To be fair, this class has imporved compared to the reviews from past quarters. However, this is still a confusing & challenging class and you need to dedicate much effort if you don't want your GPA to be ruined. The class material is much like a deeper understanding of AP Stats or Stats 10. The grading scheme is 25% midterm 1, 25% midterm 2, and 50% final, all are mcqs and 1% equals to 1 question in the exams, so getting 1 question wrong in either exam means losing 1 actual point of your final grade. Your final grade is also curved so I guess approximately 1/4 of the class would get an A or A-. On the good side, Dr. Rojas is clearly genius, he knows a lot about finance and economics, and extending the class material to actual work in finance industry. He welcomes questions and is willing to explain everything down to middle-school level math. However, his slides were full of mathematical mistakes cuz I guess he didn't check when using LATEX. So you really need to pay attention so that you won't look at the wrong slides. The exams are difficult and time is tight; but if you really do the homework and all the practice exams and problems, you should be fine. Overall, if you are confident with your mathematical instincts and know Stats 10 material pretty well, then you should be OK with Dr. Rojas and have a generally nice experience.

Don't take Econ 1 w Rojas. The material seems easy enough when you go over it in lecture, but his exams are way too complicated. The midterms were 25 Qs each and the class avg for the 1st was 88, thhen the 2nd midterm avg dropped to 79, and the final was a 74, so not great esp bc this is supposed to be an intro class. The final is 45% of your grade, with each midterm being 20% and the weekly homework being 15% (do all of it, ur lowest score gets dropped). Lectures were not engaging and he read straight from slides. If you are taking Econ 1 for a premajor, take it with Boswell or literally any other professor. Very disappointed and would not take this class again.

hands down one of the best econ classes taken at UCLA so far. professor Rojas is really knowledgeable and approachable, i went to his office hour for help before midterm and finals and he helped a lot. yes I've had countless mental breakdowns crying in the library because i couldn't understand the material sometimes but with enough efforts studying his lecture notes and doing the group projects i feel confident before the exams

This class was a bit more challenging than Econ 1, but still manageable. There is weekly homework assignments and the midterm and final were timed, 2 hours online. I encourage you to work with other people in the class and study with other people because talking through the problems helps a lot. You need to use a lot of rational thinking, but the slides in lectures are extremely helpful.

This class was extremely useful. It was easy, but only because I kept up with the chapters and engaged in the homework. You need to read each chapter and take notes. The professor is very engaging and clear. His slides will help you a lot. Overall, I recommend this professor and class.

Professor Rojas is an excellent professor. While lectures can become monotonous over time, the professor did a great job at explaining all concepts in depth. The course is pretty straightforward and exam questions are exactly like the homework practice, which is super helpful when having to study. All exams are multiple choice and I found that most students did really well. This class is not a big stressor.

Rojas is a great professor - he's clear, well prepared, and gives us all the resources we need to succeed. That being said, this class is very difficult. The projects can take a lot of time, especially if your group is slow to get work done. The midterm had an easy coding component & the final didn't. You can have a few pages of notes for both. The tests are fair but extremely difficult.

Took this class for my major requirement. I took this class online, so it was fairly easy. The lectures were pretty dry, and nearing the end of the quarter he would go through material pretty fast. The TA discussions were helpful as they would go over practice problems that could potentially be found on the tests. Chill guy.

This guy is the definition of researchers should not be educators. He's smart as hell and has a ton of knowledge but can't transfer that knowledge in an effective way. He sort of assumes you can teach 103 so imagine a class where the professor builds on material you were never taught, then proceeds to ask if there are any questions to which the class sits in dead silence because no one can even gather enough shreds of understanding to form a question in the first place. The projects were valuable in a "hindsight is 20/20" kind of way but in the moment you will want to die. Rojas gives you maybe 3 pieces of information and throws this indecipherable coding project at you that will actually drain your life force and if it weren't for the TA's (who are for the most part minimally helpful but thankfully easy graders) my group actually would have gotten a 0 on the projects. We were making up code at one point. I shit you not Rojas's lectures became so unhelpful that I stopped going to lecture for the entire second half of the quarter and made my TA teach me the material and that is genuinely the only reason I finessed an A- in this class. So idk good luck, try your best, find a good TA that will save your GPA

I found this class to be one of the most interesting and useful classes I have taken at UCLA. However, anybody taking it should know that the workload is mostly coding in R. I came into the class with a background in Python, so it wasn't that bad of a transition. However, it can be a rough start for someone with less programming experience. The grade is made up of assignments, group projects, and exams. The assignments and group projects are all done in R, so this class really boosts the applicability of your Econ degree. The most valuable advice I can give is to get started on your work early because the assignments and projects can take a lot of time. The projects give you a lot of freedom in choosing your data, so you can tailor them to something that interests you. Professor Rojas is very helpful, and his lectures are both entertaining and interesting. The theory of the methods is not as important as the applications for the assignments, but make sure you know the theory for the exams. One great thing is that the textbooks are provided online. Overall, I would be happy to take more classes with Professor Rojas. His classes arguably provide the most applicability and value in the Econ department.