This was a pretty useful and easy class, definitely recommend it as a 106 elective.

There were 4 lab projects to be done with a group. They could be confusing at times, but were relatively straightforward as long as you reviewed the prompt thoroughly and pay attention to what he says. They were mostly graded on a completion/try your best basis - my group made reasonable estimates/assumptions when we got confused and scored full credit on all the labs, despite our accuracy being off at times. Just be sure to clearly list out the assumptions you made.

Class is pretty boring and I only went to one session, since they were recorded on zoom for us (due to Covid). He doesn't really add much content besides what's on the slides themselves, although he usually clarifies/elaborates on topics a bit so I would recommend watching every lecture at least once at 2x speed or something.

Exams were based almost exclusively on the practice problems and practice exams he gave us, as well as the example problems in the slides. Review the problems, exams, and slides well and you should be good to go for the exams. Some reviews recommend doing all of the problems rather than just the highlighted ones, but this would take forever since there are so many practice problems. I just did the highlighted ones (in addition to exams + slides) and scored a comfortable A in the class. Exams were a mix of multiple choice and short response, and timing was definitely an issue for me on the midterm, so be prepared to work as fast as possible. For our in-person final (midterm was online), he allowed us to bring one cheat sheet (front and back), which was more than enough space for the necessary formulas and examples.

All in all, pretty straightforward class. He can be unresponsive to emails at times, but he usually responds within a week or so unless the email gets lost in his inbox. TA's were helpful my quarter. You definitely don't need to read through the textbook. A lot of the topics were certainly interesting...for a lot of us it was our first time learning about investing, bonds, loans, valuation, and forecasting. More practical than probably all the other econ courses I have taken here.

The workload is very doable and the tests are fair. Just review past exams to prepare for the finals.

We spent weeks on present value and future value calculations and glazed over the most interesting parts of the content (valuation methods). Convery uses the textbook's slides, and will quickly read them to himself before presenting them. The exams are hard, and often contain errors. Bad professor for interesting material. Convery doesn't even actually have a background in econ/finance, which is probably why his teaching style is so fragmented. Take this class with another professor. Also, the labs are pretty easy - don't bother making a group to work on them together - you can pump them out easily in one hour on your own.

Highly recommend this class to all Biz Econ/Econ majors. Professor Convery is extremely knowledgeable on the topics discussed and gives engaging lectures. Tests are straightforward and are fair. Do all the practice questions from the book, not just the highlighted ones, go to lecture, and skim the textbook and you will get a good grade. Go to his office hours if you need help on problems, he is great at individual teaching. The topics discussed in this class are valuable no matter what field you enter, but especially if you go into Finance or Consulting. Highly recommend this class and Professor Convery!

Class is honestly not that hard, but the exams are super short and worth a lot of your grades. If you miss a couple questions on the midterm, you automatically cannot get an A. Midterm was 45%, final was 45%. Average on midterm was 18/20, 29/33 on final. So basically each question is worth 1%-2% of your total grade. I don't believe there was a curve because of how high the average was. Homework is very easy, just basic Excel and PowerPoint, graded on completion.

Good class if your interested in learning more about finance. Def one of the more business applicable classes UCLA biz econ has to offer. Good prof and pretty chill tests. Def one of the best 106 requirements.

This class was amazing! Convery is super nice and friendly and really looks out for his students, especially if you put in some effort. Pretty easy grader as well.

I took this class online, although I feel like the format shouldn't be that different on-ground:

Class Grade - 20% Lab, 20% Midterm 1, 20% Midterm 2, and 40% Final Exam. The labs are all excel-intensive labs that elaborate on some of the harder and most important concepts taught in class. Personally I really enjoyed all the labs, since even though they all took quite some time to complete, they were all really useful in terms of actual application of concepts learned in class. The labs are also group-based as well (with up to 4 people in a group) and graded mostly on your solution process and not actual accuracy, so if you get good group members (I fortunately did) and try your best on each one of the labs to show your calculation process, you can definitely get 100% even if some of your numbers are off.

The exams are all super fair and straight-forward; just like a previous review suggested, as long as you do ALL of the homework questions (highlighted AND unhighlighted), you're good on the exams. My TA Julian was also absolutely amazing - he provides his own set of practice problems that are very similar to the textbook problems and go over them in discussions, so you basically get extra practice before each exam. The textbook isn't required, however I found it pretty useful as a quick read before the exams to review all the topics.

Finally, Professor Convery is one of the nicest professors I've ever had - he replies to emails almost always within half a day of sending them, and I always felt more than welcome to come to his office hours and ask for help or just to chat. Definitely would take him again for any Econ class!

This was the most straight forward class I have taken as an econ major. Copy the slides (either in lecture or on your own), do the homework problems he highlights, know the practice exams inside and out, and take the tests. He even allows cheat sheets in the exam which is very helpful. The exams are very fair and mirror the type of questions you find on the practice exams and in the homework problems. The group projects in lab are graded on a credit/no credit basis so there's no need to stress if it is perfect or not, just put in effort with your group. I was worried about taking this class based on the reviews before, but Convery must have revamped the class because I thought it was a very useful class and not too demanding of my time. I highly recommend.

I suggest doing or at least looking at /all/ of the practice problems (not just the highlighted ones) on the free response and multiple choice questions that the TA's and Convery give out. Tests are extremely fair and straight forward. Excel projects don't take too much time.

Only slight complaint with that some of the practice questions have a fair amount of errors.