so far so good, great sense of humour

funny prof with funny accent. Won't be bored

Dr. Norenzayan seemed a bit shy at the beginning of the semester, but as he became more comfortable the class was more attentive and his lectures improved. PSYC 100 is pretty easy and mindless no matter what teacher you have, but Norenzayan is cool with m

strong accent but a really nice guy, likes to make jokes too. easy multiple choice exams, which are not cummulative. he's great :)

he looks like Mr.Bean.. haha

Easy marker, easy exams, easy to understand. Lectures can occasionally drag on, but he's capable of keeping most people's attention.

He is a nice, helpful prof, and knows what he's talking about. his lectures are a bit boring tho.

I thought he was really annoying. He treats his classes as though we were still in high-school, and he thinks that the course material is hard (it's not), because he keeps asking if anyone has any questions. Painful class to sit through sometimes.

kinda boring

Enthusiastic, but talks a lot. Lectures are easy to follow, exams are easy, but marks in the course are pretty low because everyone does so well and overall all the marks have to be scaled down by up 10 percent. I thought he was kind of cute!

i found some of his explanations really bad. he would confuse really simple concepts. surprisingly enough though i never fell asleep in his class, so he must have been doing something right. plus i got a good grade, so i'm not complaining. :)

This was a great course. Super interesting. Prof was very knowledgeable and had good rapport with students - he would take readings off of the syllabus when we told him it was getting too heavy, and also extended an essay for us. Good guy.

Dead boring but very easy. I studied for an hour for both the midterm and the final, didn't do any of the readins, and still landed an A in the course overall. Tests could be done sleeping. Classes were useless though, cuz he just reads right off the ppt slides.

pros: very easy, sometimes funny, clear and audible, answers questions, appearance resembles rowan atkinson cons: pace of course slow, somewhat boring, errors in powerpoints, doesn't really encourage note-taking

I didn't go to half the lectures and got an A in the course. Ara is a sweet man, and really wants his class to do well, but reads straight from the book. Only negative, some questions on the exam are "based on the lecture..." where the information is not from the book, so you have to go to class to get 100%

Knows his stuff. Can be a bit repetitious at times, but is a generally good teacher.

man! he was like: lets finish "intelligence" today and start "development on wednesday"...instead he talked about 2 slides and then on wednesday he finished "intelligence" and then start "development" on the last 5 minute of the class. i mean: what the....?? we are behind mister!!

Absolutely tedious! He goes thru the material ever so slowly!

Extremely open to questions, almost too much so during lectures (We fell behind quite often because of this). Lectures didn't completely rehash the textbook and included useful Powerpoint presentations. Very easy midterm and final, but a fair number of questions are purely memory-based.

he's alright, but just not very interesting and mumbles a lot. maybe it's his accent, i don't know. i didn't like him nor the lectures nor the powerpoint notes.

I think he was trying to be helpful, but we definitely spent too much class time on students' questions. This class is pure memorization...if you can memorize 4 textbooks chapters and 4 sections of powerpoints notes at at time then you'll do well. However, I kind of wanted to LEARN something in this class.

this prof is good and i like his 'laid-backness' =) he doesn't go too fast or slow and presents the material in a very engaging manner

I don't know why people are hating on him....I thought he was interesting and friendly. His exams are so straightforward too. I wish all psych profs were like this!

this class consists of memorizing the text book...the stuff is interesting but seriously the lecs were useless.. we spent a whole class talking about the fundamental attribution error and there was like 1 q on the test about it!?!??!? STUPID

I loved the prof. Interesting and straighforward. If you read the text you'll do well on the exams.

if you read the textbook carefully and then go to class for lecture, you'll do well. the m/c aren't so hard, but you have to be prepared for the short answer questions on the exam. he had to scale down the final marks to fit the psych guidelines!!

Good prof. Lectures go over the stuff in the text, but sometimes he adds to it. Really into class coversations, which makes the class behind and the lectures slow. Not hard to get a good grade, basically study the text. Don't need to memorize names of researchers, but overall idea of important studies.

He is very hard and dry.LOTSSSSSSSSSSSSS of reading.

The best prof I've had at UBC so far. Very interesting and enthusiastic although admittedly does allow people to ramble on too long in response to questions. His exams were fairly easy as long as you come to class and take notes and read the textbook.

Excellent prof. He allowed for class discussions of subject matter and adjusted covered material when things fell behind. He covers the major topics well and his exams are easy to do well in if you study the handbook and his notes well. Only gripe: His lectures are not posted which means continual note-taking otherwise this class is recommended.

I dont know what these people are talking about? Im in the class right now and our class average on the first test was 51, and he scaled it up to 59. The grading is unreasonable

disregard that moron who said he is hard and too much reading. Hello?! you're in psych, so yeah theres gonna be some reading. exams were totally fair. some people just dont like to work for their grades? we're at ubc, get it together....

