Instructor

Mrinmoyi Kulkarni

Semester

Autumn ‘21

Course Difficulty

Low to Medium difficulty, depending on your ability to remember and memorize

Time Commitment Required

Very Little apart from some time before the exams. The assignments given also took very little time around 30mins to 1 hr each.
No weekly commitment required apart from the classes.

Grading Policy and Statistics

Very Lenient grading policy, compared to the other section.

Attendance Policy

No attendance policy due to online semester

Pre-requisites

None

Evaluation Scheme

30%- Midsem
30% - Endsem
Initial plan included small surprise quizzes totaling to 30% and a 10% reading assignment which was then modified to
10% - 3 assignments each, including the reading assignment
10% - one small quiz

Topics Covered in the Course

Basics of psychology. Topics include
Memory
Nature and Nurture
Brain
Consciousness
Sleep
Learning
Intelligence
Cognitive Development
Motivation
Personality
Mental Illnesses, etc

Teaching Style

Teaching style and pattern very similar to the reference book Morgan & King

Tutorials/Assignments/Projects

3 assignments were given
1 - write about a childhood memory
2 - Read the book ‘Mans search for Meaning’ by Viktor Frankl and write how can you relate it to your life
3 - Please write about a page about what motivates you - prior to the lockdown (e.g studying for the JEE etc )
And during the lockdown - how did you get motivated?

All the assignments were pretty simple and did not consume a lot a of time. But they needed to be written with care since each assignment carried a lot of weightage. However lenient marking was done for all of these hence that was not an issue.

Feedback on Exams

Had MCQ exams on SAFE, which were based on the matter taught on the class. Used of concepts was required and not just rote memorization, however there was a significant component of memorization also.

Motivation for taking this course

Since a HSS elective is compulsory, this was a good choice due to light content and good grading

How strongly would I recommend this course?

As a HSS elective this is a good course with a balance of good grading and interesting content. Hence advisable

When to take this course?

Ideally to be taken when your HSS elective needs to be taken, mostly in the autumn semester of the third year.

Going Forward

There are some advanced psychology courses running in the institute that people can take after this one.

References Used

Morgan & King, Introduction to Psychology
Kagan & Havemann, Psychology: an introduction
Gazzaniga Michael, Fundamentals of Psychology
Myers David, Psychology
Lindgren et al, Psychology an introduction to behavioral science

Review By: Shubham Gupta