I'm not exactly sure how much this course has changed over the years, but this year, Psych 1A03 got renamed to Psych 1X03.
So this course introduced you to some of the most basic concepts and theories in psychology. I'd say this a pretty unique course in the fact that all lectures were viewed online. Some weeks we had to view two lectures, and in some weeks we only had one. Making notes from the lectures was pretty time consuming, but it was nice because if you missed something, you could always rewind and catch it. Throughout the course, we had one hour of review sessions and one hour of tutorial a week. Review sessions were optional, but at the end of each review session was a mini quiz which could decrease the weight of your final exam by 10% if you did better on the 10 mini quizzes than the exam. Tutorials were pretty interactive, and we did alot of activities and had some interesting discussions.
We also had three assignments over the term, two individual assignments which were worth 5% each (which were pretty simple), and one group assignment worth 20%. An option was given at the end of the term to revise your group assignment and hand it in again for extra marks. Your make-up assignment would reduce the weight of your original by 5%. Over the term, you also had the option of participating in 2 hours of experiments to decrease the weight of you exam by 5% (free marks! =p).
The midterm was fair but tricky and consisted of short answer and 40 multiple choice questions. The final was alot of easier than the midterm in my opinion, and consisted of 40 multiple choice questions only, including one joke question (a freebie!) and a bonus mark at the end if you allow them to use your exam data in their research.
Topics covered in the lectures included levels of analysis, research methods, memory, attention, personality, psychopathology (my fave!!), learning, categorization, the influence of others, forming impressions, and language. I found the material quite interesting, and I thoroughly enjoyed the course.
In addition to what Davey's said, Psych lectures are only up for a limited time so you should definitely make sure you don't fall behind. I found the core sessions kind of pointless to be honest. You watch the lecture on your own time, then you go to class and talk about what you watched, do the quiz, then go to tutorial and again talk about what you watched...it's so unnecessary (i don't see why they can't just distribute the quizzes during tutorial).
Anyway, tutorials are actually really fun with all the activities the TAs plan to enhance your understanding of that week's lecture...to be frank, psych tutorials along with anatomy labs were the 2 classes out of my entire week that I looked forward to going to. You can probably tell that I thoroughly enjoyed this course as well. I still find myself applying all the concepts I've learned to many situations I encounter...
The thing I liked about the first year Psych courses was that you would ALWAYS get more out of it than what you put in. You can take the route of not watching your lectures, missing review classes etc and still do very well.
Or, you can go above and beyond and do things like actually meeting Dr. Joe Kim during his office hours (and he usually has snacks!), participating in experiments (rewarded with bonus marks and cash!) and reading your textbook (which you may or may not be tested on). Follow that route, and you'll get bonus goodies to go along with your high mark.
The only things that are really necessary to get a high mark in the class are:
ATTEND THE BIG REVIEW SESSION, and to a lesser extent, go to tutorials.
The BIG REVIEW is a 3 hour lecture run before midterms and exams, where they go over, well, pretty much everything you've done so far. You can easily get a 90 on the exam and midterm, just based on the info from this review. They do go fast (especially if your note taking skills are as bad as mine!) but don't let them slow down or you might not cover everything. Just suck it up for the three hours, and write till your hand falls off. It fills up quickly, so I recommend going 45-60 minutes early if you want a good seat.
Tutorials are a great way to learn concepts, and the TAs are pretty good. But the main reason to show up is for attendance marks.
In terms of buying the course ware, I wouldn't recommend it. I didn't buy it for 1X03 or 1XX3 and did fine. HOWEVER, for 1XX3 we were actually tested on concepts from the courseware, that were not covered in lecture or review. Rumour has it that this was brought on by poor sales of the 1X03 courseware, which means you guys might be unlucky enough to be tested on it for 1X03.
Tests and exams were, in my opinion, very easy. However, it really depends a lot on your background. Students used to the multiple choice style of Bio or Chem will find these a walk in the park. Students who haven't had much experience with multiple choice might struggle a bit more. A guide on how to take multiple choice tests online might help if you fall in the latter category.
Overall, I highly recommend this course to everyone. When you are struggling to study for Chemistry and Calculus in the same week, a course with a flexible lecture schedule helps a lot.
Possibly. We didn't cover very much in 1X03 that you would need a bio background for. Obviously a good understanding of evolution helps (and I'm constantly surprised by how many people do not have that). It would definitely be helpful for Psych 1XX3 which focuses a lot more on evolution and neuroscience. But you don't cover any really difficult Bio concepts or anything, nothing that you couldn't learn on your own.
If you are planning on majoring in Psych though, you need to have Bio.
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