If you want a bad grade then yea hes an awesome prof. hes the chillest guy and will answer any question you have and is respectful of students. On the other hand he is unorganzied and will have 30 min conversations with one student when you are in a 200 person class. So there are good and bad with him. I would never take one of his class again.

Ara is an average prof for this course. His exams are tricky and not enough time! You barely have time to finish . I agree with the others. He lets certain people (you know who you people are!)blabber for an hour when no one cares. MT and Final, each worth 50%. My biggest gripe: TOO MUCH READING! wayyyyy more than any of my other psych courses.

a nice guy but has the worst exams/grading scheme ever. DO NOT TAKE if you want to do well.

He did spend a lot of time answering people's questions. There is a lot of reading but it isn't hard to do well if you study the text and do the study guide. The short answer are worth more than the MC which means you do need to know the material quite well. Overall i enjoyed his class and think he is a good teacher.

engaging prof, i enjoyed going to class, he gives interesting examples and his exams are predictable and easy to get an A if u can memorize the text and terminology

Excellent professor. Interesting material presented very well...highly engaging. Provokes thought and discussion which more psych professors need to be doing. Really hits at the core essence of certain studies and ensures researchers are always acknowledged.

Excellent lecturer. Presented very interesting and recent studies. Really enjoyed his classes. If you like psychology, I think his class would be worth taking because it was a breeze.

He's cute!

He's super cute and funny! It's really hard to keep a low mood in his classes.

I really enjoy this class, its engaging and always interesting. It's a class that you're for sure going to learn something. You really need to go to lectures and keep up with the reading material or u'll miss out a lot. Studying isn't hard there just a lot to cover. I agree he is cute!

Easy = talks down to students like they haven't graduated high school; "helpful" = spends 10 mins answering a typical dumb question; "clear" = repeats himself ad nauseum. Defends his specialisation (evol. psych) without provocation. I love social psych but it's a snorefest with him. Do NOT take if you've taken cultural. If not, I rec. Assanand.

He is very knowledgeable in his field and teaches at a good speed. He makes sure his students understands the material before moving on and if you need help he is very approachable and he goes out of his way to help. Class eval includes a midterm and a final (40%/60%) MC and SAs. One negative is that marks may get scaled down b/c of high average.

Very helpful guy. Has some time management issues. Altogether a possitive experience.

He usually goes into overtime with his lectures, but they're fairly engaging to start off with. Exams are a good mix of lecture/text, and MC/short answer. No preference for whether you decide to take him as a 308 prof.

The prof is good, but class was terrible

Knowledgeable, poor time management, not on time, voice not loud and unclear. Provide lecture outline, have to attend class to fill in the "holes". Engaging the class, but sometimes unable to answer the questions. He usually would say, good questions, we need to do more research to find out. Exam includes in- class materials.

Dr. Norenzayan is not only a very engaging speaker, but he also manages to give unique insights and explanations for something as heterogeneous and complex as religion. He is also very respectful to his students, regardless of what their ideas about religion may be. I highly recommend this class!

Was a pleasure to have Ara for social psyc this semester. Very clear lectures that don't overcomplicate things, includes some videos, and is always eager to discuss topics with students. 3 exams (2 midterms and 1 final), composed of 4 chapters each (plus lectures). Unfortunate people leave his class early, has lots of knowledge to share!

There's only a midterm and final. The midterm and final are based on textbook and lecture material but lecture material overlaps with textbook material. The tests are fair although for the midterm there was a time constraint.

Exams were very much textbook heavy - important to read EVERYTHING. Lectures are not necessarily mandatory but there will be questions on exams pertaining to a specific video etc. Powerpoint he provides does not really provide much info. Lectures are pretty interesting.

He says he's designed the course as a graduate level one and it sure seems like it. I was pretty good with doing all the readings and lectures before both the midterm and final, and received average marks. Expect to lose marks for lack of 'creativity' and random things, presentation is fairly easy, attendance is taken randomly so beware lol

ara is a really good lecturer and knows his materials well. powerpoints are minimal and there's in class participation, so it's important you attend lectures. there's two midterms, a short paper, and one final. midterms were extremely easy, you just need to read the textbook well; it's more focused on studies rather than theories.

Ara is someone I truly look up to in every way possible

Dr. Norenzayan made this course a breath of fresh air. I enjoyed coming to class discussions and I thought there was a good effort made on not attributing any bias given religion can be touchy with people.

Literally my favorite class. Dr. Norenzayan made me want to come to class because the content is super interesting. Also like his style, ocasionally walks around the room and makes eye contact with the students and adds additional examples not in slides. This is one of the few classes where I am paying attention the full 80 minutes

I like Ara, he's very nice and knowledgeable. The course content is interesting. I would advise to be aware that it is a lot of reading from the textbook. The main emphasis is on Western culture and East Asian culture. Content is interesting. Exams are all multiple choice.