Dan (or is it Chad?) really likes birds and rescorla-wagner. But he loves wasting his students' time even more. Between multiple reading quizzes per week, time-consuming worksheets, annoying group work, and a digital media project worth 25% of your grade, you'll find that you're learning zilch about animals but are re-perfecting your high school strategies for dealing with BS assignments. Don't be fooled when he talks about flamingos on the first day of class, that doesn't last. He's also a bit of a jerk, frequently calling out students I couldn't even hear for whispering too loudly. He does come off condescending and clearly thinks he is god's gift to humanity, or perhaps all animals, I'm not sure. He once randomly paused before switching slides to say "I am a neuroscientist", as if we were supposed to be impressed or something. Maybe its his experience as a "neuroscientist" that led him to improve the educational experience by not posting the slides he uses in class. I guess he knows nobody would show up to his dull lectures if he did.

Like the other reviewers have said, this has been my LEAST favorite class at UVA thus far as a third year. Here is my suggestion if you are a psych major looking to fulfill the group requirement: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS, take Neural Basis of Behavior. I'm sure that Neural Basis may be difficult according to other reviewers, but this has got to be the most ridiculous and time-consuming class I have taken in the psychology department. For one, we have reading responses that are due before 9 am EVERY SINGLE CLASS. In addition, we have a group project worth 25% of our grade which is based on vague criteria. We are required to schedule group meetings and complete assignments related to the group project almost every week. IN ADDITION to this, we had one difficult midterm and final, and also have to complete additional assignments almost every other week. When I tried to ask him a question, he gave me a very condescending answer. This class is treated like a high school class given how many different assignments are due. That does not mean tests are worth little either. Overall, I don't feel like I got much out of the material in this class. I feel like Neural Basis or any other psychology class would have been not only more interesting, but more useful. I feel like he doesn't really care about the success of his students, and overall-- a time consuming class with pointless assignments. AVOID.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASSS. Literally don't take it if your life depends upon it. Chad and the TAs are a very nice people and all but this class is the WORST. You have a midterm and a final (both of which are hard), a group video project, and a bajillion other small assignments to do that are hard. Everything in this class is graded super harshly. He zooms over very difficult neurobiology concepts like it's no biggie and then doesn't give us a text book to reference or ANY of the power points. If you wanted a fun class to learn about animals this is not the class for you.....really there is no reason that this class would ever be for you. DON'T DO IT.

I've never written a review until now, but I cannot recommend highly enough that you DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. Absolute worst professor I have ever had at UVA. I got stuck with this class for a requirement and it has been the worst experience. Professor Meliza takes topics that could be incredibly interesting and makes them boring and more difficult than they should be. Just avoid this class and Professor Meliza if you can.

Don't do it. Just don't. This class seemed interesting at first but it just got more complicated, difficult, and annoying as time went on. So every class, you have to basically read a chapter and answer some nit-picky questions about the reading. This is basically busy work because he only teaches some things from the readings, not all. The lectures itself are not interesting but you have to make sure you pay attention because he does not post his power point slides up on Collab so you either took notes and have the info or you don't. He also assigned us a digital media project where you have to work with a group and make a video about animal cognition. This is very annoying because there are many things you have to submit for this project and takes up some time. There is only one midterm and a final in this class and the midterm was very very difficult and he does not curve. The good thing is that he has various extra credit opportunities so you can do those to help your grade. Overall, this class is not very fun and the amount of work you do is annoying. I would avoid this if possible. Not recommended at all.

Meliza just kinda sucks, he's a smart guy and he seems interested about what he's teaching, but he's just really boring. The class sounds fun, i mean who doenst want to learn about animals and shit, but don't be fooled, DO NOT take this class. He grades very difficultly and loves drawing pointless graphs. I do not know a single person who enjoys this class, so I would advise against taking Meliza's class unless you really have no other options. The readings themselves are kinda cool, but the work is a pain and it just generally sucks