[Lois]

So, I took this from Jan-May 2010 with Dr. Ullal.

Naturally, any course with Dr. Ullal is great. He is enthusiastic, is willing to answer any questions from students, and is incredibly knowledgeable about the material.

The course is made up:

10% Written Assignment - featuring a lay-man's summary and literature critique of scientific articles.
2 Midterms (together worth 55%) - Written answer and fill in the blanks
A final (35%) - All written answer and fill-in the blanks.

The material was definitely interesting if you enjoyed Psych 2E03. It was difficult sometimes as there was no textbook to follow and only research articles as guides. Be sure to go to his office hours for help if you need them.

The reason why this course was difficult was because I didn't study nearly enough for the final and because the final was worth 35 marks, meaning that each mark lost was worth a percentage. Be sure to study and you'll be fine!

I took this course 2009-2010.
I thought the course was very interesting, and he was very passionate when he was teaching, this made the course even more interesting. The test did compose of short essay questions. But this is totally doable! If you go to class take notes, you'll be absolutely fine!! There are seminars that you have to do. But they are easy, you just take an article that he gives you or you chose and just have to dissect it and present it to the class. Very straight forward!!! I would recommend it!

There is no textbook for this course!
The readings are all journal articles assigned about every other week. And he discusses most of the information in these articles in his lectures.
He is a great teacher with excellent notes with basically ALL the information you need - hardly any need to take down notes in class.
His midterm exams are about 5 questions long answer - but don't let that scare you, the questions guide you through exactly what he wants to know and are easy if you essentially know most of the concepts that he goes through in lecture.
Not a huge workload, great professor, VERY enthusiastic about teaching and will answer any of your questions.

There are also seminar presentations to work on in groups of 5 that you can choose or he'll assign you to one. This is 20 minute presentation about two or more articles of your choice that have to do with a topic he assigns you. This isn't as hard as it seems. You make a handout with all the basic information you will go over for each person in the class to study, and a presentation of the topic. You basically just talk about the important information in the articles for 15 minutes and then a 5 minute period to ask the class questions or let them ask you. Everyone does well on this. You also get bonus marks for attending other groups seminars when they present that day

Probably the toughest part that you shouldn't underestimate is the final exam. Not only are their long answer questions but the actual difficult portion is filling in the blanks on information from OTHER people's seminar presentations. Even if you didn't attend the seminars you are obliged to know the information that they give on their handouts - and these questions are pretty specific

Other than that, awesome course, would recommend it to anyone.

I have recordings of all 3J03 classes when he taught term 1 2011. I'm willing to sell if anyone is interested. Email: [email protected]

Has anyone also taken Psych 3F03 with Dr. Feinburg? Between 3J03 and 3F03 which would you recommend taking based on workload and difficulty level? I find both courses interesting but I can only fit one into my schedule for 4th year. Suggestions?