PSYC 2200

Definitely one of the harder classes in the psych department, but an A is not out of reach. Clabough is a great instructor and is able to make even the most complex topics understandable. Paying attention and note-taking during lecture are a must, but don't neglect the textbook readings either. Grades are 4 best exams (inc. comprehensive final) and 1 discussion board post (complete 4, one random picked for grading).

Clabough is definitely the professor you want to take this class with. This class is pretty much mandatory for the psych major, and as a fourth year, I'd been putting off taking it for a really long time. The content is not incredibly hard to understand, and this is coming from someone who is not particularly good at science, but there is so much to cover. Her online lectures are very convenient because you can rewind them if you missed something. This is particularly great for studying because you can go back and watch them. The one issue that's always echoed with this class is that the test questions can be the most random thing from a small excerpt of the textbook. This is definitely annoying, but reflecting on the class, I'm incredibly grateful she has those types of questions. Because I feel so much pressure to know every little thing from lecture and the readings, I have a true mastery of the material. As a result, I can honestly say I've learned more in this one class, than I have in my other 4 classes combined from this semester. It is a looooot of work, there's no denying that, but if you put in the effort to learn it all, you're going to leave the class feeling extremely fulfilled. Def recommend taking this with Clabough.

An incredibly tough class to take online. If you can avoid it, do. If not, allocate all of your free time to the readings and lectures. #tCF2020

I’ll begin with what I enjoyed about this class. Dr. Clabough seems really sweet, and I guess lots of students from Spring 2020 complained about the powerpoints because now she uploads all powerpoints to Collab. She also put us in (optional) study groups, which was helpful. The content we learned was mostly interesting, and the lectures are on YouTube so it was easy to pause and rewatch while taking notes. The rest of this review is more or less me complaining about the heavy workload but I got an A- so it’s possible to get a good grade in this class (and this isn't a petty rant about a bad grade, I'm actually shocked I did so well). On to what I didn’t like: When I signed up for this class, it was a synchronous class that lasted 75 minutes, but then it switched to an asynchronous class that lasted 90 minutes. This may not be Clabough’s fault, but it felt unfair that the lectures were so long. Some days were one short lecture (ex. 45 minutes), but other days were multiple lectures that added up to 90 minutes or longer. The longest class had two lectures that added up to 2 hours. There are four exams and one cumulative final, and the lowest grade of those five is dropped (each exam is about 23% of your final grade, bless Clabough for letting us drop the final). One of our exams was on election day, and even though Clabough extended the time we could take the exam (it opened at 6pm on the day before election day) and on the day of the exam she told us that she could help us if we couldn’t vote and take the exam, it still didn’t feel fair. Anyway, the first exam is the easiest. As the other reviews have mentioned, everything is fair game for the exams. I missed a question on an exam because I didn’t remember a specific word on a diagram on a powerpoint slide that Clabough probably didn’t even mention. It’s impossible to take notes on every detail from the lectures and textbook, so some questions felt like they were based solely on memory. You also complete 4 discussion board posts, which is basically a 2-3 paragraph response to a prompt, and one is selected to be graded (about 7% of your final grade). Obviously this is a large class and the TAs can’t grade every discussion board so only one is selected, but it felt unfair that I had spent a lot of time researching and working on my other discussion board posts that weren’t graded. It’s a heavy workload (which Clabough warns you about at the start of the semester), and honestly it felt like a 4 credit class instead of a 3 credit class. What I learned in high school biology, PSYC 1010, BIOL 2100, and BIOL 2200 helped me get a grasp on the basics of neuroscience before I even took this course, but if you don’t have a background in biology then this class may be more of a struggle for you. Unless you need this class for your major or you’re super passionate about neuroscience, then you probably don’t want to take this class.

You will have to study A LOT for the exams. She asks random details from the book that you wouldn't think you need to know and very particular questions from the lectures. I took it online, so I was able to make sure I wrote everything down during lecture, but I highly recommend recording live lectures. We had two exams where the average was in the 70s, but she doesn't curve anything, so it is really difficult to get an A. Definitely do not take this course to fulfill the science requirement unless you are a psych major. You have to put in a lot of work to actually do well. She is not very good at lecturing. She goes very quickly through new concepts and expects everyone to know what she is talking about. It seems like she assumes everyone has some biology background even though this is an intro course. Some parts of the lectures seemed disjointed and unorganized. It's clear that she has a lot of knowledge on the subject and is very passionate about; she's just doesn't really know how to effectively teach the material. She is also really bad at replying to emails. Be prepared to email her a few times (and give her many days) before she actually replies

