i wouldn’t take this class unless if you really need to. the exams are harder than it should be and she doesn’t give us any type of useful study guide/practice exams. just felt like we had to memorize EVERYTHING. however, she does curve the final grade by almost a letter grade and a half which also depends on how well your class did overall. i felt like all i did was spend 80% of my time studying for this class while i had other classes that i needed to study for.

there are better accounting professors than this one. she is nice as a person but sucks as a professor. all she does is read off of slides and sometimes doesn’t even know what the slides even say. it just really shows how she isn’t prepared for the class. it is a bit unrealistic in terms of wanting us to memorize everything but doesn’t know what she’s teaching on that day.

Probably the most unprofessional professor I have ever had at UCLA. I wish I had filled out her evaluation so that she could see this. She's a decent lecturer and has engaging activities during class to help us learn but do not listen to a word she says about what will show up on the exams. For our midterm, she assured us she would provide us with a list of ratios and we would NOT have to memorize them, only know what they do and whether we prefer that the ratio is high or low. Specifically, this is what her email said: "For Chapter 13, I do not expect you to memorize ratios introduced here. If such ratio is provided in exam you should be able to identify ratio and it's purpose and conclude as to it's meaning for company." Guess what? Big fat lie. She did not give us the ratios. One of her TAs told me that when she learned that students were pissed off about this, she told the TA she did not care because it's her exam and she can do whatever she wants.
Bottomline, not a good professor at all in terms of honesty. I would not take her again. Still better than Gardner though I guess.

Her exams are extremely hard for pretty much no reason. The midterm 1 average was 57% and the 59% for the final. The content is not hard at all, but she just makes the exams tricky with exercises that are not on her slides or on the homwork she gives. I would not recommend her at all.

Just to start off, I have never written a single review prior to this class, but I feel like it's necessary for other UCLA students to know how terrible this professor was.

In my quarter, the class was composed of a single midterm, final, and project, so there wasn't a lot of flexibility with grades, which is fine but it means that our grade were composed of the exams that were unrealistic, seen by the test averages of the class that were never above passing. Just to give some context, I took 1A with Gardner and 1B with Woo and received As, but I decided to take this class P/NP.

Berges is a great person; this review has nothing to do with her character but just her poor teaching. Her lectures are all powerpoints with no application of the material, which I feel like is one of the most important parts of learning accounting, and as a student, I didn't feel supported by the professor at all.

I highly recommend taking 120A with either Lu, Woo, or literally anyone else. Avoid Berges at all cost, unless you really need to take the class and are taking a very light class load. The class is not impossible for sure if you self teach yourself and spend a good amount of time every week studying (6-8 hours of studying per week of the quarter minimum), but if you're handling any job or harder class load the class would be a huge time waster.

I got a good grade, but wouldn’t recommend the professor. She would be a good mentor and person to know otherwise, but she will mess with your mind as a professor. Expect all of her quizzes to be filled with trick questions. Don’t bother with the textbook problems (I never even looked at them), just study the examples on her slides. Do the tax return project with your peers, because she will pick it apart viciously.

Bad, bad, bad, bad. Professor is an actual witch, I wouldn't be surprised if she disintegrated if you threw water on her. Incredibly rude to students and her own ta's. Midterm was actually the worst test i've ever taken and there was no way to review because she doesn't give ant practice tests. The final was easier but that's only because I spent 40 hours studying for it. Worst professor ever, if you do have to take 1B with her study for her tests for a very long time, but at all costs avoid this woman.

The first half of the class was a mess. Two TAs of the class were extremely unreliable (one of the TA told students that ratios will NOT be provided on the midterm, but Professor Berges later sent an email to us indicating that ratios will be provided), not know what they supposed to do, and horrible at teaching the materials. Btw, I’ve emailed twice to the TAs and Berges, but they never respond to my emails, so I guess you better go to their office hours for any questions.
In terms of grading, there are 300 points in total, in which midterm is 125pts, individual project is 25pts, and the final worth 150pts. The mean of midterm was 63%, while the final mean was 82.2% (including extra credits). The midterm was harder than the final, but the final includes 8 chapters, so you will have to memorize a lot more for the final.
Homework problems were recommended but not graded, yet I’d say to do the problems for practice since accounting require many practice to memorize the materials. Some questions on the final were also similar to the homework problems.
Overall, the class material is not difficult, but you do need to pay the effort for an A. Fall 2023 is her first time teaching lower division class, maybe that's why this class is harder. However, if you have the chance to take another professor, go for that choice instead.

