I really enjoyed the content of this class; it was really interesting. That being said, it was pretty content heavy, and it's what you would expect for a 3000-level course. You not only have to memorize and understand the material, but you need to be able to synthesize info across units and be able to answer certain hypotheticals with course knowledge in order to perform well on exams. Professor Long will give you advice at the beginning of the semester about efficient study strategies, and I HIGHLY recommend you take it. Using active recall and testing myself / explaining topics to a literal wall helped me make sure I actually understood things more than just reviewing my notes. I honestly only used the textbook a few times; I can see how it can supplement learning, but you definitely don't need it to do well. The 4-question iClicker quizzes are pretty easy and the exams, while they can be tricky, are fair if you've studied. Be advised that much of cognitive science is based on studies, so you will have to be familiar with lots of them. Professor Long is very knowledgeable, and when she isn't 100% sure about something (someone's question that wouldn't ever be on an exam) she's still able to hypothesize because she's an active researcher involved in the academic spheres answering these questions. She isn't super approachable though, and you have to go to office hours in order to see what you got wrong on exams, but I think it can be helpful to force yourself to go in and actually try to learn what you missed. Overall, this course was definitely manageable but I wouldn't say it's easy.

In the beginning, I was really excited to take this course, but professor long ruined it for me. The way the course is set up makes it difficult to get a good grade. There aren’t many assignments that can cushion your grade, most of your grade will be dependent on your test scores. There are 3 midterms, the lowest grade is dropped, and one final exam. The tests are difficult. Some of the questions are “select all that apply” so it’s not like a straightforward question with one answer. We also don’t get to review our tests after we take them unless you email her to meet up during her office hours. I find this really inefficient, I would rather like the go through the most missed questions during class so that we know how to answer these types of questions. I wish she would give us practice questions or practice review tests so we could better prepare ourselves. The in class quizzes we do are not enough. The material itself is not that difficult but just know she talks a lot about experiments and tests heavily on them too. Also she seems very passive aggressive. Sometimes during the in class quizzes, a good majority of the students will get a question wrong and when explaining she’s a little snarky. Like we wouldn’t get it wrong if you could walk us step by step in what you’re looking for. There are also 3 discussion posts, which aren’t difficult but I have no idea on how they’re being graded. I dislike that our grade is solely based on 2 tests and an exam. It leaves no room for chance to improve our grade. 4 question quizzes and a few discussion posts are not going to boost our grade. I wouldn’t recommend this class to anyone, the lectures are boring, the professor is unapproachable, and the tests are difficult. I didn’t really learn much from this course, you’re probably better off with someone else.

DO NOT take this course. Professor Long is a really bad lecturer and the material is very confusing. The class had 3 exams (drop your lowest), a cumulative final, quizzes every week on iClicker, and 3 discussion posts throughout the semester. It was the hardest PSYC class I have taken at UVA and I don't feel like I learned a lot. The tests are completely memorization based and she will ask very specific questions about studies. You need to memorize everything. Every study, every diagram from the slides, and everything she says. Definitely do not take this class unless you have to - it is really hard to get a good grade.