I took this course online during COVID so take that into account when reading my review. Professor Clabough always came to class with a bright smile which was nice. Her course consists of 4 exams along with a final (lowest of the 5 is dropped). Your grade is entirely based off of your exams out of 400 points, there's no other coursework to do other than the textbook readings. Her lectures were interesting, she would mostly focus on a specific study or several concepts she believed were important from the readings. I often found that she required us to read way more than was necessary for the exams, because the exams tended to focus on the more general concepts. She provides you with practice exams (without answers) to use to study which were created by the previous professor (Brunjes) and weren't at all similar to the questions she uses. I recommend doing the readings before going to the lectures, because that'll save you a lot of time and writing. I thought her exams were pretty straightforward, she included these multiple-multiple choice questions which had a ridiculous method of being graded, but I don't think she'll include such questions on her in-person exams (not sure though). Make sure to take good notes when you're reading the textbook and draw out any diagrams she draws on the whiteboard. I would say focus more on what she says during the lectures, but definitely take a look at the readings as well, because she doesn't cover everything in her lectures. She allows you to see what questions you got wrong on the exam which I thought was nice. Also make sure to look through your exam and check for any errors in the answers or grading, because there were times where that happened. All her exams were 34 questions and you had an hour to do them. Good luck everyone :)

I took this class during the last semester of my senior year and received an A. Even though this is an introductory course it felt like anything but. It was much on par with the upper level biology courses I have taken at UVA. You need to make sure you take notes on every single thing she says in her lectures and make sure you takes notes on ALL of the diagrams she draws on her whiteboard. This semester was probably better for me because it was online and she posted her lectures on Youtube so I was able to stop and play to make sure I write everything she says and I could screenshot her diagrams, but her exams were still difficult. You also have to make sure you get everything from the readings down because she will literally take the most random experiments or lines from the textbook and ask it on the exam. So basically know everything. I did well on my first four exams so I didn't need to worry about the fifth exam since she drops the lowest exam, but it was very hard to do well. I would not recommend this course unless you have to take it. Clabough is not that good at explaining and that can be really frustrating when trying to take down notes and the readings can be so much especially when juggling other work. If you have to take this course, just really try to know everything from lectures to readings as much as you can and be ready to put in a lot of work. I would recommend having a group of people to study with on this exam to really combine knowledge, since someone might have information on something you did not catch while taking notes. The review from last semester really captures my experience too. Good luck!

This course was really difficult, but in my opinion, it was rewarding. The information taught in class was so fascinating, and I highly recommend taking it if you are interested in the material. However, the entire course grade was dependent on the exams (one exam, including the final, could be dropped), and this was where I found difficulty. The exams had information from the textbook that wasn't taught in lecture, and the questions pulled from the textbook were often easily missed especially because the readings were so long. I studied a lot for the exams, but I still did worse than I thought I would because it was very easy to lose points on them. Dr. Clabough is amazing, though - she was very helpful in office hours, and she really seemed to care about her students and their learning. Overall, you should take this course if you want to learn about the material, but be wary of the exams and study a lot for them.
#tCFspring2021

This course is simultaneously one of the toughest and most interesting courses I have taken in my 3 years at UVA. This class is required for both of my majors and I had been putting it off because of previous reviews of this class. This class is a LOT of work. I took this asynchronously during COVID, so my experience will have been very different than future students. Dr. Clabough is clearly a very knowledgable person and does do a good job of explaining things, if you're an auditory learner. I don't know why professors who teach this class refuse to use valuable powerpoints. Dr. Clabough would use powerpoints, but only for a few pictures during the lecture. The lectures were recorded and posted on Youtube and were often less than the 50 minute class period, but it still took me on average about an hour and a half to get through them. I would have to pause the lecture every few minutes to catch up on notes. My advice is to stay on top of the readings. I've never been one to stay on top of readings for any course, and this is the first time I've taken a course where I never got behind on readings and I'm so grateful I did that for myself. Readings do compliment lecture really well, they just take forever to get through. This course is 4 midterms and a final and they are all weighted equally. The lowest is dropped, so if you like your grade, you can just skip the final. There's a mix of multiple choice and multiple-multiple choice on the exams, which makes them pretty tough. I ended up with an A-, and it was the hardest I have ever worked for that grade. I enjoyed the content of the course and Dr. Clabough is a very nice person, this course just needs to be adjusted in its grading and delivery style.

I agree with what everyone has said about this course in previous reviews: it’s interesting but WAY way too much information to take notes on and memorize. But, I think waiting to take this class till you have a bunch of other psych and/or bio (and even kinesiology) classes done is really helpful, because i felt like a lot of the information was a review and even if it went more in depth, i had more background knowledge going in as a rising 4th year than i would have if i took this class second year.