I haven't received a grade yet in this class (still waiting for it to be posted). The class has been fine overall. Sure, the slides and his presentations aren't the most engaging ones. However, he gives a disclaimer at the beginning of the class that since this is a very straightforward and dry topic, we students cannot expect much of an engagement during class. He really appreciates it if students go for OH because he really cares about us and so is willing to re-explain concepts. But yes, his quizzes are very very time-constrained and so you will definitely not finish the test. He knows that his tests are super long so he does curve the class sufficiently. Also, the tests are open book so that is a major blessing. His slides are useful in the sense you know what are the topics that are important and will be on the test (and you know what exactly to read in the book) but the content of his slides is a copy paste from the textbook. He basically follows the book word to word - this has its own advantages and disadvantages. Overall, I would recommend this class if you are willing to read a textbook and are good at extracting information from your laptop during a time-constrained test because you can definitely do well on the test if you attend his lectures (to catch the minute details that won't be in the books but he will definitely ask on the test) and read the chapters at least once. Also GO TO HIS OH!! HE LOVES THAT!!

Classic case of great person but not-so-great professor. He is very accessible outside of class as he will even allow you to make appointments if you can't make it to his office hours. However given that this was his second year teaching, he has a lot to improve, particularly on transferring knowledge into his students. It would also be great to have a clear grading structure as his graders often graded many students' exams pretty unfairly. I've heard he's at least better than Ravetch so there you go.

Casey is helpful and approachable most of the time, you can easily make an appointment with him or simply go to his OH. His lecture is super boring, basically just reads off the slides, which come from the textbook almost word for word. Exams are really time-consuming (except for the first midterm, it was alright) and difficult, but I guess that's part of the reason why it's open book; yet it barely helps as you would not even have time to look anything up if you wish to finish the exam. In order to do well in this class, I think you need to have all the basic concepts memorized to save time in the exam and do LOTS of practices from the book assignment to get familiar with the materials even though he does not assign any. There's also a Memo assignment which I would highly recommend you to go to his OH to get his opinions on your draft b/c the neither instruction nor the rubric is clear and it's heavily based on his perspective on the project instead of the accurateness of your work even though you follow the textbook closely. (btw, the line before the memo is due is INSANE, come early) Finally, Casey is a nice guy but not good at teaching.

I have never written a review on bruinwalk but I feel that Professor Borman deserves one so here it is:

First of All, I would like to note that this class is not an "easy A." You will need to read the book and pay attention in lecture if you want to do well. I would suggest reading the assigned chapters before lecture as he tends to expand on the ideas from the book rather than simply regurgitating the main ideas. Also, pay attention to what he emphasizes in class; often, he will test on topics he emphasizes heavily.

He assigns memos which allow you to apply concepts from class to real-world situations. As long as you begin early, you can go to office hours and he can help you if you're struggling. He is very approachable and certainly the most helpful professor I had the opportunity to learn with. As long as you give yourself sufficient time (3-4 days at least), these memos should only help your grade and not hurt you.

He is a very fair professor. When I took the class with him, many students struggled with the second memo. Because of this, he actually assigned an extra-credit memo. He cares about students' success more so than many other professors at UCLA.

His exams are pretty tough but, as long as you go over the problems at the end of each chapter and review your lecture notes/slides, you can do well. His exams are also open book/laptop but no internet is allowed. I would have received an A in this class had I not slacked off after the second midterm and bombed the final; learn from my mistakes.

I had such a good experience in this class that I actually signed up to take MGMT 126 - financial statement analysis with Professor Borman over the summer (I highly recommend this class as well as there are very few students and the learning experience is more personalized.). I also took MGMT 127A with him.

A few months after taking MGMT 126 with Borman, I reached out to him to ask for slides as I was trying to independently-study certain finance topics that were covered in the class and he got them to me in a timely manner. I've had other accounting professors refuse to do this. He also is always willing to speak about possible career-paths for his students.

In my opinion, professor Borman is the best the accounting department has to offer.

Borman is a nice guy with real-world experience in the industry and is also a bad professor. He knows it since he prefaced it in the first class with “I am not an academic” (it’s okay, neither am I). In regards to the older reviews, it looks like he's becoming better at teaching, since the midterms weren't that difficult (if you attended his review sessions) and we only had to do one memo (which I somehow got a passing grade on despite BS'ing it at the last minute). I’m still glad that I took this class since it made me realize how I’m really not meant for accounting.

