PSYC 4606

In my 4 years at UVA, I made it a point to review every single class I took. Now that I have graduated, this is the last review I will write. I can say with absolute certainty that this was my favorite class I took at UVA. Professor Teachman's class is extremely well organized and incredibly engaging. While 2.5 hour classes have often been exhausting (in my experience), this class always seemed to fly by. It was my last class of the week and I was always looking forward to it.

The class was structured such that there was a seminar-style lecture for the first bit, followed by class discussion and a break. We always ended class with a clinical application, which ranged from Professor Teachman guiding us through mindfulness exercises to Professor Teachman bringing in her tarantula to demonstrate exposure therapy. Professor Teachman also made it a point to learn all of our names and wanted us to know who each other were too. The first few lectures included some sort of get to know you activity at the beginning of class and throughout the semester a few students were called upon to give two truths and a lie. This was really nice considering I never really got to meet anyone in my major because of COVID pushing half my time in the major online.

The class consisted of semi-weekly reading responses (there were 10, but only your top 6(!!!) counted toward your grade), a short paper and presentation, a group research proposal and presentation, a day when you had to be a discussion leader (with ~2-3 other students, for about 10 minutes), and a final paper. Everything is spaced out nicely so that you're never overwhelmed. Professor Teachman is also extremely helpful during office hours and provides lots of pointers and guidance for your assignments/papers. The papers can seem overwhelming at face value, but if you are willing to seek help from Professor Teachman, it's incredibly easy.

I learned so much in this class that I was interested in, but what I took away most was how excellent of an educator Professor Teachman is. It is so clearly evident that Professor Teachman cares deeply about her students. She often brought in snacks or candy for us and was always able to explain tough topics and answer any type of question we had. I cannot recommend this class enough--if you're able to take this class, take it!

The professor was generally kind and easy to meet with in terms of office hours. There were no exams in this class which was great as well. However, I would not recommend if you dislike 2.5 hour long classes and the amount of points she takes off for late papers is insane even during finals season when she knows students have a lot going on and may not be able to complete things on time. The final paper was also harshly graded, especially because it was about discussing opposing viewpoints in the psychology field, which was hard because we are only undergrad students who don't even do research for a living. On top of this, we had to do our own detailed research proposals. What made it worse was that we did not really get preparation for this assignment. However no shade to her 'cause she was nice besides all that.