Tamara is a terrible teacher. She does not deserve to be called by her last name. Her class was so unorganized throughout the entire quarter that I heard people considering dropping 7 weeks into the class. Her midterm was the least thought-out midterm I have ever taken. Students had to continually ask questions during the midterm because the formatting was so confusing and her response to it was to become an arrogant dickhead and try to belittle us as if we were inferior to her. Her ego is through the roof and she needs to be humbled. She is super disrespectful towards her students and TA’s and does not take constructive criticism because she views it as a jab at her. I remember in one TA session we were reviewing the midterm and 80% of the discussion period was just talking about how rude and disrespectful of a person she is to everyone around her. The TA even had evidence of her being super condescending towards a student when they asked a clarifying question. She may know what she is talking about content-wise but it doesn’t make up for her lack of empathy toward her students. Her fits were dogshit too. Overall, do not take her under any circumstance. Wait until you can take it with Woo.

She has a major chip on her shoulder. She seemed to view her students as in an adversarial relationship with her. During the midterm, multiple people asked her about what a question meant and how it was supposed to be answered, and she essentially publicly demeaned those asking, and seemed in disbelief that someone could possibly misunderstand her question. The question was very poorly written, by the way, and I've never seen a multiple choice question handled this way.

Speaking of the midterm, I've never taken an exam less fair. She tested on materials that she explicitly said beforehand that she wouldn't. We weren't given nearly enough time for it, and it was very difficult. Taking the exam, I actually thought I had walked into the wrong room. After getting spammed by emails by students, the next class, she essentially put all of the blame on us, for 'not being able to put in the time to study.'

The final exam was a little better. I had time to finish, but barely. The short answer section was mostly memorization quizzing how accurately you know how to format certain tables. It was at 8 am, 3 hours long, closed note. Why in the world is this closed note other than to annoy students.

After the midterm exam was a statement of cash flows project. It barely had to do with what we were studying, and in my opinion, the deadline to do it was too short, especially considering this was during midterms week.

There is extra credit in the class. Nobody knows how much. The extra credit is essentially a way for the professor to force students to come to class. Speaking of class, she goes way too quickly. The only way to understand what she's actually talking about is to watch the lectures and pause and skip around. She gives a lot of rapid fire information with no big picture. I was lost by the first lecture, haha. So, why exactly am I being forced to come to class? This was especially unfair for me, because I was sick for half the quarter, and since it isn't mandatory attendance and is extra credit, too bad for me I guess. The extra credit opportunities aren't even given every single class, by the way. Once, she grossly underestimated the amount of time that one would take and gave the entire thing for homework.

She expects her students to read the textbook before classes and do a ton of homework problems after, which she doesn't grade. This is unreasonable to expect out of an average student, and this is one of the only situations where I think that homework should be mandatory, because without it, your ENTIRE grade is based on the midterm, final, and 'project'. And she's also a harsh grader.

The thing is that, take away all these problems, and the course is actually alright. I asked her for her help for a class example once, and she was really sweet and patient, and I understood the topic almost immediately. And actually reading the textbook, you'd think that the course is actually kind of fun. But unfortunately, due to these problems, this course is terrible, and I would not recommend to anyone who doesn't already know the material.

Berges was a pretty decent professor, but I don't think she would be the best professor to take this class with. Weekly Friday quizzes do keep you on top of the material, but they are not easy and thus require studying that no one wants to do on a Friday. The group project is large and just annoying as you have no guidance on it whatsoever and will get a poor grade no matter up, which I think just gets curved. Final is hard but gets curved.