Herbert Terrace

Please trust the reviews dating all the way to the early 2000s - Herbert Terrace is the reason that tenure should be abolished. The class contains little more information than did Science of Psychology. Actually, that's not true; now I know what the field of psychology was working through in the 1990s, because that's the last time Terrace bothered to update any of his course materials. Ironically enough, he doesn't even update the information he has on human evolution, despite that being a central unit of the course. And even the information he does have misrepresents the most widely accepted theories of evolution. The readings are (still!!) mostly drawn from the textbook manuscript he's been trying to publish since 1999. Spoiler alert, Herb: nobody's gonna publish it! Terrace is condescending and rude to students during class. He often interrupts people while they answer his questions, or simply chuckles at their answer and provides no response to them. But if you simply repeat verbatim what he said, you'll get a smug smile and a knowing, dry sip of his morning Fresca soda. The tests were maybe the most frustrating part of the class. The questions are still poorly worded and intentionally try to trick you with arcane syntax and multiple correct answers. It's clear that Terrace doesn't want to test your knowledge but test your ability to regurgitate his idiosyncratic material…

honestly as i went through the course i was like this professor has to be kidding me...literally the course is taught by the student and then he often chimes in and says his piece and questions what the student brings to the table on the topic he offers... but by the end of the semester when we had to do the paper i realized how much i had learned from writing the paper and reading the assignments. its a totally different way of teaching and your grade is based on the presentation and the final paper and thats it. he gives you two weeks off to do the readings which you dont have to do at all...but look as much as people say its death..its really not that bad- its interesting topics and basically discussion in the class but when you get to the paper you feel like there is alot of pressure cause the guy doesnt know anyones names and could care less about how the presentation turned out as long as its relevant and the outline is good. so the grade is all on the 10 page paper. but hes really leinient and quite approachable..he basically does the work for you besides your paper. if you need to take it- its not bad at all def not death like others are saying but if you dont need to - then its not worth it. and its pretty cool having the first 2 weeks off of class

Do not take this class. He doesn't curve till the end so you have no idea how you are doing and you will drive yourself nuts As far as teaching....he lectures straight from the slides. His TAs were disconnected and his students slept. He was impossible to talk to. The slides were not good and contained long quotes from Freud which he liked to read word for word. He gave unedited chapters of his book which was rejected for publication to the class. The tests were silly, from test banks and did not match up at all with the book or what was learned in class. In fact, often the slides/book/test answers contradicted each other. I did manage an A, but after a horrendous semester. It was a miserable class and I hear great things about Galanter. Wait for his class unless you want to spend your semester studying and memorizing useless facts just to deal with the crazy, unedited tests.

Alright, I had heard bad things about Terrace as an intro psych teacher: talks about himself, dry, biting, etc. However, in this fascinating seminar, his character is somehow quite endearing. You realize what an expert he is on his subject, and it's quite hilarious to hear him insult others in the field (Chomsky is a favorite). He really really makes you think, but does not dominate the discussion. Each person teaches a class, which is basically whatever you make it. And the subject matter is SO interesting. Highly recommended. Oh, and his sense of humor is actually stellar. The one downfall is that he doesn't ever tell you your presentation grade, so you turn in your final paper with NO idea of how you're doing in the class. But you should just chill out about this.

This is an extremely boring course, but hey, for 2 hours a week (once a week) it's worth it. Terrace is the worst lecturer by far that I've ever seen. Even he falls asleep in his own class, no joke. Workload: Leading 1 or 2 classes, which involves a 2-hour speech which is continually interrupted by boring additions from Terrace, and writing an outline for the class to follow and an annotated bibliography on all the extra reading you have to do. Also an in-depth final take-home exam/paper.

While his socratic teaching method was at first a little foreign, after a few weeks in the class I actually appreciated how this teaching style invoked deeper thought on my part which ultimately led to a deeper understanding of the material. With regards to the course layout, I found the order to which the material was presented to be extremely logical and easy to follow. It is very obvious that Professor Terrace is extremely knowledgeable in this subject which made going to lecture a very informative and thought provoking experience. The amount of information that we were held responsible for was very manageable and I felt it was introduced at a very reasonable rate. Lastly, I highly recommend taking this class at the same time as Science of Psychology if you need that requirement as well as so much of the material overlaps.

I feel compelled to write a review to contrast the harsh treatment Terrace has received on this board. Although I can't comment on his Intro class, the consciousness seminar was my favorite class of the term - always interesting, always informative. The course had the usual drawback of a seminar in that you rely on the competance of your collegues who pick weekly readings and give presentations. The presentations are continually interupted, but this is only annoying if you are giving it and you are unprepared to be sidetracked. The subject matter is extremely difficult to wrap your mind around but I think Terrace does a commendable job of "leading the horses to water" so to speak. He is certainly an expert in the course's central themes.

Although a knowledgeable and brilliant psychologist, as a teacher, Prof. Terrace is boring. His lectures are very dry and can be difficult to stay awake through. It is obvious he knows what he is doing, and perhaps he is overqualified to teach an intro class. He seems unenthused about everything with the exception of his own Nim Chimpsky experiment.

He'd rather be playing with monkeys. Herb wrote a textbook but no publisher will buy it; unfortunately you've still got to shell out forty bucks at the bookstore for the manuscript, which is poorly illustrated and filled with errors. Monotonous lectures complement the horrific text -- avoid at all costs.

Some men are born to teach, the Aristotles and Confuci (Confucius plural). Then there is Herb. Professor Herb is the only man in the world that can raise a chimpanzee, basically teach it how to talk, dress it in awesome clothes and get a movie made about himself and his off the wall adventures with his furry companion... then turn around and bitch about it. Besides learning that every question is a stupid question and that psychological research is a joke because the whole field is obsessed with impressing this man, you will not learn anything from his lectures. His grumpy rants, only to be interrupted by the prolonged sound of him sipping from his diet coke (or occasional coffee which requires a dry, effortful blow), have little content that you didn't learn in any intro to psych course at any school, community college, or picture book. However, the worst thing about Mr. Terrace's class of buffoonery, was the tests, which he was absent for, which his TA's wrote... In short the tests in this class resemble those written by a dyslexic fourth grader who just discovered adderall. Anywho,the textbook is from the 1960s, unpublished by the man himself, which includes many different fonts and fun misspellings that could be used for drinking games! Finally, the class is curved which is good! Oh wait, it is not? I could have swore he said it was curved... the syllabus says its curved..…