I really enjoyed this course with Nicole Long! She is kinda scary haha, but I thought her lectures were engaging!! The content was super interesting and her slideshows were really well-made. This was probably my favorite class this semester!

I know a lot of people find her test questions tricky... and they are meant to trip you up, but if you actually have a good understanding of the content, they won't be as confusing. And you can learn how you're supposed to respond to them. She emphasizes what's important to know (e.g. "lesions = necessity"). If you study her slides and your notes (assuming you take furious notes in class - I wasn't even able to use my iPad because I couldn't keep up), you should be set :)

This course is definitely not as scary as other reviews make it out to be! I was intimidated going in but found that Professor Long is a very effective communicator and well-organized. Lectures were typically an hour long, cohesive, and decently engaging. Slides are posted after each lecture. Professor Long does speak pretty quickly but takes moments to pause to let you catch up. I recommend taking notes verbatim and going through them after lecture to synthesize/review. The textbook readings are supplementary -- only read it when you are confused on specific topics. You are tested on what is presented in lecture. This class is based on research studies, so I recommend making a chart including every study Professor Long goes through with what is happening, the IV, DV, results, and overall conclusion. This definitely helped me stay clear and organized when I went back to study. There are short 4 multiple choice iClicker quizzes at the beginning of about every other lecture (10 total), but your bottom 5 are dropped. There are 3 multiple choice midterm exams with the lowest score dropped. The final is mandatory. I found her exams to be appropriately challenging while remaining fair. Professor Long builds in opportunities for participation (5%) and extra credit of up to 1%. Additionally, Professor Long is available to meet for office hours and is kind, so don't be scared to meet with her to ask questions or go over your exams! If you study hard, do the work, and pay attention, it is definitely possible to get an A in this class.

i'm not sure why professor long gets a bad rep--she is honestly incredibly nice and sweet, and explains things extremely clearly. this class has no homework which means you don't really have to think about it until a week before the exam. there were 10 quizzes but only five were graded, so make sure to just lock in for the first 5 and you won't have to think about course content for a long time. out of the three midterms, she only grades 2, and the first one especially tends to be on the easier side so make sure to do well on that. even though her final is "cumulative" it was definitely like 80% content from the fourth module with randomly sprinkled in questions about some earlier general concepts (very unspecific). i actually tended to dislike psychology classes before this one as they often tend to be overly vague with "concepts" and "theories" that you learn without providing any evidence, but this class is largely studies based which honestly makes learning the theories easier imo. some other reviews say you have to memorize every nook and cranny of every slide, but her exams are much more straightforward than that tbh. additionally, despite being an hour and 15 minute class, almost every class we had ended in an hour. i will say that she has a very specific question style that, once you get used to, make some exam questions incredibly obvious what she wants the right answer to be. overall a very interesting course that honestly does not require too much effort to do well in!

My friends and I who are straight-A students were scared of not passing the class (We all ended with Bs and Cs). You have to have photographic memory to prepare for exams because you are not tested on overarching themes of study/research results presented in class but instead expected to memorize entire graphs, IVs, DVs, type of participant tested, and other small details.

TLDR: this class is very challenging but you will pass if you are proactive about your assignments and studying. VERY relevant to the neuroscience/psych major so PAY ATTENTION.

Professor: Long creates her lectures to be straightforward, engaging, clear, and organized. I think she is an incredibly effective professor when it comes to having the knowledge to teach AND answer every random question she receives. However, I do think she can be incredibly rude most times. She's willing to answer questions during lecture, but she has a very small limit until she seems to become agitated. I advise asking questions after class/during office hours, NOT lecture.

Class: The grading structure includes 3 midterms (with the lowest one dropped), a final worth 25%, 10 quizzes (lowest 5 dropped), and participation (5%). Her exams are mainly multiple choice, multiple answer, and her final is cumulative but focuses mainly on the last 5 lectures. Focus on memorizing and conceptualizing her lecture slides. I don't believe reading the chapters before lecture was useful. instead, use it to simplify or clarify topics you don't understand. avoid cramming the night before or procrastinating. In order to succeed in this class you have to be willing to review the material in depth after EACH lecture, while continuing to connect topics, quiz yourself, clarify your questions with the book, and attending office hours. In all, I spent around 8-10 h/week (more if we had an exam) on this class inlcuding lecture time, office hours, and studying after lecture.

TLDR: Great professor, you learn a ton of useful information that’s highly relevant to your major. The class is challenging but definitely manageable if you stay on top of the material.

Professor: I’m honestly not sure why Dr. Long gets a bad reputation. Most of my classmates and I agree that she’s incredibly intelligent and genuinely nice. She’s always willing to answer questions during class and is super approachable if you ask for help one on one. Some people might mistake her confidence for being rude, but I strongly disagree with that. In fact, I think her teaching style is clear and effective. She uses excellent slides that cover all the essential material, making it easier to follow along.

