Norma Graham

Graham really cares about her seminar and students. She created a comfortable and enjoyable learning environment in which we could explore topics we were interested in. The class gives you an excuse to browse online vision-related psychology articles. Unlike other psychology professors, she encourages non-majors to take her classes because she values perspectives coming from people studying quantitative STEM fields. Other professors don't let anyone who's not majoring or concentrating in psychology into their seminars.

This is a frustrating class. The lectures are worthless, unless you're a fan of the absurd. Graham rambles on and on about stats and goes off on compounding tangents until no one knows what got them there. You're better off just following the great textbook. I tried very hard to follow the lectures for the first half of the semester, but ended up just doing problems and reading the text to prepare for exams. The labs are easy and don't really teach you anything beyond a few basic commands in STATA. Grades seem arbitrary. She and the TAs are quite cagey about how grades were determined and whether or not a curve was in effect. You got a lot of "the mean score on the exam was ___", but not a lot of explanation about how your grade would be tabulated. Oh and you have to give the exams back once you see your grade. WTF? All that being said, Norma herself is the sweetest, most supportive professor you could ask for. Just go to her office hours and you will be treated to sage advice and someone who genuinely cares about your story. She takes note, FFS. She would be a great psych adviser, but holy hell, keep her away from this intro stats class

Undeniably adorable but a little incoherent at times. Sometimes you will leave class thinking, "What did we DO today? Did we learn anything?" You will be baffled as to what to take notes on. Other times, however, she will surprise you with her clarity. That happens too. It is a hit-and-miss type deal. However, all in all, if you're at all interested in learning the basics about psychology, this is a good bet. Except for the essay take-home (which you can do with a partner), the only tests she gives are multiple-choice and straight-forward. That is to say, if you put the time in and learn the material, the test is easy... if you skim it the night before, it ain't. Also, this class is really really funny. Many of the videos that she shows in class are laugh riots-- not all, but many-- and during the developmental psychology unit, she will bring in a baby. You will watch the baby chew on her doll. Graham will try to measure the baby's head... that won't work. If the baby has a favorite song, the class will be coerced into singing it for the child. This is a fun class. Keep up with the reading and form study groups for exam prep, and you should do fine.

My overall experience of the class: not bad, somewhat enjoyable. As far as professors go, there is a lot to be said about Professor Graham. Her teaching is quite often very confusing, though, if I'd paid closer attention to her lectures, I'm sure I would have gleaned a lot more information for the multiple choice part of the tests. Not only does she put up very complicated diagrams and difficult theories about the material that you're learning, but also her handwriting is absolutely atrocious and difficult to read...so I often just gave up on paying attention to the lecture. I personally found that she got very absorbed by a single example and would attempt to explain it, spending too little time teaching the simple concepts and the mechanics behind certain statistical tests (which, I felt, would generally be much more helpful for the tests). As a person, however, Professor Graham is absolutely wonderful. She is sweet, understanding, patient, and always has the best interests of her students in her mind. She and her TAs (James and Travis) are always offering office hours and review sessions for students who may have difficulties with anything in the class, as well as being open ears for students' questions about absolutely anything about psychology or graduate school. Because of these aspects of her personality, statistics with Professor Graham was much more pleasant than I an…

This class was great. True, Norma does spend way too much time going over the same announcements. And her lectures at first seem disorganized or rambling or boring, but give it time -- they're actually quite subtle. A little knowledge of statistics really helps to grasp what she's getting at. At the end I had a good general understanding and appreciation for psychology, rather than just a knowledge of a few experiments here and there. And Gray's book is outstanding, without a doubt the best textbook I've ever used, in any class. Contrary to what other reviews have said, yes you need to go to class, and yes you need to read the book. Just review your notes and the text before the test and you'll do really well.

This course has evolved significantly since most of the reviews below. Professor Graham has taken the complaints about her class into account and revised it so that most of the major issues no longer apply. For instance, there are no more marathon exams or labs. In fact, the first exam was so short and easy that most of the class ended up getting near perfect/perfect scores (she made the later ones longer, but they were still manageable). And there hasn't been a single lab that I wasn't able to complete within the two-hour lab period. That said, be prepared: Professor Graham is still pretty disorganized with her lectures, and you should expect to teach yourself a lot of the material. She clearly knows her stuff, maybe even too well, so she doesn't really spend a lot of time going over the basics. Which means if you want to do well, you'll need to read the textbook before each lecture. The upside is that if you do have a handle on the material, Graham's lectures actually add a decent amount of value and insight on top of that. If you don't read the textbook, you will have no bloody idea what she's talking about, but that's how it goes. Anyone who is worried about this class should be reassured by the extremely generous curve of 40% As, 50% Bs, and 10% Cs. If you do even slightly better than the median score, you'll end up with an A. And if you end up screwing up at some point,…

