Unlike most of the reviews on here, I did have a high school background in accounting. I'm not going to lie; people with an accounting backgrounding prior to taking this class will do better. It just takes a while for some people to understand debits and credits and the little nuances that accounting entails. Gardner's tests are very time intensive; however, the questions were fair and relatively easy to answer. Although I finished both the midterm and final with 15 minutes left to check my answers, I know people who did not finish both exams. Simply put, if you know that you struggle with time-intensive tests, then you will struggle on Gardner's tests.

I do have to agree with many of the reviews in that the homework assignments were useless. Although somewhat interesting, they were not helpful for the tests at all and simply felt like busy work. The homework was also graded quite harshly and I can imagine the average score around the low to mid 80's. Homework is 20% of your grade, so it is important that you do well if you want an A.

Gardner is one of the most engaging lecturers I have had at UCLA. She is absolutely a bundle of energy and repeats constantly what you need to know for the exams. She is also extremely knowledgeable and will actually set aside a week of lectures to talk about practical financial information such as a ROTH IRA and investment strategies. It was really something different, and I really appreciated that segment of the class. The one criticism of Gardner is that while she is a great lecturer, she is not all that invested in students' concerns and well-being. UCLA is a huge campus, so I assume this is pretty common throughout all classes.

I can't speak much for the TAs. I can imagine them being helpful for some students, but I only went to discussion once throughout the whole quarter. The one time I went was just a review and really did not enforce my learning of the material at hand. They also seemed to be kept out of the loop when it came to the exams and what would be on them. They were nice, but were not worth my time when it came to studying.

I did receive an A in this class with an 81 on the midterm (average: 63, median: 64) and an 83 on the final (average: 70, median: 73.5). According to a TA, the average for the midterm is usually around a 70, so I guess my class was just really stupid or something. I'm assuming that Gardner made the final easier to compensate for the drop in raw scores. The midterm is worth 35% of your grade and the final 45%.

Good luck!

I did not complete the class because of a midterm conflict between this class and a course which was a major requirement for me. I tried to explore different possibilities the beginning of week 2 with Professor Gardner but she was extremely inflexible and unhelpful. She did not reply any of my emails and the only answers I could get from her were when I approached her after lecture. I ended up being able to drop the class midway through week 3 because I realised it was not impacted. I don't feel like I can give an accurate review of the actual course and I'm sure given another circumstance, I would have taken the course with no issues. But I would not expect Professor Gardner to be helpful or constructive should you have any course-related issues if you do choose to take this class with her.

Honestly, though I did not do well in the class it was one of the must insightful and useful classes I took at UCLA. You learn so much material that you can actually use in real life beyond university. It is hard and you have to grind to get an A but other than that I recommend.

This class was honestly not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. She has a very engaging lecture style that definitely moves fast, but you won't be falling asleep either! Her notes are easy to follow, and as long as you show up to class and participate in note-taking, the midterm and final were definitely doable. They were accurately based on the content from the course reader and just required studying and memorization of concepts. The rest of the class was a lot of easy, busy work. Unlike other classes, you actually should start assignments as soon as you can, since the faster you get them done, the easier it will be. They are just long but not necessarily difficult.

Absolutely a nightmare for this class. the assignment 1 was absolutely THE MOST confusing, meaningless, assignment ever. People need to spend around 30-40 hours for this assignment. But we are doing nothing helpful, we are just simply wasting our time writing down some statical facts that can be easily looked up online, (such as who's buffet, how much is the Berkshire worth of etc.. ) yet the professor asked us to hand write down the information and the URL of where the info came from. you never gonna believe how torturous it is until you enroll this class with her and start doing your assigment 1 that's due at beginning of week3. But trust me, you don't want to experience that. so TAKE ANOTHER PROFESSOR for your own sake.

Engaging professor, hard material, lectures aren't recorded, you have to pay for a course reader and there's no slides, just the course reader that you fill out as you're in lecture.
Professor was super engaging during lecture, but I will say some of the assignments are extremely time consuming such as assignment 1 and completing one of the course reader booklets as an assignment. I learned stuff from it, but definitely don't think it was worth the time input and think this learning process could've been accomplished in other ways through the class.
Definitely a class you'll have to study hard for.

Actually viscerally hate this teacher. Textbook is enough to get by but she is a useless professor, and is deeply unlikeable.

Hot take but I actually thoroughly enjoyed her class. She was a very entertaining lecturer. She's hard but fair in my opinion. Its a lot of work but super rewarding

I have mixed feelings about this class. Gardner is a pretty good lecturer, but class is a lot of busy work. The midterm and final are difficult but everything is curved which is nice. Tbh some of my friends did worse than me on every assignment and somehow got a better grade than me in the class so there is some lack of clarity in grading. I would not take this class unless you are dead set on accounting or something like that, this class is making me switch from Biz-Econ to just Econ, but if you have to take it, it’s not as bad as everyone says.

I have mixed feelings about this class. Gardner is a pretty good lecturer, but the class is a lot of busy work. The midterm and final are difficult but everything is curved which is nice. Tbh some of my friends did worse than me on every assignment and somehow got a better grade than me in the class so there is some lack of clarity in grading. I would not take this class unless you are dead set on accounting or something like that, this class is making me switch from Biz-Econ to just Econ, but if you have to, it’s not as bad as everyone says