Scott Kaufman

Scott Kaufman is my favorite professor at Barnard. I took both his Psychology of Personality lecture and lab, and they were the classes where I felt the most comfortable and supported. He is genuinely kind and creates a really relaxed classroom environment. In the lab especially, he makes an effort to care about every student and remembers people’s names. He makes sure no one feels awkward or like they said the wrong thing. I’m usually not someone who speaks up in class, but in his class I felt comfortable enough to participate more. That’s something I don’t experience often, and I really appreciated it. He never puts students in uncomfortable situations or tries to make things unnecessarily difficult. Overall, this was one of the most positive classroom environments I’ve experienced, and it made the content much more engaging and meaningful.

Prof Kaufman is a super sweet guy and genuinely cares about his students and seems to really love the material he teaches. Was he the most academic professor I ever had at Barnard, no, he was more of a fun fact guy, but that definitely works for the content of his class. I feel like I genuinely learned valuable things with the added benefit of taking a class that was not stressful at all which is a good change for once. Great guy truly and does magic tricks in class.

The content of this course was engaging and well-structured. We covered a variety of topics, including cognitive psychology and social psychology, which provided a strong foundation for understanding human behavior and mental processes. Professor Kaufman created an interactive learning environment by encouraging class discussions and actively inviting questions, which made the material more engaging and easier to understand. He consistently took the time to answer questions thoroughly and ensured that students felt comfortable participating. One unique aspect of the class was his use of magic tricks to illustrate psychological concepts, which made the learning experience both memorable and enjoyable. He was very understanding and approachable. He made it clear that students could reach out if they had any concerns, and he provided lecture slides for review, which was extremely helpful when studying. Overall, this course was a positive and enriching experience.

Professor Kaufman is my favorite professor of all time. He's super nice and approachable, and has a great sense of humor. The lectures are fun and engaging, I always have a great time going to his classes. And he does magic tricks in class! The tricks are so good. I also love going to his office hours. He's open to talking about anything, not just class materials. You can talk about life, ask for advice on internships or post graduation plans, and many more. He cares about the students and genuinely wants them to do well in life. He also has more tricks up his sleeve if you go to office hours :)

This class changed my life. Professor Kaufman is hands down the best professor I've ever had here at Barnard. I walked away with a much greater understanding of myself and what I am capable of.

Kaufman is a gem here at Barnard and I truly recommend him. He makes the class actually enjoyable and in a way that makes you want to learn instead of stressing you out just for tests. I really loved his course and decided to major in psychology from it

Professor Kaufman is one of those controversial professors about whom everyone has a different opinion. In general, our class (both lecture and lab) was split into two pov's: those who found him ridiculous and silly, and those who hated him. I personally had multiple interactions with him that were very uncomfortable and unprofessional. Some of the issues I had with his lectures included: if you came in late, he would stop teaching to see where you sat down and would comment about it; he got irritated when people took too many notes/would be typing as he went through the slides instead of just staring at the projector; our class depended entirely on his daily mood; we never discussed personality disorders even though it's a major part of personality psychology; he asked invasive questions to his students; he acted like it was a huge deal to upload slides and wanted us to delete them at the end of the course; he talked loudly during our in-class exams which was distracting for multiple students and I also caught him taking pictures/videos of us on his phone; he was very narcissistic in an offputing way ... the list goes on and on. Basically, he was pretty insufferable unless you managed to just not take him seriously and view him as a joke.

Kaufman is a very entertaining professor, he's done some very interesting research that he talks about in class, he does magic tricks in class, and loves to answer questions. There was not a single dull day in this class, and it offers a very basic survey of basic psychology topics across a variety of psychology fields. It was definitely clear which areas he preferred, but his own research and expertise added a lot to particular units and allowed us to examine some older research with a little more skepticism.

This class is really unique. It's kind of more of a well-being/self help class as opposed to actual psychology. But the lectures are really funny and interesting because professor Kaufman is really funny and interesting.

This class was my favorite that I have taken at Barnard. Kaufman is very kind and such a helpful professor who truly cares about each of his students. The class itself is a lecture based class and Kaufman frequently brings in his own stories or experiences to help support the class material. The lecture slides are very visual based and easy to understand and I was always super engaged in class. Trust me, you will actually want to go each day!