Dont take Rojas unless you absolutely have to. He bascially just reads off the lecture notes during the lectures, which is extremely confusing. He only gave one practice test for midterms and finals, which are pretty much irrelevalant from what actually appeared on the test. Both midterms and finals were quite hard:( However, the group project was graded pretty leniently which was the only good thing about this class.

this class killed my 4.0 gpa. lectures are not recorded. 2 group projects with R but you will struggle unless you are already okay with R

He changed the structure of this class, there are now 2 projects worth 20% each, a midterm worth 20% and a final worth 40%. He does not give much practice material so just make sure to ask the TAs to give you more practice problems, some give out additional old practice problems.

His labs are essentially a continuation of the lectures. While he explains the concepts of the material very well and helped me grasp the thought process and foundational ideas, he doesn't really teach how to code in R, which is essential for the projects. Because of this, the TAs suggested using Google and ChatGPT for coding help. Rojas has high expectations for his students, but I genuinely learned a lot from him and I'm glad that he was my professor. Take his class if you're eager to learn, but not if you're looking for an easy A. I really liked him and the way he explained stuff but a lot of people complained because he had high expectations from us and covered more material than other professors.

Overall he's a very nice guy, if you ask him for help with the project, he will help you and he is very knowledgeable about the material.

I really liked Professor Rojas. Although I had taken statistics and probability before, I never truly grasped the concepts until this class. I think he did an excellent job of explaining the material clearly. We had two group projects, which were time-consuming, but they helped deepen our understanding of the content (each project accounted for 20% of the final grade). The midterm (20%) and final (40%) exams were challenging and built on what was taught in class. To succeed, you really need to understand the material as there is also no cheat sheet. On the positive side, the projects were graded leniently, and he only curved grades upwards.

Overall, I thought he was very nice and a good lecturer. I would take another class with him.

Rojas is a great lecturer, learned alot in this class. Projects made up 40% of our grade and everyone basically got a 100% on them. The only problem this class had was that the exams had a few random questions he barely ever touched on and his practice exams were nothing like the actual exams. Most exam questions were very easy however.

EHH. The only two plus's is that practice exams match the level of the actuals, and that he has lecture notes.

Since the projects are most of the grades, if you have a good grade and study for exams, you'll be fine. However, the professor is not clear at all (frankly I think he's so smart that he doesn't understand that students don't get it), so it felt entirely self-taught as lectures were not helpful. This class is a huge time commitment and is quite stressful so make sure the rest of your classes are not too stressful.

I never write bruinwalk reviews but I had to for this class because it was my favorite Econ class I have taken at ucla. The material was actually useful for post grad and Rojas is an absolute gem. The projects and homeworks are hard and take a while to complete but he lets you work in groups and grades extremely leniently. Additionally, he will answer any question you have about anything. There are two exams: a midterm and a final but they are worth a relatively low percentage grade compared to other Econ classes because the projects are worth a large chunk (and are basically a completion grade). The exams are hard I won't lie but he also grades extremely leniently on them. It's basically the best of both worlds because you actually get to challenge yourself with the material of the class without it hurting your class grade that much. Anyways class is fantastic and Rojas is fantastic. Take 144 if you actually want to learn something useful

Rojas is by far my least favorite economics professor. I think he is actually a sadist and/or a lizard. His lectures are the most monotone experience you possibly imagine. I shit you not I fell asleep every lecture I attended (at 1pm nonetheless) so I stopped attending class. He is incredibly punitive and does little to help his students. He does not record lecture. He gave us one practice midterm that was absolutely nothing like the actual; this seemed intentional. The coding projects took forever even in groups of four. Be warned, this class is solely about R not about economics. The homework is all R and the tests are all related to R in some way as well. Rojas is clearly quite intelligent but this leads to him just assuming we know a bunch of stuff we were never taught. Take 104 with Boswell if you can.