The whole class was asynchronous and she didn't even have office hours so she just posted lectures and required us to do the textbook readings. The lectures were long and full because she was nocturnal and filmed everything at night, so she was always whispering. I ended up dropping the class during week 10 because I knew I was failing it. The midterm was incredibly hard and the grading on the video presentations was harsh, so I didn't stand a chance. I dropped the class.

Taking this class online was so so challenging. I thought I would have failed this class if the final was not an open-book exam. I did not understand why we did not have office hour until week 8 or 9
+ Lecture: videos and slides are posted on CCLE around the class time. You can go back and check them many times you like to study. The lecture videos are long, require you to really stay focus.
+ Project: research on anything that relates to Cog Sci. It actually a cool thing to do. Just make sure you do all your best and find interesting topics to do. TA was the one who graded it so I don't really understand how she assigned grades.
+ Test: the first test was on the lockdown browser. Personally, I found the first test was actually hard for me. But I was surprised that the average for the class was not bad. The second test was given when BLM going on. Professor was lenient and generous to let people do it with longer duration, and with an open book/ note.
A test usually has 52 multiple choice questions, and 2 short essays (10 sentences). The study guide is posted beforehand. But try to understand the concept during the lecture, don't wait until the last minute.
+ Extra credit: since this class was online, so we could not have extra credit by volunteering in any research on campus. The extra credit was assigned up to 3% if you join the discussion board on CCLE.

Extremely dry and dense lectures. Professor recorded all lectures and didn't even have office hours. Pretty sure she was just reading off a script, because she spoke really quickly. Tests were really hard. Overall, just a bad class.

This course was fundamental of user experience for fall 2020. I thought the class was just okay. The first half of the course focused on ux fundamentals (theory and frameworks), the second half of the course focused on ux methods (actually starting a project and doing user research). Professor Carrigan is very clear in their recorded lectures, although they spoke a bit slow during it. I usually watched the 1-2 hour lectures in 1.5 speed to not fall asleep. The course content itself is really interesting, as I intend to go into ui/ux, but they had a way of making the class a chore. For example, the slides were often overloaded with text, and because we had 3 intensive projects from weeks 5-10, I felt like I was constantly working for this class.
The midterm, although I was one of the few who got an A on it, required a lot of memorization from the slides and was very detail-oriented. The exam was multiple choice, and the average was a solid B. The final was much more straightforward after people began to worry that it would be like the midterm. Although I don't know what I got on it, I'm assuming I got an A (and would assume many more people in the class did as well).
The projects are with a randomly assigned group of 4 other students, and I got a pretty solid group. We had to conduct user research and write up 3 separate reports, each of ours being between 10-23 pages. They aren't essays, more like slides, but were still time consuming. As part of our discussion posts, we had to volunteer in 2 other groups' studies for each project (6 sessions total). I thought they were fun, and they ranged from 10 min to an hour depending on the method used. My only issue with this part of the class is that the projects, graded by the TA, seemed to be graded in comparison to other groups. That is, our grade depended on how good other groups' reports were. This annoyed me because the project instructions were somewhat vague, and we got docked on points just because "x group included ___, which your group didn't". These additional points were never mentioned in the project requirements so how were we supposed to know to include them?
Nevertheless, I would give this class a 7.5/10. If you really need a ux class, then take this. Otherwise, just watch Youtube videos on ux lol.
GRADE BREAKDOWN
Discussion Posts (1/lecture): 20/20 - 20% of grade
Midterm: 47/50 - 25% of grade
Final: A/55 - 25% of grade
Project 1: 88 - 10% of grade
Project 2: 88 - 10% of grade
Project 3: Not given - 10% of grade
Final Grade: A (percent not given). I don't think this class was curved.

Carrigan is an extremely accommodating professor and helpful when it comes to extending due dates. However, I cant even express how poorly taught this class is. The class is taught asynchronously and the lectures are EXTREMELY DENSE. You practically have to know everything they have ever said in lecture for the midterm and final. The midterm and final are each worth 30% of your grade and are pretty much impossible to do well on, as they are closed book and require you to practically memorize every small detail of the course. There are 3 projects that are each worth 10%...And it was a pain to work in a group during zoom times because of time differences. Discussion, worth 10%, is literally responses to discussion board posts after every lecture. Overall, dont take this class if you can avoid it. I wish I didn't.

This is by far the worst class I have ever taken in my life. I used to think I was interested in psychology until this class. Now, I never want to touch the material again. Dr. Carrigan tries, but the lectures are far too dense to make any sense and the explanations provided are weak and often read directly from slides. The whole class was asynchronous and we had no discussion section. I don't even know what the professor looks like. TAs provide no feedback on the presentation assignments. In my opinion, I hated this class and everything about it. Nothing good came from this class for me. It was a total waste of time and I barely learned a thing. If you are thinking about taking this class because it's fun or simple, please do yourself a favor, and go somewhere else. I would rather listen to two hours of Nickelback a day for the next year of my life than ever hear another word come out of this professor's mouth.

Do not take this class.

I would never ever recommend this professor for this class. The professor is extremely unhelpful (even though she posted a video on CCLE detailing how much she is there for her students and never hesitate to come see her) and there is a huge inconsistency with how grading is done. The final grade is pretty much calculated from two exams (midterm and final) and three projects but the three projects you could easily get A's on in your sleep. The exams are ridiculously hard considering how easy the projects are and everybody i talked to in the group was terrified for their final grade after the midterm. The professor is also not accommodating and as a student struggling financially due to the position the pandemic put me in she never once tried to work with me in my unique situation during a unique year. I have three jobs and my mental health was suffering and despite getting A's on all projects still received an F in the class.

Prof. Carrigan is very sweet and kind. Carrigan cares about the students and is willing to help and accommodate, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Outside of the Professor's kindness the length of the chapters in the textbook (Cognitive Science: an Introduction to the study of the mind by Friedenberg and Silverman 3e), denseness of the material, and amount of material assigned each class makes this class a near impossibility to do well in. Each class you are responsible for a 19-26 page chapter along with a peer-reviewed journal article and a lecture during which it is impossible to stay awake because of the Prof.'s soothing voice and lack of intonation. If you're someone who can speed read and absorb difficult material from lecture like a sponge I would recommend this class. The material although, long, tedious, difficult, did I already say LONG, is very much interesting and I would encourage the undertaking if one is so inclined to learn about how cognitive scientists learn and talk about the brain. BUT... if you take this class be ready to put in the work. The exams are super nit-picky and require a TON of memorization. This class is no joke! I had to take it pass/no pass as this would have been the lowest grade (D) I'd get thus far at UCLA.

The lectures are recorded and uploaded, which means that you don't get to see the professor unless you were going to office hours, and sometimes the professor and the TA would forget their own OH and not come. The professor would repeat the same information and wouldn't give much clarity on the concepts you were lost on and the only reason I think I was able to pass was that I held weekly study sessions with other students and we always went over the lectures and used the study guide. This meant that we would have to basically remember everything on the study guide and condense it as much as possible while still ensuring that we would be able to understand it.

There are also group projects that happen and sometimes it's difficult for people to meet with their members so sometimes people have the option to do it alone but this does not guarantee that he would be willing to give you accommodations or leeway on your project. The TA would be the one grading it as well and I don't think I ever got to see my TA nor contact her at all either.

The class overall was hard because the lectures contained a lot of information and you would basically have to remember everything. I never did any of the reading because I didn't really understand the reading and only took what I had from the lecture. The group projects weren't hard for me but sometimes I'm never really sure about the grading basis because I did fine but others said that they were having a difficult time with theirs, so I think it really depends on you as a learner