selling textbook (SM Breedlove and NV Watson. Behavioral Neuroscience. 8th Edition) pdf for $5

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If you have a background in anatomy and physiology, like I did, the beginning of the class should be review. But, don't get cocky like me hahah. The lectures are DENSE with material. Here's a rough breakdown of the class exam and quizzes. Starting with the quizzes, the quiz questions were straightforward neuroscience questions and should be easy if you study. The lecture exams can be tricky, however, Many students agree that a lot of his questions are not straight up neuro material and can ask conceptual questions such as on the first exam with questions on the concentration gradients. Grasp a general understanding of the material and never obsess with the details as this won't be tested.

As an intro to neuroscience, this class is pretty on par with the given material. Prof. Schein is really good about having lectures ready and slides up in advance for his students. The lectures are generally quite engaging if you are interested in human anatomy/neuroscience. Professor Schein is a good lecturer and his tests are pretty fair. He says that the average grade is a B (which I can attest to). Though he is a good lecturer, going into his office hours can be pretty daunting. I only did once and felt less than welcome. That being said, from what I've heard from people who have taken different professors for 115, Schein is your best bet. Tough, straight to the point, yet still interesting. I would recommend.

Alright here it goes. This class wasn't that bad at all. He goes over A LOT of material. A LOT OF MATERIAL! But, he doesn't test on so much of it. You don't have to memorize the drug pathways in the brain, all the crazy sh*t he goes over in lecture, but he does test on the basics.

Do not listen to his advice of skimming, attending, then reading. DO NOT. It's a huge waste of time. If you wanna skim the notes, go for it. The book really isn't worth it. The clicker questions usually have answers somewhere in the notes, so if you print out the notes you should be fine on those. Pay careful attention in lecture. Definitely watch the video cast. Take VERY DETAILED NOTES on what he says in class. I would say that 98% of the test questions come from the lecture stuff. So I repeat, in caps, DO NOT BOTHER WITH THE BOOK! But some of the things the books goes over are very interesting, not gonna lie (it's winter break, after I've already gotten my A grade, and I'm looking at the book for fun).

No one should say the test questions are impossibly tough. Again, if you know the notes well you should do fine. I ranked really well in the class just off the notes (ok, so maybe I read like 5 pages of the book during class, so shoot me). Make sure you write down and study everything he says that aren't in the notes. He does put some of those on the tests. Trust me, podcasts and video casts are your friends. If you need to, like me, spend over an hour on re-listening to the lectures. Much more than an hour. I mean pause it every so often just to write stuff he said down.

Some final things you should know about the class and tests:

Know numbers. What do I mean by this? Every time there's a number in the notes, know it. No joke. My guess is there were about 6 questions in total on the tests combined just on those numbers.

The first day's lecture does count. Yes it's easy stuff, but I didn't look over it once because I thought it wasn't important and missed a Q on the first exam (hint, it was a number question).

You have to watch An Inconvenient Truth. Not that great of a movie, considering how a good majority of the things in that movie have been debunked. But that's beside the point. Schein put the showing on Mondays for us. I had to miss one of my other classes for this movie. There's even attendance for it too. Yes, it's only worth 2 points, but every point matters. Take notes on it, and of course, remember the numbers.

He's very consistent with letting us out late. I think every class he let us out 3-7 minutes late. Plan your following class accordingly.

Lastly, he's open to questions during class. This is rare for UCLA professors. But after class, I feel like it's a bit intimidating to ask him questions. He doesn't give off the jolly persona portrayed in class.

Alright I think I'm done. That was long, if you read this, congrats to you!

Dr. Schein is an excellent professor. He is truly enthusiastic about the material he teaches and his interest becomes infectious as you find yourself wanting to learn more about the brain and body.

This was the most interesting psych class I've taken so far because it had a lot of neuro in it and was harder science than some of the other "soft-science" psych classes out there. So south campus people should be fine in this course.

