The lectures are pretty much verbatim coverage of the textbook, and they can be a little boring at times. I would recommend still going, because every now and then he'll throw in something that isn't on the textbook or cover something that is on the textbook in much greater depth. Mazurek himself is hilarious and engaging, as well as very reasonable when it comes to exam content. That being said, don't let the exam drop policy make you complacent. They get harder as you go on, and the final is especially tricky. If you keep up with the reading, you will do fine. Make flashcards in the way he recommends in the beginning of the semester (term on one side, definition form textbook, definition in your own words, and example on the back). There is a reason psychology profs recommend this method- it works really well for retention and will serve you well on the exam.

This course is by far the WORST course offered at UVA. The professor is one of those 'academics' that thinks they are much smarter than they actually are and thus compensates by making the exams tricky. He has said multiple times that there will be multiple correct answers and you should choose the "best" correct answer. It is impossible to do well unless you are good at deciphering what he wants you to answer. The only real way to study is to memorize vocabulary words and it feels like you are preparing for a 3rd grade vocabulary test, yet it really doesn't help. DONT TAKE THIS CLASS!

This class was okay. The material was interesting, but lectures were so boring (I stopped going to them after the first exam, and still managed to do fine). Make sure you keep up with the textbook readings because they pile up pretty quickly, and make flashcards to memorize the definitions. A lot of questions on the exams are about the studies discussed in the textbook, so review those. The cutoff for an A is a 95, but it's really easy to get a B+/A- if you just study before the exams and read the textbook.

Professor Mazurek is a very good teacher and clearly very passionate about the topics he teaches about. You can tell he knows what he is talking about and that he cares about his students, despite the large class size. The class is made up of 4 exams and a cumulative final. You get to drop the lowest of the first 4 exams. There are no other assignments that contribute to your grade. The exams are multiple choice, fill in the blank, and short answer. If you study and pay attention/take detailed notes in class, the exams are pretty manageable and not too bad. Lectures were very interesting and he does not record or put much information on his slides so you definitely need to actually go to class. Also take notes on the textbook and actually read it. Some of his test questions ask specifically about information from the textbook. Take detailed notes, go to class, and you should be able to do well. #tCFfall2021

I enjoyed this course, but it wasn't one of my favorites I've taken. The material itself is extremely interesting but I found lectures to be boring. Mazurek is a very nice guy but tends to answer student's questions for a large part of lecture so we don't always get through the material. Lectures are not super helpful, but Mazurek will go over some studies that are not in the book and will show up on the exams so get the notes from a friend if you skip. The best advice I can give you for this class is to read the textbook because there will be material on the tests from the book that is not covered in lecture. However, this is still a very easy class. It's very similar to AP psychology - I had learned about 90% of the material in high school so the tests were not difficult for me. If you've never taken a psychology class, it may take you until after the first exam to figure it out. To score well on Mazurek's exams you need to know how to apply terms, not just their definitions. The only outside work is to read the textbook and there are four exams worth 25% each (your worst grade will be dropped) as well as a cumulative final worth the final 25%. Don't worry if you don't do too well at first because the one of the first two exams are usually people's drop.

Professor Mazurek is a nice guy and is very relaxed. The problem is that he doesn't actually really teach. At a certain point, I realized that I was learning more by doing the readings and studying on my own than by attending lectures. The tests themselves aren't that difficult. He drops the score of your lowest one. It was just a very "meh" course.

This class follows the format of a pretty standard psych class in the College. It's four exams (but you get to drop your lowest grade or not take one of them), and a final exam. The week's work consists of reading & taking notes on the textbook (1-2 chapters per week); you have to do this because there are details in the textbook not included in the lectures that are on the exams), attending lectures (2x per week), and studying if there is an exam coming up. Overall, this class is definitely manageable and it's very interesting to learn different concepts that are applicable and relevant to how people react based on social influence. Mazurek is a good professor who really cares about his students and offers office hours for anyone who even has a question. He has interesting lectures, I think in part because he has an amiable personality and the social psych content is intriguing. However, his care about his students sometimes is to a fault in that he can spend time answering people's questions in lecture for a couple of minutes and we don't get to cover all the material for the day's lecture. However, we always cover enough to prepare for the upcoming test.

I took this course online during COVID so keep that in mind when reading my review. Professor Mazurek was a nice guy and appeared very cheerful in his videos. I don't know how it'll be when you take this course in-person, but for us, his lectures were simply him discussing a particular study/experiment or two in greater detail that was covered in the book. I recommend taking good notes when reading the textbook and during lectures. For our exams, we had multiple choice questions, fill-in-the blank and 3 short essay questions (~150 words). The course consists of 3 exams and a cumulative final. We also had 2 types of discussion boards each week. The unique examples ones were easy to do, but he graded pretty harshly on the science of psychology ones. For discussion boards, if you did everything correctly you'd get a 5/5, if you submitted on time, wrote properly, but the answer wasn't what he wanted you would get a 2.5/5. There was no grade between 2.5 and 5 you could receive, which was annoying. Try to study a few days before the exams because there is a lot of material that each one covers. The exams themselves weren't bad, there were some questions that were super easy and others that required a bit more thinking, just take your time. Good luck :)

This class when I took it was online asynchronous, I really enjoyed the class never the less. I learned a lot, Mazurek seems like an incredibly nice individual and the tests were fairly easy.

(Taken during COVID semester) This class was not too hard but could be annoying. There are weekly revel quizzes that can be really annoying. The tests were open note which was nice but I still had to put a lot of time into taking good notes on the textbook and things like that. I would say 90% of the class is just reading and knowing the textbook and the rest are his mini-lectures. The tests are not too bad and the big thing is not to forget to take a homework revel quiz. I forgot a few of them and they hurt my grade. I would have gotten an A instead of an A- if I had done all the quizzes on time.