In a nutshell: this is the most challenging ECON class at UCLA. If you are mathematically equipped and truly desire to work hard to understand the model, this is exactly the choice for you. Otherwise, perhaps avoid it.
I took the class in my sophomore year and I'm writing this review approaching the end of my senior year because the name Francois Geerolf still shadows my mind. His class is one of a kind since he claims to be teaching the most "up-to-date" version of marcoeconomics. His class is based on hundreds of pages of notes that he wrote himself, which unlike any other 102 class. He mentions nothing about Phillips Curve, IS-LM model, or aggregated demand that other 102 professors will be focused on for weeks. His class starts straight from Solow, which is the hardest intermediate marco model, and stick with it for the entire quarter with tons of modifications and special cases. Eventually the model is going to have something like 20 variables that stretches an entire line with a 12 font on a letter-sized page. Like other reviews mentioned, his lectures are not clear and understanding and getting familiar with the model needs at least, for me, five to ten extra hours every week. He doesn't really focus on the underlying logic of the model except for things he mentions specifically in the last a few lectures. I quote his own words here, "To understand the model conceptually is challenging so instead I'll just focus on the mathematical side which makes it much clear." Damn.

But if you can tolerate all these, it's actually a great class. He is a really approachable professor and truly concerns about his students. Go to office hours definitely helps. After taking another ten econ classes, I realized that his approach is somewhat "elegant." Just think of it as from knowing the basics and to gradually build up the entire marcoecon system. Anyways, exams straight from lecture notes and problem sets. 80% of questions are word-by-word, not even changing the numbers. Other 20%, slightly modified, but definitely easy if you have faithfully understood the solutions to his problem sets.

Initially, he used ppt slides to teach the class, and he talked really fast so it was not really easy to follow. To understand what he said, you really need to prepare well before classes; otherwise it would be really easy to get lost and give up for the rest of the lecture. However, he is eager to help and really responsive to any questions you have. And he likes to hear responses. So don't hesitate to ask him questions.
The test materials are fairly easy if you can focus on the bolded words shown in the PPT and only need to remember some stats of the US. That's it. And do the practice problems a few times, and you will be fine.
Thank you, professor

I enjoyed the class as a whole. Geerolf evidently tried to make the class truly interesting and applicable – instead of going by the usual textbook, he presented data on what is actually happening and incorporates readings about current economic debates and issues.

However, there was a lot of organizational issues. 10-15 minutes before both the midterm and final, the class was scrambling to find the Zoom links to be proctored. Since he changed the format of the test (making it all multiple choice to accommodate everything being online), the practice material was not very representative of what was actually tested, with a lot more theory being tested and less math than what the class expected. That being said, I do think for the most part the exams were still fair, and everything could still be traced back to things he taught in class or were in the required readings.

TLDR: Content was more interesting than I expected, but organization of the class left a lot to be desired.

PLEASE READ IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT TAKING HIM

Professor Geerolf is undeniably very knowledgeable and adept when it comes to Macroeconomics. However, I feel that it does make it difficult for him to understand that, as students, we are seeing a lot of these concepts for the first time and it takes a lot of time, effort, and commitment to fully understand everything the way he expects us to. I feel like he casually uses a lot of unfamiliar terminology and concepts that he somehow expects us to already know.

Everything was very disorganized because he makes his own material and has his own site that he uses with CCLE so you really had to keep switching around and clicking links to find the material. THERE IS NO TEXTBOOK TO FALL BACK TO IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND HIS NOTES. (And his notes are difficult to follow along.) I really had to search the internet for pdfs of econ textbooks. That made everything much easier to understand. We had barely any homework, but do not let that fool you; this class requires a lot of hard work if you want to do well, and even then, a good grade is difficult to achieve. It is easy to feel ENTIRELY LOST in this class. So lost, you do not even know what questions to ask.

In addition, because of COVID, he changed his exam structure from a little math to essentially no math at all. Personally, I would have really preferred the math because all his notes are about the math, we spent most of the class discussing it, and if you understand it, the calculations are quite simple. Instead we were tested on almost all theory, which we never went over. I read through all the chapters on his website and watched all the lectures and could not reason out most of the exam questions afterwards. What you will be tested on is ALWAYS UNEXPECTED so there is no way to really prepare or focus on certain areas ("everything mentioned is testable material"). You have just got to go through all of it and it's almost impossible to keep up with all the additional readings and have all the information retain. We were expected to understand a lot about how specific theorists think and the various takes on economics. (Neoclassical, Keynesian, etc.) He has had many years to understand all of this but trying to make sense of it all in just one quarter is a little unreasonable to me.

