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!

Considering that it's ECON 103, I expected much worse. His lectures aren't mandatory if you understand the slides he posts and I stopped going altogether. He answers all questions anyone has and his problem sets are really long, but graded on completion if you catch my drift. R is unnecessary to the course since you aren't tested on it. His grading scheme is also nice. 20% homework (everyone should get 100% on it since it's graded on completion) and then either: 50% final, 30% midterm or 80% final if you do better on the final than the midterm. Completely bombed the midterm and still got an A- (he doesn't curve the course either). Exams are medium difficulty but do the practices and make a cheatsheet and you should be alright.

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 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.

Horrible professor, lectures provided absolutely no help. His explanations were terrible, the only way to keep up with the course content was to read the book on your own. He claimed he was going to make a "significantly simplified final" and assess grades on a "generous curve", but did neither of those. Will be actively avoiding taking any more classes with him.

When the quarter started, I thought it was going to be a nightmare because the professor covered one whole chapter each 75 minutes lecture. The problem sets, at first, were time consuming, but this was largely due to the coding side of it since many of us have never coded before.

However, the material isn't as difficult as many make it out to be in the reviews. I found Econ 41 to be a lot harder than this class, so if you remember the material from that class, you can manage this one. A lot of content overlaps, like confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, NOT probability (thank god!). The course focuses heavily on regression, but the upside to this is that it's pretty simple and the calculations required to interpret or answer hw/exams questions are given by statistical software! And in exams, you don't even have to code yourself, the professor provides it for you. (Btw exams are theory focused and I would say that 90% of the questions are conceptual and require you to understand the formulas provided on the cheat sheet!)

Professor Pinto is a fast lecturer and reads off the slides, but also gives a few breaks to answer some questions. The initial syllabus stated we were going to do 6 problems sets, but we only ended up turning it 4 and the prof provided the coding commands + workbook sections we should refer to after students expressed their trouble with codes. He was very accommodating and understanding about it and he addressed the feedback fairly quickly too! He provided useful practice quizzes that actually reflected the exam material and before each test, he would go over the answers + explain why the wrong ones were wrong. For the final, he spent almost an hour after lecture time going over the practice! He really wants students to be successful. It *is* a lot of work, so just keep that in mind.

I didn't find Econ 103 with Professor Pinto to be that bad. He is a really nice dude and is pretty funny. I really liked his lecture slides and they were very self-explanatory, but I would still recommend going to class since he does a good job of going over it. He does have an accent that makes some things unclear, but I didn't find it to be too bad. It's actually funny how he pronounces some words.

His grading scheme is 20% problem set, 30% optional midterm, 50% final (or 80% if you do bad on midterm). His midterm and final were pretty straightforward. There is no calculator and his questions are all pretty much theoretical. He also does not require any use of tables for t-values, F-test values etc... The problem sets can be a little long, but the TAs help a lot, especially with the STATA code. Go to TA discussions to get the homework done. I would highly suggest going for the midterm since it can take up 30% of the grade and was pretty easy compared to the final.

The STATA portion of the class isn't too bad, the TAs help with STATA hw questions and the midterm STATA portion was very straightforward. He asked questions on the final regarding STATA outputs, but that's about it. The final had 35 Multiple choice questions and midterm had 3 short answer and 4 MCQ.

For the midterm and final, he allows 10 pages of handwritten notes to use and a 3 page printed formula sheet, but trust me, he does find a way to test you on the material in a way that the notes won't completely save you. You have to know your stuff.

Overall, the course is pretty straightforward and the material isn't ridiculous or anything. I think some of the bad reviews below are outdated, because I didn't find the course to be that bad.

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.