Stay away. Norma is a sweet-enough lady, and adorable, but this class is painful and very difficult to do well in. Her lectures are dull (they lie somewhere in the realm of actual teaching and rambling, not quite either), and the only interesting things are the days when she shows videos. I dunno, at some point I just stopped going to class. The text book by Peter Gray is FASCINATING though. Very well written, and just amazingly interesting. That may have been the one highlight of the course. I became quite acquainted with the textbook when studying for her exams. Turned out to be a waste of time... her exams are IMPOSSIBLE. They ask you to remember such minor facts or random parts of lectures (which, admittedly, I just flat out stopped attending mid-way thru the semester). I don't regret it though. I received the same grade on the exam that I went to class for and studied minorly for than for the exam I stopped going to and studied extensively. I guess its however you want to deal with teh course. I guess I figured it would be an easy way to fulfill the science requirement. I was sadly mistaken. I hear its easier in the Fall. My suggestion would be to take it there. The largeness of the class also makes portions of it very time consuming, and I feel like a lot of the information could be better presented in a smaller class. Perhaps discussion sections. Wow, I really hated thi…

I waited a couple of months to write this review in hopes that the "end of semester emotional roller coaster" would cease and allow me to write about Professor Graham from a better place. Yeah...it's been almost four months and I still pissed that I wasted thousands of dollars on this class. I have never had such a miserable and wasteful class experience in my life! I am sure Professor Graham performs brilliant research, and she seems like a very nice lady. That said, she should stay far, far away from the classroom, as she is a horrible teacher. She begins the course by telling you that, if you're not good in math, you will do poorly in the class. Pretty strange for a psychologist, right? Isn't the whole point of being in college to learn? C'mon. Earn your money...TEACH! Her lectures are downright incoherent, handouts and handwriting are illegible, and the exams were so long that they were impossible to finish. I'm not exaggerating, an hour after the midterm (right about the time I was in a bar drinking away my misery over my utter and complete shock at the difficulty and length of the exam) the class received a mass email from Prof. Graham APOLOGIZING for midterm's length and difficulty. Really? You're a brilliant statistician and you can't figure out how to create a moderately difficult exam that takes an hour and a half to complete? Really? The labs are ridiculously long a…

I already wrote a glowing review of Professor Graham, but after reading some of the more recent reviews, I feel that it is time for another. As a psychology major, I have taken quite a few psychology courses. It is unbelievable how many psychology professors present their entire lectures using Power Point, reading their notes verbatim. Perhaps many of you have gotten so used to this wretched style of lecturing (if that is what it is called to read slides out loud) that when you come across a professor who actually teaches, you mistake it for rambling? I will save you from my spiel about how Power Point is killing teaching (and learning), and instead let me say this: Norma Graham is an amazing professor who truly loves to teach, who challenges you to think and read critically, and who will inspire you to think differently about science. Even if you plan to never take another psychology course again, take this class. With her genuine enthusiasm about psychology, with her attitude that science is about continuous questioning and careful investigation, and with her thoughtful approach to teaching, Professor Graham is one of the best professors you will come across in all your time at Columbia. She is definitely one of my favorites!

Avoid Professor Graham's class. Go to her for questions about the department, the university, Psych research, etc…—just don't take her class. As most of the reviews for her Science of Psych class explain, Professor Graham is a sweet, considerate woman who cares about her students. Unfortunately, she is disorganized and incapable of explaining concepts in a clear, helpful way. I took Statistics for the Behavioral Scientist with Professor Graham in her first semester teaching it since 1985. The class moves at a reasonable pace and Professor Graham realizes the class has no prerequisites. She holds frequent office hours and is always happy to meet with students. This does not make up for the disorganization, marathon exams, and insane lab assignments though. Disorganization: Professor Graham’s lectures are so disorganized and rambling it’s nearly impossible to understand her point or even to see how the material she teaches matches concepts from the book. Few of the lecture slides have page numbers or anyway of identifying what they cover. Professor Graham writes them by hand on her iPad and they are so illegible you’ll spend at least an hour of exam prep trying to figure out what they say let alone what they mean. Also, there’s no syllabus. For each homework assignment, you have to go back through the “announcement slides for each lecture to see which textbook problems were assi…