I recommend taking the honors seminar as well. It helps to demystify the science culture and you realize that you can understand a lot more than you'd think. You also appreciate where knowledge comes from and hopefully get involved in research yourself.

His lectures do tend to run over 50 minutes pretty consistently so you need to consider this when planning your schedule. Wear running shoes.

Exams are very fair and are non-cumulative so you can focus on just the most recent material.

Overall, best professor I've had at UCLA so far.

Dr. Schein tries his best to be a good professor, and when it comes to being a good professor, that's the attribute that I look at the most. So in my opinion, Dr. Schein is a great teacher. That being said, this class is no cakewalk. There is a lot of reading that you have to do in order to do well on the tests. Sometimes he will not be able to finish a lecture and still put that material on the upcoming test, but as long as you read the textbook (like you should be doing anyway) you will be able to understand the questions he asks. I'm not preaching this as a student who got an A+, in fact, I'm struggling to get a B. Which is pretty embarrassing considering he hands out A's to over 35% of the class. Schein is VERY passionate about the stuff he teachers, and it's admirable, but sometimes the work is overwhelming. However, the fact that he tries, the fact that he tries to learn the name of everybody sitting in the front 3 rows of the class, and the fact that he loves what he does contributes to the fact that I think he's a good professor. And when you throw in the fact that he over 60% of the class gets a B or higher, I don't see why people complain about him as a teacher.

115

Pros:

-Very animated lecturer.

-Dense course but he often makes the effort to make the information interesting and relevant by including personal anecdotes, humor etc.

- Memorize those lecture notes like it's your job & you'll get an A. Exams are tough and tricky.

- 115 material is boring but Shein makes it really exciting. Not sure why he has all the negative ratings but my class seemed to like him.

Prof Schein is a wonderful teacher, but there were so many chapters to go over. he rarely finished his lecture in the class time availible. his exams were very hard. they were multiple choice questions but extremely tricky

I guess some things have to be said before the rest of my review: yes, his lectures are somewhat rushed and very wordy, but that's because he wants to be able to cover as much material as possible. He is also VERY opinionated, so for others who are too, just take those parts with a grain of salt.

Other than that, professor Schein is probably the BEST professor that I have had so far at UCLA. He's even better than Dr. Hardinger for the chem series in my opinion and I wish he taught more classes. He is very intelligent and he actually gets really excited about what he's teaching, unlike MANY other professors that I've taken. That in addition to his curiosity is probably why he got both a PhD and MD. He CARES about and loves what he teaches and tries his best to highlight the important parts during lecture. When he speeds through certain sections, it's because he thinks it's boring too (no I'm not kidding) and wants to get on to more interesting stuff.

One thing that stands out about Prof Schein is that before almost every lecture, he'll take the time to learn the names of EVERY student in the front row (NOT ONLY GIRLS). If you sit in the front row again, he'll try to recall your name from the previous time. When you go to his office hours, he will also learn your name and is more than willing to answer any questions you may have. He really shows an interest in people as individuals, not just students who's questions he needs to answer before carrying on to whatever else he needs to do.

I have probably learned the most in this class than any other class, probably because it was ridiculously fast-paced. So to take this class you need to either have a genuine interest in the subject material, or something I would HIGHLY recommend is that if you are a psych major, take as many of your other upper divs first as you can, and take this one last, because a lot of material is repetitive between courses and then most of the stuff in this class won't be new to you. Psychobio majors, you're set for this class because you should have already taken a lot of LS, a lot of which will show up in the course- that gives you an automatic advantage over psych majors (sorry north campus).

This guy is awesome. Lectures are fun and entertaining. Subject material is interesting. Format of the class is 2 midterms and 1 final. Noncumulative, all multiple choice. Clicker points for in lecture quizzes every lecture. a 10 point paper in discussion, and weekly quizzes in discussion. Make sure to get Deanna Greene as your TA, she's awesome! She really knows her stuff.