Probing Professors: Spr 2018

Hello all, I thought I would share with you a little about my professors this quarter!

Psych 115: Principles of Behavioral Neuroscience – Dr. Kennedy

She’s great. She is really invested in student learning and is willing to answer question after question. It got to the point one time where we ran over because we were asking a lot of questions! She is willing to admit she doesn’t know something and will refer to her TAs to help her out.

Bonus: you can get extra credit for doing psych studies at UCLA’s psych department.

Psych M117C: Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience – Dr. Wassum, Dr. Glanzman, and Dr. Knowlton

This class has three professors! This is actually something I’m familiar with. One quarter I had three professors that switched off in a rotation each lecture and one quarter where the professors switched after the midterm.
This class is similar to the latter.

Bonus: this class gives out extra credit for attending seminars correlated to the topics of this class AND the exams are not cumulative!

Wassum

Wassum talks fast. This area of neuroscience is her specialty and she could ultimately talk your ear off on the circuits all day I’m sure. Initially her slides and lectures were confusing, but after I mentioned something to her, she actually listened to my feedback and made some clarifications. Overall I can say she’s great once you re-listen to her dense lectures and pay attention to the summary slides she prepares. Also be ready for class participation!

 

Glanzman

This guy is like a granddad in psychology and neuroscience. He likes to talk about himself, tell jokes, and shows pictures of places he’s been and people he’s met. He is fascinated with people that made strides in psychology (like his grandfather and father in the field, Karl Lashley and Eric Kandel; respectively) and Aplysia californica. His slides are riddled with experiments and data that explain some sort of neural phenomenon, and in some cases, the conclusions are still debated to this day. His deep, monotone voice easily puts people to sleep; especially when each slide is some sort of an experiment. Every time I was in his class, I fell asleep.

Knowlton

I have yet to have class with this professor and haven’t heard anything about her. Should be updated Week 8.

Psych 118: Comparative Psychobiology – Dr. Cox

Dr. Cox is interesting. She’s a full-time researcher at the Los Angeles Zoo and part-time professor here for this class. Similarly to Glanzman, she talks slowly and monotone; making it hard to stay awake in class. She reads almost exclusively off the slides, but that helps when the slide is just a picture or some sort of data that needs interpretation. Sometimes she gets mixed up on wording or info and confuses the class and wont stop until its completely clarified (however long it takes). The thing that sucks is that her classes are not recorded, so if you miss a lecture, you may just miss something important she said about a particular side.

Bonus: she gives extra credit by participating in psych studies OR doing a long observational study on animals at the L.A. Zoo which is directly associated with the topics of this class. Since I am not so fond of animals, I chose the former.

Psych 188B: Special Courses in Psychology: Neurogenesis – Dr. V

Dr. V always has a smile on her face and will laugh until she hurts or the classes ears (don’t get me wrong its a great laugh, but it happens so often that it can get slightly annoying). She is a relatively new professor since she just got her PhD and has been teaching for about two quarters now. She is very invested in studying the brain (especially neurogenesis) and always has stories about her ups and downs in her undergrad and grad research. I can see her going far in the future as a professor!

Bonus: she gives us numerous extra credit points for pop-questions during class or participation in almost any activity. I’ll take all the extra credit I can get!

There you have it…

that’s all the info about my professors this quarter and what I think about them as the quarter went on!