This class was surprisingly challenging for me. Going into this class I didn’t really know what health psychology entailed and the amount of hours that would be needed to do well in the class. I’m double majoring in Psychology and Health Care Studies and I really liked how the class encompassed both topics. I learned a lot throughout this class, such as studying techniques, and information about health behaviors and different diseases. My favorite topic discussed in this class was probably different interventions used to change behaviors. I really liked the personal change project because it I had never done a project on myself. I also enjoyed carrying out a qualitative study because I had never done a qualitative study before and it was nice to learn the different methods used for it. In terms of the class itself, I didn’t necessarily like how long the class was, at first I was excited to just have 1 class a week however, I found it hard to pay attention the whole time and actually retain the information. In addition, the daily quizzes posed a huge challenge to me (especially because they were always on Mondays). The questions were very specific and really tested how well you knew the information, which was a good and bad thing. I was disappointed with my quiz scores, but it’s mostly from my own fault. The quizzes lowered my motivation to do well in the class because a good grade seemed unattainable based on my quiz average. I understand the purpose of the quizzes, but I wish it was clear what information would be on each quiz and I wish the quizzes were during lab period rather than class.
I enjoyed the guest lecturers and I wish we had more of them. I thought it broke up the 3 hours nicely and it provided different perspectives of the information we learned in class. I also liked the different relaxation methods we did during class, but I wish they were done towards the end of class rather than the middle because some of them made me even more tired. I thought the labs were very efficient and effective. I liked how different information was covered in labs rather than a continuation of the class lectures. I thought the Powerpoints in lab provided a good foundation for us to write our qualitative papers.
I think one major thing that can be improved for this class next semester is clear guidelines as to what each assignment should include. A couple times the rubrics lacked clarity as to what to include in assignments, especially for the research paper. Another improvement that could be made to the class is to improve on class readings. The Longevity Project was a great representation of the information we learned in class, however it was very repetitive, so I think that reading certain chapters or finding a different book that applied to the class would be beneficial. I did enjoy the idea of blog posts and commenting on other people’s blogs. Overall, thank you so much for a great class 🙂 I really enjoyed learning about the various topics we covered!