PSYC 3420

The professor is really nice, and it's honestly sad because he was telling us about how he felt like lecture is pointless since no one went to his lectures, however, his lectures can be tedious and a bit repetitive in a way. It's just slower paced, so I found it more efficient to watch the lectures at a faster speed. The tests are pretty convoluted and you can often find yourself overthinking the answers. It's pretty difficult to get a good score on these tests but the curves are pretty generous and he counts anything from 90-100 as an A.

One of my least favorite psych classes I have taken. Class feels pretty unorganized and lectures are very dry. All PowerPoints seem like they were made last minute and do not really help you learn. He did record lectures which was incredibly helpful go back and look at when studying because the tests are hard. Turkheimer is pretty nice but I just don't feel like he teaches the class very well.

Turkheimer is a good professor. He loves answering questions and having class discussions (but doesn't force anyone to speak). He also shows movies on the last class before breaks because he knows people will be out of town (he still asks questions on exams about the movies so you have to watch them eventually). He also audio records his lectures and uploads powerpoint slides (but these aren't guaranteed). Your grade is based on 3 multiple choice tests (drop the lowest) and a multiple choice final. The questions can be vague and will sometimes ask about specific things he said in class (even if they weren't on the slides or if they were part of a tangent). There is about one question per reading on the test, and you don't have to know specific details from the readings, just broad points. Some people struggled with the tests but I thought they were okay. I did all the readings for the first half of the semester, but then I stopped reading and my grade dropped, so you do need to read. Some people think it's like a biology class, and there were some technical parts about gene testing but mostly the focus was on psychology, research methodology, and the history of behavioral genetics. The material wasn't the most interesting, and at times it was pretty confusing, but overall I learned some cool things and I'm glad I took this class.

I actually really enjoyed the content of the class. It is mostly lecture-based with occasional discussion and focuses on eugenics for the most part. I initially went in thinking that it was going to be a debate in the sense of reading arguments for nature and nurture. Instead, it was more looking at the failings of twin studies/adoption studies/GWAS at predicting human behavior and showing the limitations of genetics. I will say that Turkheimer is relatively opinionated when it comes to religion and politics, and genetics is a hard topic to discuss without letting this bleed through. If you will be offended by a professor talking against your religion or political view, you may experience that in this course.

As far as testing and grading, most people I talked to in the class had a pretty hard time with the "quizzes" that you should totally treat as tests. There are 4 including the final, and the top 3 averaged is your grade for the class. I agree with other reviewers that say his questions are either vague or overly specific. I was able to get the hang of his questions, but if English is your second language or confusing questions are not your thing then I would not suggest this course. If you understand his question style and know the content, you will be ok! This is just not an easy course to do super well in even though it has minimal work throughout the semester. There is no homework except the readings, and those are only really due in time for the quizzes.

This was simply one of the worst classes I have taken at UVA. The test content did not truly test our learning- it tested how well you can take a test. His lectures rambled and frequently repeated the same topics over and over. I would not recommend that anyone takes this class unless they absolutely have to. I am an enthusiastic psych major, but this was my actual least favorite class.

The most boring lectures of all time. All you talk about is eugenics and twin studies. He's super opinionated and often goes on tangents that are completely unrelated to the material. Your entire grade is based on 3 exams (though one is dropped) + a final. The tests are tricky and weirdly worded. I wouldn't recommend unless you're in the major and need to take it for a requirement.

Turkheimer is a nice guy but plays the nice professor in ways that are super misleading. His quizzes are pretty hard and he claims that he doesn't want to trick you, but every quiz had either vague, overly specific, or generally confusing questions that are meant to trip you up. He also says in the first lecture that he doesn't ask about readings in the quizzes, but almost half of the final was INCREDIBLY specific ideas from readings that were awful to answer.
Again, overall a nice professor, but he is not testing you to help you learn or to see how his lectures are reaching students.
I took notes on every lecture and reading and still struggled with quizzes. In some quizzes, the questions were so vague or even wrong that he had to send emails explaining them to the entire class. Hard work does not align with grades, and after taking his class - the grade distribution honestly confuses me.

The title is very deceiving compared to what the class really is. Turkheimer is obviously a smart guy and loves to talk about arguing with racists on Twitter but the material is super dry. Your entire grade is based on three quizzes (lowest gets dropped) and a cumulative final. The quizzes are oddly specific multiple choice questions and written by the TA, not open note, and feel like they're based more on memorization of smaller details than understanding of the material. The readings are very scientifically based and there's not much a debate of nature vs nurture, more of reading through studies to see specific percentages that explain heritability. This is a great class if you like reading long scientific studies, a lot focused on twins since he's a twin researcher, but not a good one if you were hoping for a more discussion-based class more open to interpretation based on the title of the course. This seems like it's more for biology majors, neuroscience, or interested in research psychology.

This class is not an easy A. I took it first semester first year and found it to be extremely hard, but now that I'm more used to college classes looking back it wasn't so bad. There's reading for each class, some of which is interesting and some of which is extremely not. Make sure to do it and do it well, I merely skimmed before the first two quizzes but that won't be enough. Writing down an outline of the readings before the last quiz and the final really helped me. Turkheimer is really funny and lectures well, he obviously cares about the subject and so it's easy to pay attention. Overall is a pretty good class that is interesting and has pretty nice curves on the quizzes and at the end, but really have to work for a good grade.

Eric is such a smart and great guy, but his classes are very disorganized and his slides usually just have a a couple of words on them so it's hard to get much out from them by just looking and writing them down(at least for me). He does record all of his lectures so if you miss one, you can listen to it. I'm not gonna lie, this class is boring if you're not super into science and psych. He is pretty vague about what will be on each "quiz" (he calls them quizzes but there are only four the whole semester so I would look at them more like tests). He does let you drop your lowest of the 3 though which is really helpful. With that being said, the quizzes are very challenging. One of them he had to add 10 points to everyone's grade because it was so bad. Reading can be long, but definitely read them because they prepare you for the next class and, more importantly, there are questions on the exam about the reading. I would HIGHLY recommend going to office hours just because class can be confusing. He does curve when he feels like he should witch is nice. The final is just as hard if not harder than the usual tests. Remember that this is just one student's opinion. I took it as a first year looking to major in psych but definitely should have held off 3000 level classes until second year, so if you are older you may do much better.

Great class and great professor. Turkheimer is an awesome, laid-back and cool guy. Very passionate about the subject and clearly super knowledgable. He is well known in the field and it shows. By far one of the most enjoyable classes I have taken thus far at UVa, I learned a ton about a useful and interesting subject. Relatively light reading that he won't grill you on, rather I thought he incorporated it into class/tests just the right amount. Class structure is solid and he is very reasonable with grading/curves. If you go to lecture (you should they're interesting and he's hilarious) and ultimately do the readings, you should do well in the class. Highly recommend.