PSYC 3450

This course was slated to be synchronous, but Professor Avery accidentally slated it as asynchronous in SIS and therefore she felt obligated to change the structure of the course to asynchronous. This, in my opinion, made the course a lot worse than it had to be. Bear in mind I absolutely adored Dr. Avery's lectures- she is undoubtedly a scholar of the Psychology of Women, speaks with an impressive academic rhetoric, displays her passion for the subject and intersectionality, and also makes humorous and engaging remarks on the side. However, I never got to interface with her live and ask questions, pick her brain, or talk about the class. She hosted zoom office hours, but I was really missing a small group interaction between her and other students. Besides that however, the class is not excessively difficult. Not sure if this is typical for a non-Covid semester, but there were 3 exams during the year, discussion posts due after every lecture, 1 5-page connection paper, and a final exam for the grade. Some of the exams asked questions covered in one line in one research study in the textbook, so that made them more difficult, but grading was really lenient elsewhere with the paper and discussion posts. Since the content of this course is engaging, I definitely recommend it and expect that it will be much better when taught in person.

I have no idea what happened to the person below me, but Prof. Avery is the best! Her lectures are always engaging/exciting and she is HILARIOUS. Your grade is based on 3 exams, 1 paper and participation points/pop quizzes. LISTEN.VERY. CAREFULLY. If you want an A in the class you literally just need to pay attention in lecture and READ. The readings are dense but you don’t need to memorize small details or statistics, just the gist or main idea of it. I took decent notes in class and read 3-4 days before the exam (10/10 do not recommend) and my exam average was about a 95. Im a crammer so trust me when I say this is not a class you should cram for and expect a good grade. To achieve A’s I literally had to pull all nighters, but if you space out your readings and absorb the info you should be fine. Pop quizzes are usually based on readings (which are assigned before class, but I never did) so use this as motivation to do readings inthe first place. If you do shitty on pop quizzes there are also in class activities you do , so you can redeem yourself.

TL;DR - DO NOT SLEEP ON THIS CLASS. This was one of my favorite classes at UVA and I would gladly take it again! If you are a procrastinator or don’t like hella reading , sit this one out, but this clas is an easy B+ to A depending on how hard you work.

honestly this might be the worst class i have taken at UVA. i don't mind a challenging course if it is intellectually stimulating, but this course is just a waste of effort. the exams are extremely unfair and will test you on outdated and very generalized "statistics." everything is worded to be really confusing, so even if you do study for 10 hours, you will likely still do terrible. sometimes the questions contradict each other too. there are a few papers and a few pop quizzes. if you don't do the readings and memorize definitions you will fail the quizzes. save yourself, take a different class