I believe the curve this quarter was a bit harsher than previous from what I garnered with other people, but this guy is definitely one of the most engaging professors I've had so far. Super knowledgeable about his stuff and shares a lot about his real experience with the class when we review important key concepts. Quite the entertaining guy and brings in a lot of relevant commentary about current housing markets, state of domestic investments, etc.

Breakdown:
-Participation portion part of grade is mandatory, attend his lectures and just do the iclicker questions for credit. he doesn't care if responses are right or wrong.
-Grade is most entirely exam based where midterm and final cover usually 80-90% of overall historically. However, if you do the 2-3 hour review session with the ta, understand all the key concepts in his always updated 1 page per chapter notes, and know how to work basic spreadsheets to emulate certain formulas, then exams aren't difficult at all. FWIW, exams are entirely mc.

Would definitely take again for credit, not a totally easy class but not hard at all if you do some amount of exam 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!!!

I think this was a really good class and I'm glad I took it. I actually think this class is harder than people in the other reviews make it out to be, especially post covid. I thought his exams were pretty challenging and require studying and practice for sure. An A will not come easy, most of my friends got A- despite putting in a good amount of effort. His exams are open textbook and open notes on the computer so maybe people cheated but I'm not sure. Overall, Professor Karlan is a great lecturer and extremely knowledgable. He's one of the professors I respect a lot at UCLA and I would recommend this class.