I am taking ECON106V in the summer session and now struggling on my homework. This course involves the usage of some stupid online tool called "connect". It charges me a significant amount of money and the information presented has little to do with what Rojas is teaching in the lecture. I have to read EVERY PARAGRAPH to complete the homework problems. Searching online is even more helpful than staring at the book with no clear examples. Hope I can survive.

**ECON 1**

Professor Rojas goes quite slowly through the material compared to Sproul. He uploads lecture slides online, but I would still recommend attending class. The graphs can become complicated and confusing if you don't hear Rojas explain them step-by-step in person.

The grading is based on 15% homework, 20% midterm 1, 20% midterm 2, and 45% final. The homework assignments are online, and they're great practice! A lot of the exam questions are similar to those in the homework. Each midterm consists of 25 multiple choice questions, and the final has 75 multiple choice. The exams are not terribly hard; if you can get your hands on past exams, that helps a lot! Section is not mandatory and, quite frankly, isn't very helpful.

Overall, it's a relatively straightforward class. Rojas does a good job explaining concepts, and he sincerely cares that everyone understands the material.

*I took econ 1 with him*
Maybe prior to winter 2015, he was great, but since then, I doubted because MindTap is a big problem for him.
His lectures follow the textbooks to correspond with MindTap questions. However, in correspondence with MindTap, when we were in chapter 6, Pro. Sproul's class has covered chapter 13. Well he is the one to make the exam so this is not a big deal. He is good at explaining stuff and reading textbook can make you succeed in understanding the material. Basically, you don't need to go to lecture if you have the book, and you don't need the book if you go to his lecture.
Here comes the shit. Online code is needed to access to MindTap in order to do and submit. The code is around $120 and the book is around $140. IT IS NOT WORTHY! Also, MindTap processess very slowly. If you focus yourself on the homework without any distraction, MindTap will cost you 2 times more than doing paper homework because this website processes slowly. The WORST is that after midterm, the time homework is posted and due is unpredictable because everything is a mess.
I will recommend him when he is not using any online technique to "help study".

I think Rojas stinks. I took him for Econ 41 awhile back, and took him for 106V last quarter.

Econ 41 was terrible. The lectures were dry, basic, and a waste of time. I stopped going. The TAs stunk, the orange textbook was horrible, and I ended up depending on AP Stats knowledge. He posted old midterms, and I crammed the night before and regurgitated the answers because the tests ended up being nearly identical. But according to the more recent reviews below, this doesn't seem like this is the case for his Econ 41 class anymore. Also, his final was impossible. He teaches this class out of the scope of what it should be, and a lot of the methods are outdated. Using tables for different distributions has been totally obsolete for the past ~30 years. This class doesn't prepare you for 103 at all because it is taught in a stupid, time wasting, overly rigorous way.

106V was slightly less crappy, but again, if you want to actually learn to invest, you're better off teaching yourself than putting yourself through this class. Once again, Rojas may know the theory behind things, but I find it hard to have someone teaching a class like INVESTMENTS. Once again, just regurgitated the powerpoints and the HW back onto the tests and got an A. Math 141 is a much better class.

Having him teach 3 Econ classes every quarter as a Physics/Stats PhD (admittedly, some of the Econ classes he teaches are are just stats) just goes to show you the state of the UCLA Economics department.

I think Rojas is just OK as a professor, at least for Econ 41. I had him for Econ 1 as well, and thought that class was much more straight forward. But I'll talk about Econ 41 instead.

Sure, he has extremely neat hand writing and is very systematic during his lectures, but I was bored to death the whole time.

If you don't have a Stats background, I feel like you'll be in a for a tough time. His notes are basic and the examples he gives are easy. This, mixed with the atrocious textbook, in which he assigns practice problems out of, made it hard for me to learn own my own. I went to a few different TAs and none of them were that great, and they grade pretty harshly.

The previous midterms he gave us to practice were a lot easier, and the midterm practice problems were not even that related to the actual tests. You will also be in trouble if your Calc isn't up to par.

I thought the first midterm was about average difficulty, second midterm was harder but I did much better because it was mostly calc, and I thought the final was pretty ridiculous. The biggest issue on the midterms for me was the time restriction.

Overall, Rojas is not bad, but not great for Econ 41. I heard he is very good for 103 though.

TOOK ECON 1

Well, I liked him as a lecturer, he goes slow and is methodical in explaining (though my memory is a bit rusty since I took the class 2 years ago).

The tests are so hard though if you aren't good at managing time. I'm a really slow test taker so I wasn't able to finish my midterms. They're also during class time and he takes away 10 min for passing out and collecting so it's only an hour to take it.

Definitely do the homework because if you don't have a formula down, it'll take up too much time to remember during a test.

I had a really good TA and even that didn't help me. It was the only class I ever dropped just because I'm a slow ass test taker! That really sucked, but I'm sure most people will do fine in it because the professor is good.

TOOK: ECON 1

I thought this class was not bad. If you went to every lecture, you'd be fine. Discussion is not mandatory, but sometimes the TA would teach something that was not covered in class thoroughly and that would show up on the midterm. Midterms were pretty straightforward though - FRQ and MC. HOWEVER, the final was hard. I underestimated it a bit because it was 70 MC problems, so I thought I had some leeway. The problems were tricky on the test and my score dropped down 10% from usual midterm scores. At least with FRQ you get partial credit, but there is no partial credit with MC. Basically work really hard on the midterms to have a good cushion and work hard too on the final so your grade doesn't drop too much.

==I TOOK ECON 1 WITH ROJAS==

Rojas was a good professor. He gives a lot of practice questions before exams that are helpful for the exams. He explained the course principles very plainly. I liked him.

****ECON 1*****

Its Econ 1, but I'm a lit major so I was nervous anyways.

It's easy. I went to class and read the book, but you could probably just do one or the other.

Grade consisted of 2 midterms and a final, test questions were pretty straightforward, but not 100% giveaways, however so long as you know the concepts behind the material you will be fine.

Homework is not collected, but worth doing as test prep.

Rojas is very organized, but I got the feeling he is so smart that he overcompensated with our econ 1 class, and dumbed it down a little too much. Still, he is nice enough, and the course content really is interesting.

*i took econ 1 with him*

Prof.Rojas is a really really nice and patient person but the problem is he is so patient in answering every question and making sure everybody is clear about his point that he goes through materials too slowly. He doesn't care how many chapters he is behind his syllabus(somehow, he managed to be one week behind his syllabus by the end of second week). His pace is exceptionally slow but I feel like he is not spending the time in the "most valued uses"-- to borrow the term I've learnt from this course. He seems to have OCT for drawing graphs and marking and highlighting each area with the correct color which takes forever. If you just sit in his lecture and copy his notes, the endless graphs drive you passive. However, when he does go to the pretty hard and dense materials, I feel like he suddenly accelerates. At first I thought it was just me who had problems comprehending those parts so maybe he is right in going fast over those parts. However, from the questions others asked in class, I realized that most people were stuck at the same place like me. This means that he may not have a clear evaluation of what's difficult for us and what's essential, not to mention his random priority for allocating time. His exams are really really easy. As long as you've studies the practice exams he posted. As a result, THE CURVE IS EXCEPTIONALLY HIGH. THE MEDIAN FOR SECOND MIDTERM IN MY LECTURE IS 96. Enough said.
Now I am studying for his final and I think I feel like I need endless cramming because I dont want to fail this class with a, say, 89 in final