable - I still did well regardless of these questions, though. The quizzes in discussion were most likely created by the TAs, and the TA that I had for the quarter was horrible and made really confusing, weirdly stated questions. I couldn't do much to do well on the quizzes, so I used most of my studying time to concentrate on my midterm and final exams. The paper was also a very short one, and as long as you pay attention to directions, it should be feasible.

Jedi Master in Neuroscience, particularly vision.
Recommended.

Selling 100+ pages of typed and extremely detailed lecture notes for $20

Email *************

Schein is a good professor although he is so smart that sometimes I think he isn't the best at making the concepts accessible to the rest of us who aren't geniuses. The test questions are hard, and nuanced. You need to KNOW the material. There are weekly quizzes and a paper, and a movie, and iclicker points. I earned the max iClicker points in week 7 so I stopped going to lecture, and wasn't penalized which was great. The time committment required to do well in this class is big. I have never had such a workload for one class. For me, this class was harder than 100B in terms of workload.

Schein recommends a certain way of studying, he says not to memorize but DO NOT FOLLOW HIS RECOMMENDATION. I followed it for the second exam and I earned a full letter grade lower than I did when I was memorizing, which cost me an A in the class. You have to figure out your own study method in this class which works, the sooner the better for your grade.

If you want to save some money you don't really NEED the textbook. I think throughout the whole quarter there were maybe only 3 questions on the quizzes that were straight from the book. It is helpful though and he follows the textbook pretty closely. A vast majority of what matters to know in this class are the things he SAYS. Even if not on the slides, or not in the book.

Schein is not a nice person during office hours and has a tendency being condescending to his students when they try to reach out to him for help. With that said, he's a decent lecturer and know his stuff. Luckily, I had a good T.A. who was MUCH more approachable than Schein, so I just went to him instead. Definitely not an easy class, but definitely fair (for the most part). So as long as you study, you won't fail at least ;)

I personally really enjoyed the actual content of the class, but the workload can be heavy if you want to get that A. I took this class online, so live lectures were recorded on zoom and tests were taken using respondus. Lecture is always packed with information and Professor Schein often lectures past the 50 minutes (usually 10-15 minutes over time). Schein is a pretty good lecturer and it is obvious that he knows his stuff.

The textbook is online, so you don’t have to buy it. Schein recommended reading the textbook, but I personally didn’t. His tests mainly test you on what is on his slides, so I highly suggest watching lectures at least 2-3 times each before every test and reviewing the lecture slides well. Schein repeated many times not to memorize things, but his tests have questions that are about the smallest details like specific percentages. If you know the lecture slides well, you will do well on the test. I personally didn’t study enough before exams, so when I read the test questions, I recognized the content but didn’t know the slides well enough to select the right answer. The tests are not cumulative, so each exam has about 3 weeks worth of lecture.

The weekly discussion quizzes test you on the past 3 lectures before your section. Review lecture slides before your discussion section because you need to know the content to do well on the quizzes. Also, since this class is a point system, try to get as many points as possible on the quizzes.

The course has 420 points (300 + 112 + 3+ 5)
Each of the 3 exams has 50 multiple-choice questions and counts for 100 points, equally a total of 300 points.
The discussion sections count for 112 points. (made up of discussion quizzes (12 points) and attendance (2 points) with your lowest scores in both dropped). We had 9 discussion sections (b/c of thanksgiving break), so my top 8 scores + 8 weeks of discussion attendance made up my discussion grade.
The practice tryout with Respondus (3 points).
An Inconvenient Truth, 5 points : Professor held two Monday night showings of the movie and you got the 5 points if you joined the Zoom.

I got a raw score of 82.8% in the class, which was curved to an A-. The grading in the class is very curved (roughly) : A > 85%, ​A- >83%, B+ >80%.
My scores:
Midterm 1: 78 (avg 72)
Midterm 2: 86 (avg 80)
Final: 84 (avg 82)
Discussion: 79% for quizzes —> 82% (including 16 attendance points)
Respondus & Movie: full points (8/8)

Just so you know before reading my review, I'm a 5th year PsychoBio major with a computer specialization. I've completed all but two of my upper div electives for psychobio.

Prof. Schein is deeply interested in what he teaches and he tries to pass that interest on to his students. Condescending? Not really -- I think people are misinterpreting his high expectations for his students as condescension. Personally, I felt he was very nice and personable.

His class was rather easy in retrospect; however, while taking it you'd swear it's the hardest elective ever: a ton of reading (a lot of it repetitive), quizzes every week or so, two oral presentations, a paper, and proof of attendance to two neurosci seminars. A lot of work during the quarter, but NO FINAL (always a good thing). He also grades on class participation, but not very heavily. Just speak up in class -- especially in the first couple days of lecture, even if you're lost.

Quizzes (all short answer) are generally difficult because there's so much reading between each quiz that you don't know what he's going to pull out of the reading as questions. He also pulls questions from the lecture, but not random stuff -- usually important concepts. I think he's kind of lax on grading though -- if an answer is reasonable, he'll accept it.

Oral presentations are EASY -- don't OVERDO it though, you'll miss out on points if you go too long. Be concise but thorough.

The paper is on WHATEVER you like and he grades it fairly easily.

There's room to earn extra credit on practically anything -- it's not really advertised though. If he feels you did exceptionally well on a particular item (ie. an oral presentation, or the paper), he'll give you extra points out of nowhere.

Overall grading must have been pretty lax -- I got an A in the class and my percentage on all the work was below 75%.

Prof. Schein's class is all about learning, not grading -- but if you do need an A in an elective class and you're not afraid of putting in a little effort and actually learning something, this is an excellent class for you.