I trusted the decent reviews this class had before Winter 2021 and I feel bamboozled. Prof didn't even have a syllabus until like week 4 of the course, randomly decided that the midterm was going to take place at 6pm on a Monday with no exceptions (people have jobs/are in different time zones/do things outside of class time??), was all over the place with regards to lecture material (didn't end up finishing a lot of material we were supposed to cover), admittedly made the midterm super hard to "ensure a normal curve," acknowledges that 15% of the class will fail, and was just generally rude to students. He would sometimes laugh when people when they asked questions during lecture :(

His questions on problems sets and tests are also sometimes so vague and subjective, even the TA's have no idea wtf he's talking about. Also, don't get me started on his grading rubrics. You will get marked down on the most silly things. Anyway, don't take this class unless its literally your last quarter at UCLA and you have no choice.

Don't take his class. He is not accommodating at all, I had to take the midterm in the middle of the night. The final was insanely long and no one I spoke to was able to finish it with time to fix their answers. He is very intolerant towards his students, but very lenient with himself. He thinks very highly of himself, which makes it seem like he looks down on his students and is very condescending. He's an okay teacher. The problem sets and worded weirdly and graded arbitrarily. The midterm and final were too long and a bit confusing, they too were graded arbitrarily. Avoid him if you can .

The class martial itself isn't hard, but the professor can make it hard.
The instructions and syllabus are not clear, and he always announces new changes/deadlines very late. Even on the day before the final, there is no zoom link. And yes, his emails always have the wrong content.
A person who makes the rules so strict and cannot accept any exceptions is not a self-disciplined and rigorous person himself. Be tolerant to himself but strict to his students.

Because of him, I doubt anyone can be a professor at UCLA now.

If you have other choices, AVOID him! :)

Avoid him and wait for another professor to take this class. The class material itself isn't very hard, but this professor managed to make it so much more difficult. To start, the problem sets are super vague and even included material that he hadn't taught yet. Also, he often times would rush through material because we had "limited time" this quarter due to the same holidays that occur during the same weekends every year. Like what??? He also thought we were in middle school again and felt the need to manage our studies by making section attendance mandatory, despite them not being useful since the TA's were even confused by what he taught. However, his tests are by far the worst parts of this class. They are loaded with a completely unnecessary amount of questions that make these exams more of a race to finish than something that actually tests your knowledge of the material. The crazy amount of questions also cause grading to take FOREVER. For reference, I finished this class with the same grade that I had in Econ 11 :)

He might be a good professor for in-person, but not for virtual classes. His problem sets/ exams are vaguely written and confusing. He takes off points for every little thing and doesn't give enough time to upload our work for the exams. Super unaccommodating during COVID. Avoid this professor at all costs. Not worth it.

thank god this shit was open note

This course was very interesting. In regular Econ classes I feel as if I didn't learn something that directly applies to the real world but here, we covered many topics that directly impact our life. The professor is very knowledgeable and explains each topic well. The exams are very lengthy and the questions are not too difficult but do require some thinking, which conflict with the time constraint. Problem sets can also be very lengthy. If TA Chang is leading a discussion, definitely take her. She is one of the most helpful and attentive TA I've had. Chang goes out of her way to really prepare students for each exam, even if it requires putting in more work than required.

He is VERY KNOWLEDGABLE about the material. He makes his class very participatory and is one of the few econ professors who always answers questions from the zoom chat.

His lectures are a mixture of economic theory and their application to current real life economic conditions eg COVID19 - which makes the class very useful.

His tests are hard but if you do the practice finals, midterms, and the TA handouts, there should be nothing unfamiliar in the test and you should be set for a very good score.

David's.... Okay. For an econ professor, he's definitely one of the better ones. His lectures were pretty dry, but I don't really blame him for that, Macroeconomics isn't one of the most interesting topics out there. A lot of the questions he asked for Problem Sets/Exams were PRETTTTTY subjective. To the point where, I don't think there was exactly a correct answer for some of them. If you try googling any of his questions, either nothing comes up for the topic, or every source has a different answer. I get it, you don't want people cheating. But, if there's no answer available for these questions in your slides, in your PHD student TA's discussion sections, or online, how the hell do you expect some undergrads to come up with the answers? That's another thing that pissed me off. Questions asked on exams were never covered in lecture or on his slides. So are we honestly expected to scour the macroeconomics web to study for exams? Hell no. He was a nice professor, and obviously cared about his students, but some of the little things made me mad.

DO NOT TAKE HIM. I have to say his lecture is clear, but this class makes me feel like all my hard work is just bullshit, like a ridiculous joke. His exam consists of all essay questions, which are so objective. He has several graders with totally different standards. The rubric is also vague, which is not fair at all. Due to the coronavirus, we have an optional take-home final. I spent more than 20 hours studying all the material cuz I know the open book one would be hard. I got around 90 on midterm which is higher than the average. But the final I got a really low score. I asked the TA for my grading details and correct it with the answer key. Some minor different expressions lead me to get the deduction for the whole question. If he could have the same ruler for everyone, I will complain about nothing. But many people I know get 99 or 100, one of them even has a much lower midterm than me. I would never believe that they were graded under the same standard as mine. After the midterm I tried to talk to him about the unfairness for grading, he just told me "life is unfair". I would remember this ironic sentence for a long time, cuz the only thing he taught me is sometimes your hardworking is just bullshit.