His accent is unbearable and impossible to understand. His slides are just regurgitations of the complex formulas from the textbook. His tests have very little to do with the problem sets as his questions focus on manipulation of the formulas rather than using them to solve actual problems. Worst class I've taken at UCLA

Professor Pinto's 103 class is very manageable compared to other 103 professor (Rojas). He is funny in class and always care for us. The exams are okay, as long as you study his practice exam you will be prepared.

I would recommend taking this class with Professor Ribiero because although I found the class to be difficult, he is very understanding and has great character. I kind of skimmed my way through this class because I got behind in the beginning - definitely make sure to start strong and learn the fundamentals and you will get it from there. His exams were multiple choice but what I found difficult was that many of the questions were "Which is NOT true" types of questions so they covered more material and required more thought. He allows you to have 5 pages of notes front and back for the midterm and 10 pages of notes front and back for the final along with a formula sheet he provides. You have to learn how to code R and complete the homeworks in R but you don't have to code for the tests. Ultimately although I found the class to be somewhat difficult, Ribiero truly wants his students to succeed.

The content was very difficult to grasp at the start but it got much easier towards the end. Maybe I am just bad at econometrics but I really struggled at the start. Professor Pinto is also not the most clear professor though he is extremely helpful if you ask him questions. I also had a wonderful TA, Filipe, who really saved my grade.

The midterm was really easy whilst the final was harder but still reasonable.

P.S. there is barely any coding work and the "coding" homework we had to do did not really help me understand the concepts better

Overall a pretty solid class. Pinto was super generous and understanding concerning the problem sets.

Grade breakdown:
20% HW (Problem Sets)
30% Midterm
50% Final (or 80% if you do better on the final than the midterm)

Both the midterm and final were only MC (20 and 40 q's respectively), which is extremely fair. The professor does have a bit of an accent which can make understanding him a bit difficult at times but since things were recorded you can just rewatch lectures. During the exams, you had access to all his slides and notes, which were extremely helpful, but other than that it was closed book. When I took the class the grade distribution was crazy high, so don't expect any curving to happen, but he did promise not to curve down so whatever face value grade you get, you get.

The problem sets are all just coding in R, which is helpful but also not tested on the exams, at least the coding part. The exams focus more on interpreting the results and understanding which models to use on different types of data, etc. The material can be a bit much sometimes, but don't get lost in the weeds and do the practice problems and practice midterms/finals he gives out. Those give you a really good sense of the difficulty of the exams.

The TA sections can be helpful and useless at the same time. At least for my TA, he would explain the same concepts but in different ways, and sometimes it clicked for me and other times I feel he would just get more convoluted and confusing than the professor. I feel like the TA's definitely bring a different perspective to the same material so if you listen to lecture and feel completely lost, then maybe go to a TA. If you understand the material from the lecture, there's no need to go to the TA sections.

The professor was super nice and you can definitely tell the passion he has for the subject. He definitely knows his stuff!

I would say he's not the best at teaching as far as clearly explaining concepts, but he's definitely one of the nicest econ professors out there. I found lectures to be a bit difficult to understand and follow along, but as long as you study with his practice exams, you'll do fine on the midterm and final as his actual exams are EXACTLY like the practice exams. When listening to the lectures I truly thought I would fail this class because I couldn't follow along at first, but thanks to his practice exams I was able to do well on the midterm and decent on the final. Definitely one of the more reasonable and fair econ profs out there, and you can tell that he really cares about his students!

One of my worst classes, to the point where I considered dropping out. When I sought help, the professor’s rude attitude left me feeling discouraged and unmotivated. If you’re going through a rough time, I’d advise you to avoid his class. I do not recommend this teacher.

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

Honestly though, don't take this class. If you truly value your money, you should choose Rojas instead. Choosing pinto is like choosing to take this class at home. Not worth the risk even when people say it's multiple choice. Literally, all I did was do his homework(which I had to self taught myself) and memorize the book for the final.

Professor Pinto is GOAT. The overall course did not bring me anxiety at all over the quarter. It's totally manageable. Midterm is super easy. Final is hard, but professor is very generous with the curve. He also rounds up my score from 89.75% to 90% so I can get a A-. Pinto is such a caring professor!

I found this class pretty difficult, the exams were somewhat okay but the problem sets were really hard. You had to complete the problem sets in R, but no one ever taught us how to use R, so we were all left on our own to figure it out. Not to mention the class wasn't even about R, the Professor said we just needed to be able to interpret results from R, but the exams were written with results from Stata.

However, the Professor does give you an option of dropping the midterm score if your final is higher, so there's two grading scales:
1. 20% Problem sets, 80% Final
2. 20% Problem sets, 30% Midterm, 50% Final

My TA was super helpful for example problems so definitely go to discussion sessions.

The lectures were incredibly boring, even with 2x speed and taking breaks every 10 minutes I wanted nothing more than to go back to bed.