This was by far one of the worst classes I have ever taken. Lectures were not engaging at all and the slides were just copy and paste from the textbook. The professor was really bad at explaining concepts, so I taught myself everything from the textbook and google. The professor barely explains anything and always repeats the phrase "just read the textbook and you'll be fine", why am I paying tuition for this? Despite the fact that the professor merely skims over the econ material, the tests go way more in depth and I was caught off guard during the mid term because I did not expect that difficulty. I also felt like the tests were testing my math and english more than my econ concepts. Overall this class was super frustrating because the content is easy but the lack of teaching just makes it a hard class to ace. It was pretty frustrating when the professor barely went through the tougher mid term questions that most people did not get, not to mention there are ZERO practice tests and she just says "you either know it or not" I'm truly not sure how to feel about that explanation of not providing even one practice test. It bewildered me to see her use class time instead to play "games" and discuss material that wasn't that important to the class, for example spending 30 minutes asking people what their minimum wage experience is like instead of spending more time on the PS/WS curves. I'm all for a good discussion but considering how little teaching there was it wasn't great to sit through a lecture just listening to random stories when I'm stressing over the final. If you are great at self teaching then don't bother going to lectures and just read the textbook- it explains everything much better. In general, stay away from this class.

Professor Olivia is very kind but is not clear. She is the professor who does not like practice problems or tests, and says "you either know or it don't" Which comes to be true but can be intimidating if you are nervous or just want to test how much you actually know. She will not curve or round grades, so the avg of her courses tends to be a B. Exams do not have many questions so beware bc you will miss 3 and be at a C. (lot of check all that apply making it difficult). Got screwed out of an A- bc she didn't round an 89.6 after acing the final as well. She is fun to speak with but once again, grading of projects is graded by TAs, so do not believe her if she says you did well. Also grading is based on the class, so if there is 1 group who writes 20+ pages, when the limit is 8, they will get A+ and everyone else will be held to that standard and end up with Bs on projects that are meant to boost ur grade.

Mid-class. She didn’t provide a practice midterm or even tell us how many questions would be on the test, which was frustrating. That said, her tests were reasonable. This class is just okay. I don’t recommend it, but I don’t have strong negative feelings either.

My review of other professors: https://www.reddit.com/r/ucla/comments/1gmshzu/review_of_econ_professors_as_a_transfer_student/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

midterm and final were issued as a bruinlearn quiz (due to protests) and were quite difficult with "check all that apply" type questions. no practice tests so best way to study is to do the book questions.
lectures were not very engaging. If you miss class you can just catch up by reading the slides. the slides are literally copy and paste from the book tho so not very helpful unless you go to OH

I didn’t like this class at all. The content is very easy, and you don’t need to go to lectures, however, the exams are pretty tricky and the average is usually super low. She also never responds to the emails as far as my experience goes. I am a junior who only ever gotten one A- in my UCLA classes, but it’s very likely I get a B in this class unfortunately. I would not take it again if I could.

One of the best Econ professors I've met in UCLA. Engaging lectures and she tries her best to make everything clear. No regrets would definitely take her class again.

Olivia is the sweetest. If you go to her office hours just a couple of times, she'll get to know you by name and do whatever she can to help you succeed in the course. She's also one of the few Econ professors who gives projects (usually 1-2 per quarter) as part of your grade, which is great if you don't like having all of your grade pinned on a couple of exams and you don't mind putting some effort in outside of class. I would absolutely take this class with her again.