Overall, this was an easy course for me, and I enjoyed it. I didn't end up ever meeting with Mazurek, but from email communication and lectures, he was a good teacher, engaging, and accommodating. During COVID-19, all of our tests (including the final) were open-book, and most of the grading was done on 3 tests, each worth 20% of our grade. They were difficult if you didn't study, but if you used the book to help supplement in random details, they were very easy. Not a lot of work otherwise. Just make sure you really have the general concepts down.

I took this course asynchronously but I really enjoyed it. You could really tell that Professor Mazurek put lots of effort into making his lecture videos both informative and enjoyable. The format of this course consisted of reading chapters, answering questions, and watching lecture videos. The workload was definitely manageable and the material was easy to understand. The main portion of your grade comes from three semester exams and a cumulative final exam. All the exams were open notes but you still need to study in order to complete the exam on time. To do well on exams, make sure you take notes on the lecture videos because short answer questions typically comes from material discussed in the videos. If the lecture video is on an experiment make sure you're familiar with all the different variables of the experiment and the results and what concepts the results demonstrate/relate to. For the multiple choice portion of the exam the questions are fairly straight forward and are similar to the questions you answer with the textbook reading in format and difficulty. If you put in the work and keep up with all the assignments it is definitely possible to get an A in this course.

I really loved this course! Professor Mazurek is a great professor and the material is super interesting. It does require a lot of reading because a lot of questions on tests come from the textbook. It is also good not to skip lectures because he says a lot of important material.

God, this is the worst class I've taken at UVA. It's your typical class where the Prof lectures and you take notes during class, but it just suck that the only grades were the two exams and final. I wasn't ready for how bad my grades were in this class since normally I do so well as most UVA students are used to. I read the textbook which was the only homework and tried to pay attention to lectures, but he was just using textbook content so it didn't seem like I had to pay attention that much. I had the textbook down pretty well, but I did so poorly on all of the tests! The tests were a combo of MC, short answer, and fill in the blank. I'd do reasonably well on most parts but then for short answer, the TAs were so harsh with how they graded them. Sometimes, I'd get perfect scores and sometimes, they actually gave me a 0!!! You might think I'm overreacting, but don't take this class unless you are really interesting in psych, because the lectures were so boring. Social psych sounds so cool, but the way it was taught here was the worst.

This class is easy in the sense that there isn't any outside work assigned. All of the grades are based on exam grades only! There are 4 exams and one gets drops + the final. Mazurek isn't a great lecturer, he goes on tangents and I found it hard to focus. To do well on the exams, make sure to read all of the chapters, make flashcards, pay attention to the reading. During the lecture, he goes over the basic ideas of the chapter but everything is fair game in the textbook even if it wasn't mentioned in the lecture so be sure to retain all the info from the textbook. The threshold for an A is a 95. Wouldn't necessarily say it's an easy class unless you have time to memorization details from a textbook and are ready to spend copious amounts of time memorizing facts and vocabulary.

Mazurek's lectures are pretty painful to sit through, he spend a lot of time on really simple concepts and its impossible to sit through. Good thing though is the textbook is extremely easy to read and he posts his lecture slides online. I ended up skipping a lot and just spending the time I would have been in class studying the textbook and lecture notes and I did well on all the tests. He drops your lowest test and theres nothing about attendance in your grade so if you know you're good at memorization, teaching yourself stuff then this class is a good choice!

Mazurek is terrible. For starters, he spends the first 40 minutes of class answering random questions from students, most of them irrelevant to the actual subject matter. He spends the next 35 minutes "teaching" and he does an atrocious job. He talks on and on about some weird, outrageous social scenario with multiple moving parts to illustrate very easy concepts. He arbitrarily spends 10-15 minutes on one relatively easy concept, and then barely glosses over (and sometimes outright ignores if he runs out of time) more difficult concepts. READ THE TEXTBOOK and MEMORIZE EVERYTHING IN THE ASSIGNED CHAPTERS. Mazurek has shamelessly admitted that everything in the assigned readings is fair game for the exams, even if it was not covered in class. I would say that Mazurek probably covers around 20% of the concepts that we have to know and the other 80% are in the assigned readings.

I have no idea why the other reviewers rate him well. Yes he's a cheery guy and it's not hard to get an A, but if you dismiss those two facts this class is terribly taught and managed. While others may like Mazurek for his personality, I find him to be immature, hyperactive, and very unprofessional.

Mazurek doesn't actually teach. He just wastes a lot of time repeating himself and allowing the class to ask irrelevant questions. The only way you learn is from reading the textbook because Mazurek comes no where near covering all the material that will be on the exams. This class is easy if you read the textbook but the actual classes seem like a waste of time.

Mazurek is a super fun prof and it is obvious that he really cares about the subject. This class was one of my favorite classes this semester. The material is not that difficult at all, but it is a lot of memorization. Reading the text book is super important, but it is pretty easy to get through. I took notes while I was reading which helped me a lot. If you're trying to get into batten, i think this is easier than the other option for pre-req. you can drop one of the tests too

I really did not like this class and I am learning that UVA psychology classes are just pretty boring. Mazurek tries, but lecture is just incredibly boring. Still, I think it is important to go, especially because his powerpoints are not that elaborate when it comes to information. The information is not too difficult, but I would recommend really reading the textbook as some questions on the test are taken directly from there. There are 4 regular tests and the lowest is dropped, then the final. You also have to do the 6 credits of psychology studies if you have not completed so already. I took this as a Batten prereq, but I am interested in psychology, yet could not get myself to enjoy this class.