Professor
Casey Borman
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - I'm taking the time to write this review because when I took this class the Bruinwalk was totally misleading and it made me judge the professor and the class unfairly. I took Borman's class after taking Ravetch for 1A and 1B, and I have no idea what anyone in the review section is complaining about in terms of difficulty. He may have restructured the class this quarter, but there were 2 quizzes, 1 memo assignment and 2 homeworks. He expects you to read the textbook before class, but if you're smart and participate in class - you can get away without it. Quizzes were easy, open note and text, and pretty much the same as the practice midterms. The material is made considerably easier because he doesn't expect you to do any hard calculations, and lets you use Excel for quizzes. You have to be certifiably stupid to do badly on this class. It may get a little boring at times because he does rely solely on the lecture slides, and his lectures can get a little monotonous - but honestly, what else do you expect if you're taking an accounting class? The most important part of this review is that Borman is the nicest professor I've had at UCLA, mainly because HE. CARES. SO. DAMN. MUCH. Absolute gem. Literally helped me with any and every thing. Took appointments during his lunch hour. Let me confirm my answers to the homework during office hours, and even showed me how to do the things I couldn't understand. He told us at the beginning of the class that he doesn't care about grades, and is more than happy to give us credit for problems we get wrong on the midterm if we can demonstrate an understanding of the concept fairly. Take my word for it, and take this class. You won't regret it.
Winter 2020 - I'm taking the time to write this review because when I took this class the Bruinwalk was totally misleading and it made me judge the professor and the class unfairly. I took Borman's class after taking Ravetch for 1A and 1B, and I have no idea what anyone in the review section is complaining about in terms of difficulty. He may have restructured the class this quarter, but there were 2 quizzes, 1 memo assignment and 2 homeworks. He expects you to read the textbook before class, but if you're smart and participate in class - you can get away without it. Quizzes were easy, open note and text, and pretty much the same as the practice midterms. The material is made considerably easier because he doesn't expect you to do any hard calculations, and lets you use Excel for quizzes. You have to be certifiably stupid to do badly on this class. It may get a little boring at times because he does rely solely on the lecture slides, and his lectures can get a little monotonous - but honestly, what else do you expect if you're taking an accounting class? The most important part of this review is that Borman is the nicest professor I've had at UCLA, mainly because HE. CARES. SO. DAMN. MUCH. Absolute gem. Literally helped me with any and every thing. Took appointments during his lunch hour. Let me confirm my answers to the homework during office hours, and even showed me how to do the things I couldn't understand. He told us at the beginning of the class that he doesn't care about grades, and is more than happy to give us credit for problems we get wrong on the midterm if we can demonstrate an understanding of the concept fairly. Take my word for it, and take this class. You won't regret it.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - Take this class with Professor Borman. The class is absolutely manageable. Grading is fair. Lots of great topics are covered. A great option for non accountants. We had two open book open note quizzes. Four one page homework assignments. Midterm and final are open book. Genuine and approachable. Has great stories he applies to class. He also expects participation and challenges the students to look at the issue from different points of view. Most importantly he doesn't make you feel dumb if you get it wrong, instead he helps you through it. In other words, take him.
