PSYC 2400

Absolutely recommend this class to anyone. One of my favorite classes that I have taken at the university. The beginning of the semester was rough because she was a new professor and did not know which teaching style was the best for the students. She covers a lot in the lecture and the powerpoint are pretty vague so being in lecture is a must. While the powerpoint were poor at the beginning they got better. I would say majority of the exams comes from lectures and maybe a few from the textbook so going to class is a good thing. Also when you participate in class she gives you extra credit points because she likes to interact with the students.

Professor Schad tries very hard to make the class engaging and fun, but it seemed as if she is very new to teaching. Her pace was slow, and so the class was borring despite the material, which is very interesting. She got better towards the end of the year, so it got more interesting quickly. The book is very conversational and you'll enjoy reading it as long as you don't put it off until the very end, as they are relatively long sections. If you need an easy A and are willing to put in at least some effort, I would highly recommend this class.

The chapters are LONG! Don't procrastinate on your readings. Her exams include both textbook & lecture material. I agree that the textbook is kinda fun to read because it's conversational.

The professor is super nice, but her lectures were really bad. I don't think they improved much towards the end of the semester. I found them disorganized and disengaging. She tried so hard to make it engaging too... it was ridiculous to see her TAs run up and down the aisles whenever a student raises their hands in class to give them extra credit points.

The difficulty and effort in this course goes into paying attention in class. The material is super interesting! but the professor and her lectures are boring, un-inspirational, & they really drain you.

Definitely not an "Easy A" class, as a previous reviewer stated.

Prof. Schad, if I remember correctly, is doing research at the university and I guess UVa likes to save $$$ by getting these researchers to lecture classes. She's a nice person and is more than happy to explain things to you in class, after class and during her office hours, but her lectures were all over the place. There were many things she discussed that were relevant to the topic, but not to the class, which just added more stuff to study that I didn't need to. The slides themselves were also really confusing. When you're dealing with a bunch of different ideas (and approaches, especially) in one powerpoint/lecture, it's really important to distinguish one from the other, and she definitely could've done better in that area. She also read straight from her notes during class, pretty sure word-for-word, which made it hard to take notes and made her seem more unprepared and unknowledgeable.

The tests were ugh. I read and took notes on the first two exams, but just skimmed through the reading for the third exam because I realized it was a waste of time. There's a lot in lecture that's not in the book (so go to lecture and take notes), and there is a lot in the book (not in lecture) that's not on the exam. I found that reading the book + going to lecture disoriented me a bit because some overlapping topics were explained differently, but that might just be me. The questions on the tests were 90% straightforward and on pretty predictable topics, but I'd say the other 10% were either on unimportant things that were mentioned really briefly or the answer choices were worded in a really confusing way. Btw, most questions are application-based. I found these to be easier than the conceptual ones. There are TA review sessions before each exam and they were really, really helpful. Alex was nice and definitely came prepared to answer questions, Audrey not so much.

Probably would not have taken this course if I'd known a first-time lecturer were teaching it. Was supposed to be an easy A for me, but got an A- that I think is largely attributable to the teacher.

No homework besides reading, and very fun professors/TAs whom while obviously new, made lectures interesting and were always available to help. I made the mistake of underestimating the difficulty of the tests, specifically the second one, and focused way more on the book than lectures. In order to get a good grade, you need to focus on every specific detail that is mentioned in lecture as minute talking points WILL come up on the tests. Overall, it's not the most difficult class, but you definitely have to try to get a B+/A-.

Maybe I'm not a psychology person, but maybe this was just a really bad class. I went into this elective excited and thinking it would be my favorite 150 minutes every week, but unfortunately, the class ended up being more draining and frustrating than anything else.
The subjects I found interesting--hard brain stuff and how humans tick--were skimmed over while things like Freud and "psychic energy" were talked about all semester long (a personal issue- what someone finds exciting isn't always the same across the board and I completely understand that). I felt as if the same topics that were drilled again and again were worth one or two questions on a test while subjects glossed over once or twice ended up being a major theme of the exam.
Professor Schad, a VERY nice person, was simply a very boring lecturer. The attempts toward the end of the semester to engage 350 students in a discussion-type environment were pretty frustrating. Weird, useless, and very unnecessary comments that were made in order to gain extra credit points ended up taking at least 20 minutes of each lecture.

It's a very straightforward class if you stay attentive and take good notes, but unfortunately it becomes increasingly difficult to do those things. I found myself completing work for other classes while the lecture was off on a tangent, which happened at least once per class.

Let me just say that I tried VERY hard to be successful in here. It basically came down to effort in studying that didn't get me the "easy A" everyone wanted. If you're going to take this, I'd say the biggest lifesavers are online psych flashcards and the TA review sessions. Alex and Audrey worked well together to help us understand the material. Make an effort, go to review sessions, and you'll be fine. Give in to boredom, skip class, and fall asleep, you'll have a tougher time staying above a B.