I think with COVID this class is just even harder. There are some people that just clicked with this class, but if you are not one of those people, no amount of hard work or dedication will pay off, even if you are a relatively smart person. I came from an extremely competitive high school and had a 3.86 GPA for my first two years of college. I am the kind of person that is more than willing to put in ungodly amounts work but will get very dejected if there are no pay offs. That is this class; it has been the WORST I HAVE EVER TAKEN. I got nothing out of it. I know that a lot of my classmates felt this way too. Please do yourself a favor and do not take it. He seems like a nice person, but it will either be a hit or miss for you. And if you do, do not rely on the curve because if you do not understand the theory, it really does not matter.

Professor Geerolf, if you ever read this, I am doing my best to be kind and reasonable, but this is my honest experience. Sorry :(

Professor Geerolf is a kind and funny professor. He genuinely cares about the well-being and understanding about his students. That being said, he is not always the most clear. His explanations of concepts can be hard to follow.

The grading scheme, 70% final and 30% midterm, initially scared me at first. You cannot slack off in this class. It is very easy to fall behind and then do poorly on the midterm.

His exams were split into two sections: multiple choice and short answer. The short answer of the midterm and final were fairly straightforward. They were nearly identical to the book questions. The multiple choice, however, was highly specific and in my opinion, did not test any real knowledge. He asked us several specific questions such as "what was the U.S. GDP per capita in 2014?" that to me did not test any knowledge of concepts but rather memorization of simple facts.

Seriously, let's be honest. Professor Geerolf is a good, caring, and knowledgeable professor. Your class performace should not make a good professor bad.

His exam questions could "look" a bit different from practice exams, I agree, but he did teach us those in class. Also, the only math skill that was needed for this class was partial derivatives, which is basic math for all the other econ classes. He teaches us relevant things and he does not teach things that he wouldn't test us on. I got B+ because I was thrown off by some calculating questions on the exam and because there were multiple possible answers for MC section and I did badly on them.

He genuinly cares for his students' learning experience and their success. He even podcasts his lectures so you can always watch his lecture and make sure you understand the material. I would love to be in his class again. By the way, his hw is short and it only gets shorter and shorter throughout the course. And it is on PNP basis so you don't have to be worried about submitting all correct answers.

Taking this class with geerolf was definitely one of the worst decisions I've ever made. Econ 102 is usually a very reasonable, concept based class, but this class could not have been more of a mess.

The lectures were pathetic. Geerolf would stand up there with his irritating voice and would alternate between reading from his slides verbatim, at a pace to quick to take notes, or going on irrelevant tangents that he would later tell us we would not be tested on.

The tests were even worse. Instead of testing of you understand the material, geerolf gives you an absurd combination of unnecessary calculus, differential equations, and tricky multiple choice questions. He would post his past tests online, and the next test would be a very similar test, yet he would make enough subtle changes to completely throw you off. Expect him to force you to use that shotty gray calculator from Ackerman in order to compute complex math with 10 and 12 digit numbers(all part of the some bs relationship that the Econ department has with the store to force you buy their calculators) . This alone could needlessly take up half the time you are given for the test. Don't expect to ever come close to finishing a test, because I think this guy truly enjoys watching you struggle and then fail to finish in time.

In summary, the lectures were atrocious, and the tests were worst. I don't know if everyone in the class had this same experience, but I do not feel as if this guy gave me any chance to succeed in this class.

The last review written is spot on. Avoid taking the class with Geerolf if you can.

The content of the course was way more technical in nature than it needed to have been. Do not take this class if you do not have an advanced proficiency in excel. Do not take this class if you haven't taken advanced math courses that require solving complex differential equations, etc.

There were many frustrating aspects of this course. Among them being the homework and tests. The homework took anywhere from 5-8 hours to complete and most of it was to be done on an excel spreadsheet. I had no idea if what I was doing was correct. The TA's were ten times more helpful at explaining the concepts. The tests were very tricky as well. The final was a total of 26 pages, and only 3 or 4 out of the 26 pages had multiple choice questions (the rest being free response). Tests were very time crunched and this was extremely frustrating. I knew the midterm 1 content extremely well, yet didn't even have time to finish the entire last page. I recall at most 5 people out of the entire class finishing each midterm before time being called.

In summary, avoid taking this class with Geerolf if you can. If you have to put off the class for another quarter in order to take it with a different professor, do it. You will save yourself lots of time and effort by doing this.

Selling textbook for this class. Text me **********

His exams are very straight forward, but could be time sensitive. You need to make sure that you can work efficiently through his exams. Take advantage of the fact that 10% of your grade is easy participation credit and he offers the option to drop one midterm.

A good example of what's wrong with professors at public schools and more specifically UCLA's Econ department. They don't give a **** about you or your grade, and they teach things irrelevant to any basis of reality. This guy's a prick. His lectures are crap. He can't articulate basic concepts. It's math based, but the math is total nonsense (I got an A in Math 32A the same quarter, so I am actually good at math). It probably wouldn't be that hard, if you spend your time studying his useless dribble. But overall I don't understand how I pay for someone like this to be a teacher.