Karlan is the BEST professor I have ever had at UCLA. I have never been in a class where the professor cares so deeply about his students or puts so much effort into a class. He has custom made resources for each class (imagine how much time that would have taken). His lectures are engaging, he is a genuinely nice person and has a huge wealth of experience. He is a highly successful real estate investor himself with an incredibly impressive resume and weaves real world examples from his career into his lectures.

His lectures themselves are better than anything on Netflix. They’re clear, practical and are something to look forward to. There aren’t any assignments in this class, only a midterm and exam which are both fair and don’t contain anything that wasn’t covered during class. They’re open book and mostly excel based. The textbook isn’t required to do well in this class.

Karlan says that you need experience with Excel and a good foundation of finance to succeed in this class. I don’t think you need any background in Excel at all because he creates all the spreadsheets you’ll need. All you need in terms of finance is a conceptual understanding of discounting and annuities and very very basic interest theory (ie compounding).
The one criticism I have is that he sometimes speaks very fast (he speeds up as the class went on) and it would be nice if he slowed down a bit.
This is a GREAT CLASS!

I would recommend this class. You learn a lot of good real-world stuff. It's a good intro to finance even if you aren't particularly interested in real estate. Professor Karlan is really knowledgable, engaging, and fair. Pretty light workload. Just a midterm, final, and clicker questions during lecture. Midterm and final are open book, but you still need to study because there is a time crunch (especially for the midterm). If you actually go to class, take decent notes, and study for a few hours before the exams you'll be set. The TAs were also really helpful and basically tell you what's going to be on the exams, so be sure to actually attend the review sessions.

Overrated

I loved MGMT 170 and would strongly recommend this class!

Professor Karlan has a wealth of experience in real estate and deal-making, and his lectures are very engaging and compelling. The things he discusses are extremely relevant to business and non-business majors.

The class will be rewarding if you work in good faith. Getting an A is pretty straightforward.

10% of your grade is attending lecture (iClicker). 90% is your midterm and final; it is a mix of concept-based multiple-choice questions and application-based calculation questions. For the MCQs, use the week-by-week study guides that Karlan puts out; that is practically all you need. For the application questions, you just plug numbers into spreadsheet model templates (that Karlan gives you), so just build a bit of Excel fluency throughout the quarter.

The assigned readings aren't really necessary; he doesn't test on them. But, you can use them to supplement. Be sure to use the practice exams he puts out before the exams. Those are the exact types of questions you get on the exams.

Only drawback of this class is, like all Anderson classes, the grading curve (33% A+/A/A-). That said, you can succeed if you prepare well.

Keys to success:
1. Understand the concepts (use the weekly study guides; all you need)
2. Understand the formulas (NPV, ROI, etc)
3. Learn how to use Excel at a basic level
4. Use the practice exams; they are the best prep

I took this class as part of my Tech Breadth (technology management), and would highly recommend that any engineering who is in the same boat as me take this as well. 85% of your grade is based on tests (a final and a single midterm) which can be pretty easily studied for. There is NO homework for this class, but the optional problem sets he gives out can be helpful for judging your own knowledge (you don't turn them in though). For the exams, make sure you know how to use each of the spreadsheets, which you can test yourself on via the practice tests. DO THE PRACTICE TESTS, and also go to the review sessions. They are the best help you can get for this class, and more worth it than any other way of studying.
Tests are open note, and I'd recommend putting each vocabulary document into a Google Doc so you can easily find any terms or formulas. Learn how to use the spreadsheets as well before the tests. Lectures are extremely engaging and are basically him going through real-world experience that he's had. You'll learn a lot more than he tests you on if you pay attention to them.
Lectures do not have attendance taken, but they do have PollEv questions which count for 15% of your grade (you just need to answer them to get participation credit). Apparently this varies by quarter, but the time I took it, you could also attend via zoom, and do the PollEv questions, getting credit for that Lecture. Overall, would recommend!!!

The lecture material was phenomenal. We should be grateful we get someone as prestigious as Prof. Karlan as a lecturer at UCLA. He has a wide breadth of experience and is pretty modest regarding his accolades.

That said, he won't be of any help outside of lecture. I tried to reach out to speak with him, only to quickly get rejected. Apparently he's a busy man.

What's strange is the lectures don't really prepare you for the exams. The midterm and final are almost entirely Excel based, which we covered very little in class. So to do well on them you need to be comfortable running calculations on provided calculators. It seemed like the business students who have taken classes using Excel, well, excelled, and the others did okay.