From the beginning, I loved Professor Perry. She was so kind and helpful during the remote instruction quarter and battled horrible internet connection and her limited technological knowledge to still provide us with the best class experience possible. Every week we would have a quiz and in the end, we were able to drop three of our lowest quiz scores which was more than generous. I do have to admit that the quizzes were a bit tricky and some of them asked about specific details so you do really have to know your stuff.
Other than that, she replies to student emails really quickly and really cares about students' mental health and learning as she provided us with alternatives if we were unable to purchase the course reader (which I do not recommend purchasing anyways because I did none of the readings and got an A) and even posted recipes and resources for students that need help cooking during the stay-at-home order. Definitely take this class if you love animals (monkeys in particular); not only will you learn about their lifestyle but also how their behavior is paralleled in humans and other species.

Dr. Perry is the MONKEY! get it... but seriously this class is so fun, I really recommend it. Some of the things I learned in this class really stuck with me after graduation - I find myself contextualizating human behavior all the time with our ape and monkey relatives and the fascinating things Dr. Perry taught us. The tests aren't easy, but the material is definitely a manageable amount. My biggest recommendation is to study in groups, because the tests are almost logic-based and practicing quizzing each other really helps. Dr. Perry really cares about her students - if you meet with her outside of class, she will be so helpful and thorough and really excited to meet repeatedly. She has spent honestly most of her life with capuchin monkeys and really knows her stuff. She can speak monkey also, which she'll demonstrate at some point. Anyways, fascinating class, and not bad of a work load, just sort of difficult tests if you're not a good test taker - most points are via test so keep in mind.

I took this class to fulfill my UD requirements. I felt that at first, her class was really easy. She listed the recommended homework on the syllabus and it was adequately spaced out. I never spent more than 3 hours on the readings each week, which was nice and she helped me overcome my fear of monkeys. I will say that some parts of the class covered really sensitive topics such as SA or Infanticide and that made me uncomfortable, but other than that the homework load was fine, all lectures were recorded, and attendance was not mandatory.

Now on the other hand her class can be boring! It is not interactive, so for 1 and a half hours you sit there watching her walk around on stage and answer one question for 25 minutes! At one lecture I attended, somebody fell asleep! Also, her slides provided a lot of information, but none of which helped on the test. I would seriously recommend skipping lecture notes and just trying to come up with your practice questions or contacting her for some. The practice questions or study guides she handed out (via Canvas) for the math or her book were not that helpful, but the ones discussing other articles were.

In terms of tests and grades, there are only two assignments you have to worry about: the midterm(40%), and the final(60%). The midterm was not for the weak, I underestimated what the class was about and didn't study much other than the day before. I felt that the study guides did not help and I should've come up with flashcards and analyzed the texts days before. However, the final was easier because I studied a lot and reviewed the articles. I recommend looking for the hypothesis of the research, the materials and methods, and the conclusion.
She grades weirdly. It isn't the usual curve method she uses, she puts everyone's grade as a percentile and she decides ok the upper percentile is "on its way to an A" and the middle percentile is "one the way to a B" and so on. In the Fall, the lowest possible grade to get was a C-, and the only way to fail was if you got a 0 or were completely guessing, which I assume she can tell people try to guess the whole test through because some questions are only A/B or basic.

There's a lot to cover, but I would say I would take her again because she seems sweet and I feel like I underestimated the class the first time. Also, I would recommend her class to anyone interested in animal behavior and psychology.

This class was probably the hardest anthropology class I've taken as a 4th year anthropology major. Like others have said, your grade for this class is only based on a midterm (40%) and a final (60%), and is curved so the top 1/3 of the class gets an A, middle 1/3 get a B, etc. but you won't really know your grade until after the final. The fact that your grade is comprised of just those 2 components make this class really stressful and had I known that from the beginning, I probably would not have taken the class. The exams are difficult since you need to know basically everything there is to know about primates and the questions are structured in a way that feels like they're meant to trick you/throw you off. The lectures are also a bit boring and hard to follow since the notes she posts don't exactly match up with the corresponding slides she uses during the lectures. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this class to anyone.

TLDR: Class is just a multiple choice midterm and a multiple choice final. Curved so 1/3 get an A, 1/3 B, 1/3 C. Lectures are recorded and notes are posted.

This class is pretty mellow if you watch all the lectures and take notes or annotate the existing notes. I basically just had to study for a few hours in the days leading up to the exam and got a 30/40 and a 46/60 which I like to think was mostly due to poorly worded questions. However this curved up to an A surprisingly so happy with that.

The class is mildly interesting but definitely dry at times. If you can power through the lull you should have no problem succeeding. I personally think monkeys are crazy little critters so it was cool learning about them.

As for Professor Perry, she is lovely. Very soft-spoken yet incredibly passionate about what she does. Her lectures are pretty clear but it is sometimes difficult to deduce what she wants you to know come exam time. Sometimes the studies she presented had contradictory results and she acknowledged that but when we were faced with an exam question it was difficult to know what study we should apply. Other than that I have no complaints. Lovely professor, solid class, nice curve. I’d recommend.

If you're not at all interested in the primate "nonhuman" part of "nonhuman to human," you shouldn't take this class. It is almost entirely primate focused, not human. I will say that I don't think I was especially interested in primates before, but I am now! Some prior interest in wildlife would definitely make the class more interesting though. Once you get past the first few weeks, which are mainly introductions to basic concepts of studying behavior and initially learning about different primate species, the class gets much more interesting! You'll learn about how the diets and social structures of different species affect their brain size, for example. I always enjoyed hearing about Dr. Perry's personal experiences with studying capuchins. She built resources and optional activities into the class for aspiring anthropologists and people who want to work in wildlife conservation, and held a more casual lunch with students towards the end of the quarter. You can tell she really cares about supporting students. Even though your grade in the class is entirely based on exams (40% midterm, 60% final), the exams are multiple-choice Scantrons, and the curves are generous!

Her class is graded on a curve such that only 33% of the class gets each grade, A,B and C, So no one fails. Her powerpoints contain audio with critical information.

Def take this class, hella easy, super insightful, Prof Perry is so nice, kind, helpful and smart. Really cool class on monkeys.

The class was a little bit harder than I was ready for but I still really, really enjoyed it. The book for the class was written by her and is incredibly interesting and she is one of the foremost in the field of studying white-faced capuchin monkeys. I would have loved to take her class in person as the lectures were a little bit dull through PowerPoint but still super interesting. The quizzes were fairly hard, really, really study before them and you should be fine but they're a bit awkwardly worded so it can be hard to get every one right. But she is flexible with the grades and lets you drop the lowest two. She also is super sweet and offers a lot of resources, for the class and otherwise, another reason why I wish I could take her class in person. Overall, if you like animals, especially monkeys, and animal behavior this is a great class!

Took this class online Spring 2020. Professor Perry's lectures were clear and the class overall doesn't require too much of your time. I think the topics were very interesting. She is very responsive when it comes to replying back to emails. I don't regret taking this course. Her grading was based off only weekly quizzes, no final or midterms. She is very passionate about her work. I did end up with a 79.45% and emailed her and she wasn't willing to round me up to a B-

Reselling the course reader, email: *************