Class: The grading structure includes 3 midterms (with the lowest one dropped), a final worth 25%, 10 quizzes (lowest 5 dropped), and participation (5%). You can definitely succeed in this class. Just avoid cramming the night before. Instead, focus on understanding and memorizing the slides, and actively quiz yourself on the material. Connect the different topics as you go. I found the first exam and final to be significantly easier. Don’t stress too much about the final being cumulative — the cumulative questions were straightforward, but make sure to study everything.

Cog Neuro is not a class I would recommend taking unless you have to for your Neuroscience degree. This is mainly due to Prof Long. While I will preface this by saying that she did improve in the last 1/3 of the course after being allegedly enrolled in remedial training, she was exceedingly rude for the majority of the course. When students asked questions, she was quite condescending and very snippy on a consistent basis. Even when people had technical issues during online quizzes, she had a very "not my problem" attitude. As I mentioned, she did get much better towards the end, but I am not sure if this was just a temporary flop or what. I will say she does know her stuff overall.

In terms of the course material, it is relatively well structured. It gives a good overview of a lot of different concepts. She does cram a ton of info into each lecture. Tests are reasonably fair. You get to drop 1 of the exams which comes in handy for sure. I think it is a decent class but the instructor kind of ruins it.

Despite the scary reviews and difficulty of the course, I really enjoyed this class and Prof Long! You definitely need to go to class every day, and if you do miss class, try to have someone you know in the class send you the notes. She uses a powerpoint but just looking at the slides does NOT contain nearly enough info to understand the content. As other comments have noted: truly take her advice about quizzing yourself to heart. I actually did not use flashcards, but I did create a column in my notes every lecture which included the learning target questions she introduces at the beginning of each class, in addition to creating my own questions. Before exams, I would go back thorough my notes and highlight important parts while using that to create questions that I could use to quiz myself. I really wish I had done this after each lecture (ie later that day or something) instead of leaving it to the end of each unit, but this still worked pretty well for me. Some people have talked a lot of memorization, and while it is true that you need to pay attention to details, I think noticing patterns and general finding is far more important. You will NOT need to memorize names or exact details, but you will need to be able to determine whether something is determining function vs necessity and the differences, as well as differences between EEG, lesions, and fMRI, for example. You will then later be able to apply this across all units.

I think the division of assignments is quite fair and helpful. For example, quizzes are worth 20% of your grade, but you take a total of 10 throughout the semester and only your top 5 are included. I think I got 4/4 on 5 or 6 of these and therefore ended up with a 100% in quizzes even though I did not do very well on all of them. You also get to drop 1 of the 3 midterms. I got an 88, 88, and 82, so with the dropped 82 and getting a 91 on the final, I was pretty satisfied with my exam performance, because the exams can be quite difficult! Finally, the discission posts are a nice grade booster, I think I got a 100 on all of them. I ended up with a 92.5 in the class, but beware that she will not round grades. Overall, I learned a lot and really enjoyed the content as a behavioral neuro major, and although she may seem a little impatient with questions in class, she is very kind and helpful in office hours (which you will need to go to anyway to see what questions you got wrong on exams).

I absolutely loved this class!! Don't let the other reviews scare you-- I started off the semester absolutely terrified but this class is extremely doable, even if it takes work, and I ended up getting an A+. Dr. Long is incredibly knowledgable and a very effective lecturer in my opinion. One of my favorite things about this class is how well structured her lectures are and how she keeps tying everything back to the central points that she highlights at the beginning of each class. She does not record lectures, so take *detailed* notes and do not skip class unless you have a friend that can record the lecture for you or send you detailed notes. I would highly recommend making flashcards after every lecture and include every detail about each study she highlights and make sure you know the definitions of everything. Try your very best to stay on top of this because it gets overwhelming having to make cards for several lectures at once. If your notes are thorough, this shouldn't be too much work. To prepare for exams, I would start off my going through all the information in detail and then using your cards to do active recall. It really helps to study with friends and explain the concepts to each other. This is a fairly high-level class and Dr. Long expects you to synthesize information across units (this is not as difficult as it sounds, I promise!). I did not use the textbook at all during this course, you will be perfectly fine with lecture information.

This class is pretty straightforward but for me, it was very difficult. Professor Long's lecture style is fairly typical but going to class is pretty much essential. She doesn't record lectures and the slides aren't posted until after class and they often don't include the information that she says in class. The textbook readings are useless because she only tests on information that is in the lectures. Professor Long can be kind of short with her responses but was fairly nice when talking one-on-one.
Grades are composed of 2 out of 3 midterms (25% each), 5 of 10 in-class quizzes (4% each), 3 discussion posts (5% total), and 1 final exam(25%) The average for the midterms was around 80 each time but you can only see your questions if you go to office hours. These were the most difficult for me because her questions expected us to remember in detail and connect the topics. They also were on Canvas with select all that apply so grading for that can be harsh. The final was about 20% cumulative but focused mostly on big-picture information and 80% was on the last section of material and this exam was my highest grade.
#tCFFall23