This course has been my favorite Econ course and one of my favorite academic experiences at UCLA, not just because that Professor Tornell explained numerous complex concepts in an understanding and exciting approach, but also the fact that we were trying to explain economic activities based on the theories we studied in the course. I love how we discussed news articles during the lab sessions and analyzed the reason behind some of these market phenomena. I was fascinated to see when our theories and analysis correctly predicted the change in the exchange rate when the discovery of the Omicron Covid variant was announced. Econ 123 is the first econ course I had at UCLA that we are incorporating real-time events in the course material, so I feel extremely accomplished and delighted to be able to employ knowledge I learned from this course in real life. I really do recommend taking this class.

Easy A class. Professor Tornell cares about his student and is extremely nice. However, I learnt almost nothing from this class. All the testable materials includes only a few simple formulas which in my opinion can be covered in one class. The course would be better and more informative if Professor Tornell can cover more of how to do coding to perform transactions. He intended to do so and did talk about it a bit in discussion, but those are not at all in depth and I understood almost none of them. I don’t regret taking this class at all, since an easy A with minimal workload is ideal for me when I am busy with other stuff throughout the quarter.

Tornell is a pretty bad lecturer but the class is easy. No more than 5 hours of work required for all the assignments the whole quarter. Pretty useful material in this class compared to other economics courses.
Minhea is a good TA, too.

Copy of prev final, study guide and notes available. Ema!l me at ************* at gma!l for pr!ce.

Professor (Tornell) was great. The TA (Tim) was the inconsiderate, emotionally challenged soul I’ve yet to meet on this burning rock.

0 tolerance policy for late HW or attendance - even if it’s cuz you’re flying home for an emergency MRI while experiencing intolerable pain due to your chronic autoimmune disease, or because you signed up for the class after week 1 and literally couldn’t have attended the first 2 lectures.

If it wasn’t for Tim (or a heinously, unjustifiably strict syllabus) this class would’ve been incredible.

Cheers

Not an easy a class now that lecture is in person. 60% of the grade is attendance and homework. 40% of the class was from the final which was all short answer responses in which you needed to justify each answer. While it was only 23 questions (some multiple parts) most of the class used all 3 hours. It’s open book open notes but the time constraint makes it difficult to rely on those. The lecture material felt extremely dumbed down without much practice questions/examples for the final. His extremely thick accent makes it hard to understand him while he wears a mask to class. Definitely would not take this class again. Opt for easier econ electives.

It is definitely not an easy course. Prof is famous for his research in international finance, and his class is really practical in analysing what happens in the market and could help you well understand fed, interest rate, inflation and exchange rate. However, his lecture is quite hard to understand and easy to get lost during his class. HW is based on completion, and he originally planned to have R coding assignment; However, he cancelled it. It is so important for you to attend the discussion because the TA (Tim) is really helpful. Almost everyone gets full marks in hw and participation. Therefore, the grade you received is based on the final.