Winter 2022 - Take this class with Professor Borman. The class is absolutely manageable. Grading is fair. Lots of great topics are covered. A great option for non accountants. We had two open book open note quizzes. Four one page homework assignments. Midterm and final are open book. Genuine and approachable. Has great stories he applies to class. He also expects participation and challenges the students to look at the issue from different points of view. Most importantly he doesn't make you feel dumb if you get it wrong, instead he helps you through it. In other words, take him.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - Borman? More like Bor-ing. I was trying to give at least a mediocre review, but the results of the Memo and the exam scores were...disappointing. This class was disorganized because he makes us participate way too much. We were behind a lot because of the participation questions and I'm sure he spent at least 15 minutes of class time either trying to help people get to a very obvious answer to his question or on calling the names of people who didn't show up, which isn’t necessary and cut into large chunks of class time while making it a huge obstacle for us to learn. The material wasn't terrible and a lot was just a surface level review of intermediate accounting, but a lot of us were expecting actual unique knowledge on financial statements. You learn how to build basic financial models and there's a heavy usage of Excel for the homework and a project on analyzing the financials of his choice of companies, but most of the choices were extremely boring since a lot of those were heavy value companies. In my opinion, Borman is too risk averse and doesn't talk much about growth stocks and innovation, which is a disadvantage when that's what makes the markets exciting. He doesn't include much about current news related to growth stocks, and he won't add knowledge about things like Benjamin Graham's value investing theories or Berkshire Hathaway and their strategies. Ultimately, this is just another accounting class that doesn't do much to improve your investment philosophy. Both the midterm and final questions were horrible and I’m sure his graders just gave us random grades. A large chunk of people were using Google, chatgpt, and texts to cheat which made it look like a lot of us understood everything to get an A. I sat in the back and I saw entire rows of people behind the projector just copying and pasting from chatgpt which is very discouraging. The grading and instructions for the Memo were also ridiculous. He wants you to fit all your insights and interpretations of things like turnover ratios into 1 page, Times New Roman 12 font. There is almost no way to fit your ideas concisely into the model, which you will get points off since he will ask you to "elaborate" despite there being no flexibility too due to the restrictions. You won't get any recognition if you more than exceeded the requirements. The grading for the Memo is harsh and slightly unfair, unlike what the COVID review said. The people who got an 100% on the Memo probably sucked his dick, so if you want to get an A in this class, be ready to get on your knees. Also, for some reason when he is grading, he forgets how to read. Overall, try to take this class P/NP if in excess of accounting minor units. And try to suck his dick early on.
Winter 2023 - Borman? More like Bor-ing. I was trying to give at least a mediocre review, but the results of the Memo and the exam scores were...disappointing. This class was disorganized because he makes us participate way too much. We were behind a lot because of the participation questions and I'm sure he spent at least 15 minutes of class time either trying to help people get to a very obvious answer to his question or on calling the names of people who didn't show up, which isn’t necessary and cut into large chunks of class time while making it a huge obstacle for us to learn. The material wasn't terrible and a lot was just a surface level review of intermediate accounting, but a lot of us were expecting actual unique knowledge on financial statements. You learn how to build basic financial models and there's a heavy usage of Excel for the homework and a project on analyzing the financials of his choice of companies, but most of the choices were extremely boring since a lot of those were heavy value companies. In my opinion, Borman is too risk averse and doesn't talk much about growth stocks and innovation, which is a disadvantage when that's what makes the markets exciting. He doesn't include much about current news related to growth stocks, and he won't add knowledge about things like Benjamin Graham's value investing theories or Berkshire Hathaway and their strategies. Ultimately, this is just another accounting class that doesn't do much to improve your investment philosophy. Both the midterm and final questions were horrible and I’m sure his graders just gave us random grades. A large chunk of people were using Google, chatgpt, and texts to cheat which made it look like a lot of us understood everything to get an A. I sat in the back and I saw entire rows of people behind the projector just copying and pasting from chatgpt which is very discouraging. The grading and instructions for the Memo were also ridiculous. He wants you to fit all your insights and interpretations of things like turnover ratios into 1 page, Times New Roman 12 font. There is almost no way to fit your ideas concisely into the model, which you will get points off since he will ask you to "elaborate" despite there being no flexibility too due to the restrictions. You won't get any recognition if you more than exceeded the requirements. The grading for the Memo is harsh and slightly unfair, unlike what the COVID review said. The people who got an 100% on the Memo probably sucked his dick, so if you want to get an A in this class, be ready to get on your knees. Also, for some reason when he is grading, he forgets how to read. Overall, try to take this class P/NP if in excess of accounting minor units. And try to suck his dick early on.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - Prof Borman was super engaging and it was clear that he was very passionate about teaching his students the content so that it was truly understood rather than memorized. The only annoying thing about his class was that he calls on people in alphabetical order for participation questions and if you get the question wrong he assumes you were not paying attention when often times it might just be something you do not understand or you get nervous and say the wrong thing. I do, however, think this participation method is a sure fire way to get a solid participation grade so overall this class is super worth it.
Fall 2022 - Prof Borman was super engaging and it was clear that he was very passionate about teaching his students the content so that it was truly understood rather than memorized. The only annoying thing about his class was that he calls on people in alphabetical order for participation questions and if you get the question wrong he assumes you were not paying attention when often times it might just be something you do not understand or you get nervous and say the wrong thing. I do, however, think this participation method is a sure fire way to get a solid participation grade so overall this class is super worth it.
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