If you need to take Econ 102, take it with Surro. Half of his lectures are going over practice questions and the other half is going over new content. He has you do problem sets, quizzes, and iClicker attendance for “extra points” that gets added as a denominator to your final grade. Exams tend to be fair (mixture of easy and difficult questions). He allows ONE PAGE cheat sheet for both midterm and final. Midterm grade is dropped if you do better on the final. In addition, the Solow Assignment is a great grade booster as it (1) Improves skills with spreadsheets and (2) Goes in detail about one of the main models of the class. Focus on the main part of each lecture and review his lecture notes/slides. Highly recommended!

People glaze this man way too much. Yes he’s a decent prof who articulates the content well and seems to really care about his students but I wouldn’t say that he was a particularly engaging lecturer. His tests are actually evil, questions can be very unpredictable bc he really tries to test your intuition so you will see some questions on the test that are formatted like none of the questions you did in psets/other practice material. Imo midterm was worse than the final (midterm is def more of a time crunch than final) but I also put in more than 50 hrs of studying for the final. For reference the median on the midterm was a 66 and for the final was an 82. All the test questions are free response style but they are graded pretty harshly. One good thing though is your midterm grade gets dropped if you do better on the final. Overall this class will require a lot of effort and may make you question your major.

If you have a class with Surro in it, take it. He gives so many opportunities to supplement the material and makes it very clear exactly what he expects and how to achieve it. If you follow all the study guidelines he gives at the beginning, you will get a good grade. This guy is amazing. 10/10 would recommend. Also he's so sweet and always cheering you on.

prof surro is truly the goat of ucla econ 🐐 he teaches in a very straightforward way and his exams are fair (difficult but reasonable). his grading scheme is also pretty helpful in cushioning exams: there are 8 problem sets (can drop 2), 14 quizzes (can drop 4), and lecture clicker attendance for extra credit can miss 5). problem sets and quizzes are based on completion not correctness so there’s no reason to get less than full credit. there’s an solow model excel assignment due week 10 and it’s tedious but very doable as long as you have a basic understanding of the solow model. i found the midterm and final to be very fair with no curveballs (conceptual questions are always more difficult for me but just study up on the theory heavy lectures!!) you get 1 handwritten double sided cheat sheet for each exam that will fit all the formulas you will ever need. the math required for this class isn’t difficult just tedious. overall, even though i hate macroecon i really enjoyed taking it with surro!!

If you have to take Econ 102, please try your best to take Surro. He's one of the best professor at UCLA Econ department. The content of the class itself is not easy, so as the exams (but to a reasonable extent). But Surro provided A LOT of materials for people to study and master the concepts. There's weeky problem sets and quizzes graded on completion, practice questions for each section that he would go over at the beginning of each lectures, practice midterms and finals, and he even posted practice exams questions & solutions for each section of the concept covered. The reading he assigned for each problem sets are also super helpful for us to better understand the economic concepts behind math.

Again, the class is not easy. But Surro genuinely cares about his students and you will do well if you study hard for this class. The concept is so much more interesting than microeconomics too.

Surro is a great guy and great teacher with the resources he gives in homework, quizzes, practice problems, and other materials. HOWEVER, his lectures were somewhat awful, he would go over practice problems in a very rushed way for 40 minutes every class not truly explaining why he was doing what he was doing. This would leave 35 minutes to teach a whole new topic, which he rushed very fast. If you fell behind it feels like you almost can't catch up with how fast and nondescriptive he is. And with how fast he goes you will fall behind at some point. Aside from that the topic is somewhat interesting, class jumps from of topics/models frequently and tests are pretty challenging and give little time for how much there is. Still think he is the best teacher available for 102, but still doesn't mean he's perfect.

The class content is easy, extremely straight forward, however, there is a lot of work to review (weekly hw, slides, quizzes, practice problems and practice exam questions, and a whole 200-300 row excel project that takes too long for how repetitive it is). His lectures are also extremely fast paced, he doesn't clarify certain steps, relationships, or parameters, and the midterm had an average of 60+% because no one was able to finish in time. It had barely any multiple choice and even those required scratch paper to solve. But he is very giving with extra credit, hw grading, participation. This class was like the Lebron of Kelly olynyks. Better, but still Kelly olynyk-esque

Surro is such a wonderful lecturer and he definitely teaches well. We are allowed cheatsheets on both midterm and final, and we also have problem sets as a cushion for our grades. I was taking ECON 41 with Hahn along with this class and they both turned out fine. As long as you follow Surro's advice on when and how to study, an A- is guaranteed. Always do the practice problems before the lecture and use the problem set and practice problems to practice for exams.

Prof Surro is the best. Definitely take his classes if you can. Just make sure to follow his suggested study methods and you'll be fine.

Chris Surro is easily the best professor at UCLA. He has a unique talent of breaking down complex concepts into easy to understand intuitions and uses those intuitions to guide the entirety of the course. He never strays too far into the math/abstract and keeps his lectures laser focused on the core concepts he wants to get across. He provides a lot of specific guidance beyond classroom learning on how to succeed in his class which was very useful for me.

The midterm will likely be harder than expected. The questions are kind of like SAT questions with relatively easy concepts but somewhat involved problem solving. Its usually just basic algebra/recognition of different concepts.

Definitely do the problem sets; the process of solving problems should be like clockwork before the exams. The more important part is making sure you understand everything in complete detail.