Dr. Ho is, without a doubt, my favorite professor at UCLA. While other reviews provide a great overview of the course structure, I wanted to share my perspective for any psychology majors considering taking her lab class: DO IT!

As someone planning to pursue clinical psychology and counseling, I didn’t expect to enjoy the research aspects of psychology as much as I did in this class. I always found research, and especially coding, intimidating, but Dr. Ho’s teaching completely changed my perspective. She has a way of making complex topics, like coding, approachable and manageable. No matter your skill level, she’s incredibly patient and always makes time to help.

One of the highlights of the class is how Dr. Ho ties the content to her own research and professional experiences, using anecdotes that make the material more engaging and relatable. The small class size (about 25 students) is another plus, you’re able to build genuine connections with like-minded peers and with Dr. Ho herself, which is such a refreshing change from large lecture halls.

I can’t recommend this class enough.

Take this class with Dr. Ho!!!!

This class was a pivotal moment in my academic journey—it solidified my decision to pursue psychology and stands out as one of the best courses I’ve taken at UCLA. While the content itself is engaging, what truly sets this class apart is Dr. Ho. Her background in neuroscience adds incredible depth, and the way she connects social psychology principles with neuroscience and biology is both unique and fascinating.

The course is fast-paced, with a lot of material to cover, but Dr. Ho’s teaching style and dedication to her students make it manageable and rewarding. She is extremely responsive, deeply cares about her students’ success, and creates an environment where learning feels both challenging and supportive. Her ability to make complex concepts approachable ensures that you not only succeed in the class but also truly understand the material.

If you’re planning to take Psych 127B, I can’t recommend taking it with Dr. Ho enough. It’s a challenging but truly rewarding experience that will leave a lasting impact!

During this class, we spent a lot of time in RStudio, and prior to this class, I was not too fond of programming research because I was simply not good at it. However, the experience I had in your classroom changed my perspective through the way you taught and how you truly displayed a sense of care. I enjoyed my time in the Franz Hall Computer Lab and am proud to say I have the basics of R Studio under my belt. In addition, I really enjoyed the content that she taught and felt that I garnered a tremendous amount of knowledge with the active learning layout that the lecture had.

I really enjoyed this class and would recommend. It is not to too much work, no tests, just participation and a partner project. Professor Ho gives the data for the project, and a lot of class time to work on it. Professor Ho is really understanding and even gave us candy on Halloween! I took this to fill my lab requirement but found it to be really engaging and I learned a lot. It is a smaller class, I was lucky enough to get off the waitlist, so I would prioritize this if you are interested!

this class sucked lol. do not recommend. it was so much content but she never explained things thoroughly. also expected us to remember legit every word she said, even if briefly glossed over. she is also pretty monotone.

I highly recommend taking this class! The topics were interesting, like depression and personality disorders. Like a previous reviewer said, my only issue was that I wanted to cover more content. Also, Professor Ho was incredibly helpful during office hours and very open to chatting with her students. Her research is about stress on adolescents and how it affects development (super cool)!

The tests were multiple-choice, and you definitely should study as there is a lot of content and some questions were tricky. That said, everything you need to know is on the slides, and I thought the tests were fair. There were two exams when I was in this class, but she let us take an optional final so we could drop a lower score, which was super nice of her to provide that option. I studied a lot for the first two, so I didn't take the final. Discussion sections were also pretty chill, mandatory attendance with one drop. Overall, Professor Ho is great and I recommend you take her class!

Professor Ho is pretty good. For this quarter she offered 3 tests (2 midterms and 1 final) and you were able to drop your lowest score, so if you did well on the midterms you wouldn't even have to take the final. You're also allowed a 5x8 index card (front and back) to write info on to use during the tests, which definitely saved my grade. Lectures are pretty dense and she talks kind of fast, so I'd def recommend having the slides open/downloading and annotating them so you don't miss out on any information.
Fair warning, the tests do go pretty in depth and some questions can only be found in the textbooks (not lectures), but I didn't read the textbook at all and still got an A. I think the best way to do good on the tests is to 100% understand the content from the lectures, but luckily most test questions are straightforward with only a couple being a little tricky.
She also offers extra credit!! Up to 5 points of SONA credit and a couple points for the end-of-quarter evaluation, make sure to do those !

Once again, highly recommend! This was the first class I took with Dr. Ho (second was Psych 126, equally recommend), and the first time that she taught this course! I'm sure that since then, she has made modifications to the course, but from my experience, the content in this class is exactly what I hoped would be covered! From anxiety to depression to ADHD to personality disorders to psychotic disorders, my intellectual curiosity only grew afterwards! I do wish that more disorders like eating disorders (related to anxiety and depression but still its own category) could have been studied. Exams were not bad if you studied the comprehensive presentation slides and read the papers assigned (not much honestly!). Take this class for elective credit :)

Wow, what can I say. Dr. Ho is an amazing professor, her lecture presentations clear and concise, never boring with the research and excitement she shares with the class. The class content is interesting, and the fact that we learn about a variety of adolescent psychiatric conditions that draw in the biology and computer science fields really adds a spark to learning! Take this class as your laboratory requirement for psych with Dr. Ho!! No exams, only paper, research presentation, and some R coding that is super simple to follow along with (no prior experience needed!)

Her lectures are useful if you're interested in psychology, She offers weekly quizzes which you can take again after the answer is revealed. Overall If you read the slides and the textbook you'll perform well on the exams.