PSYC 2400: Introduction to Forensic Psychology (see all)
2010 Summer, taught by Craig Bennell
Final Grade: A+
Textbook: Forensic Psychology, 2nd Ed., by Pozzulo, Bennell, & Forth
- Overview of Forensic Psychology
- Police Psychology (Selection and Stress)
- Offender and Geographic Profiling
- Interrogations and Deception
- Eyewitness Testimony and Police Interviews
- Jury Decision-Making
- Fitness to Stand Trial and Criminal Responsibility
- Sentencing
- Offender Treatment
- Psychopathy
- Risk Assessment
Craig wants you to pass. No trick questions. Go through your notes, pick out the headings and all the lists - there’s your exam review. By far one of the more interesting classes I took and easy to pass. I did read the book though; from what I remember, there's always one short answer question that relies on book knowledge. If you are confident enough that you'll skip that question, you can easily get an A without reading the textbook.
PSYC 3402: Criminal Behaviour (see all)
2010 Summer, taught by Craig Bennell
Final Grade: A+
Textbook: Psychology of Criminal Behaviour, 1st Ed. (Canadian), by Serin, Forth, Brown, Nunes, Bennell, & Pozzulo
- Measuring Crime
- Biological and Sociological Theories of Crime
- Psychological Theories of Crime
- Risk Assessment
- Offender Treatment
- Young Offenders
- Serial Homicide
- Sex Offenders
- Aboriginal Offenders
- Mentally Disordered Offenders
- Female Offenders
My advice is the same as for PSYC 2400.
SOCI 2450: Criminology
2010 Fall, taught by Darryl Davies
Final Grade: A
Textbook: Canadian Criminology Today, 3rd Ed., by Schmalleger & Volk
Condensed Notes – this includes:
- Sociological Perspectives of Crime
- Foundations of Crime
- Criminal Law
- Policies on Crime
- Deterrence
- Victimology
The trick with this class is that he only tests on what's been mentioned in the lectures. The textbook is unnecessary (I didn't read it) if you are comfortable looking up unfamiliar terms on google.
PSYC 2001: Introduction to Research Methods and Design
2010 Fall, taught by Heather Poole
Final Grade: A
Textbook: Research Methods for the Behavioral Sciences, 3rd Ed., by Gavetter & Forzano
Ordered by topic, rather than lecture, with heavy supplemental information:
- Introduction to Research
- Ethics in Research
- Operational Definitions, Scales of Measurement, and Evaluating Measures
- Research Designs
- Evaluating the Results – to post (which apparently means never, sorry kids - (2014))
I didn't attend a lot of the lectures for this class; that was a mistake. I thought I could make up for it by relying on the book (which is what I would normally do!) but following her lecture notes and then finding supporting information was a better method of learning the material. I didn't find the midterms particularly difficult if you knew the basics of what she was talking about. I found the statistics section difficult and poorly explained (I had a lot of long "ooooooooh" moments in later psychology-statistics courses) but it wasn't key to the exam (or the report, really). Focus on the basics.
PSYC 2002: Introduction to Statistics in Psychology
2011 Winter, taught by (no idea - filling this out in 2014)
Final Grade: A+
I predominantly followed the Khan Academy videos related to what was being taught each week. I didn't find the teaching style matched my learning style. You should really understand the sample and population terms and equations like they're all sandwiches. A sample is just a bite of the population sandwich. Sample equations are almost exactly the same as population equations – samples use lowercase letters and a -1 here and there whereas populations use uppercase letters.
IMD 4003: 3D Computer Animation
Fall 2008, taught by Chris Joslin
Final Grade: A
- Introduction to Animation
- Rigid Bodies I
- Rigid Bodies II
- Motion Capture
- Character Animation I
- Character Animation II
- Character Animation III
- Character Animation IV
- Character Animation V
- Match-Moving I
CJ's courses are hard and the lectures can be dry. Talk to him outside of class if you need extra help. The best way to understand motion capture is to use it. And always bank for an extra two weeks for the character animation. I found the final ridiculously hard because I didn't understand just how little I remembered from Maya.