Because of the craziness that happened at the end of our quarter, I believe he gave us a generous curve (just did the math and I should've gotten a C+ instead). This proves that he really /is/ a nice guy! Thanks Casey!!

Here’s the grade breakdown (out of 1000 points):
- Homework: 70
- Participation: 70
- Quiz 1: 145
- Quiz 2: 175
- Memo: 230
- Final Exam: 310

First of all, his lecture is very dry and he just reads off from the slide. Do not expect him to teach you every details of accounting in the class. Basically, you have to teach yourself by memorizing all the concepts in the text book and do all the problems in the book. Hes exams made absolute no sense to me since most of his questions required to write an short essay. Even the simple questions like calculations or entering journal entry, he made it impossible to get a full credit because you have write your own statement to justify your answer. If he didn't like your explanation of the answer, you will get only a partial credit even though your answer is correct. His grading scheme is not clear and fair since most of the test questions were asking you to write an answer that would result in subjective grading. I wouldn't recommend any of his classes he teaches in UCLA.

Honestly liked the class, although his lectures themselves could be dull at times. The exams themselves were open book/note and were honestly a little weird, but the questions often revolved around a few talking points he would repeatedly mention in class. I honestly thought the project was pretty cool, it is just building a DCF, and although his instructions could be more clear, you can get additional help just off Youtube. For grading I think he mentioned that half the class gets A/A- which isn't bad at all. As far as accounting classes go I think this is one of the better ones.

I'll break it down by category because this class/professor was not as bad as the reviews would make him out to be. This is my first review on here ever and I took his ethics class and accounting for entrepreneurs or whatever that class is called and this one was definitely the hardest of the three.

Participation 10-12% of grade - I never went to class because lectures were recorded so I missed virtually all of these points except for those given for doing professor feedback. I kept meaning to start going in because he goes through the class roster and you only get called on every 2-3 classes but the few classes I attended he didn't call on me and I was too lazy to volunteer. This is definitely easy points.

Midterms- low averages and a pretty decent curve - I think people who actually go to lectures for this class actually get more confused but if you just look at the slides and remember key phrases he repeats - they are literally word for word on the exam. The exam is open notes and you can have them on your computer - I kid you not - just ctrl f searching the transcript of the recording of the class got me so many answers and just looking at slides also helped. I wouldn't rely solely on this but it helps to avoid overthinking because his lectures maybe aren't the best.

Finals - Same as midterm but weighted more.

Memo- literally an insane project because even though I rewatched every recorded thing he said about the project - you really won't know what he wants unless you go to office hours and/or work with a friend who also went. He said he doesn't post an example one because then everyone's memo would look the same and he doesn't want that. For the forecast just go to 2-4 of the OHs towards the end of class and just ask as many questions as you can and he'll basically tell you what not to do which is super helpful. If you're stressed just record the audio of the entire OH on your phone or take detailed notes. Pretty sure the grading is lenient on this but you have to go to OH to figure out what he really wants you to do. It's weird and he said this is like a 40-50 hour project but its more like 20-30 if you take out the guess work that comes from not going to OH. I procrastinated and did fine just because of Office hours. It's not that bad and is a super good project if you're going into finance or something.

Overall his teaching clarity wasn't the best but tests were fair and open notes on your computer (no google or chat gpt allowed). The participation is kind of dumb because I did better than my friends who actually went to class - and they've consistently outperformed me in basically every other class that we've taken.

I would recommend the class because if you just listen in class and review the examples from lectures and the slides ( and pay attention to the numerous anecdotes he'll tell about random companies) you will cruise through the exams I promise.

Lastly - this guy has had an insane career and education and could be an incredible reference/ someone to have in your corner. I'm sure if you actually participate and go to OH he would be super helpful for MBA applications or any post grad job advice. He's funny and keeps it real.

Professor Borman is a great professor and highly engaging. He cares a lot about his students learning -- especially during covid times -- and is very flexible and open to scheduling additional one-on-one office hours, answering questions in class and via email, and making sure you can catch up on class recordings/notes should you occasionally miss class. Overall, he is very understanding and approachable. During class, he will call on people to offer answers, which at first might seem daunting but overall he cares about engagement and learning more than getting it right during class (and he will not mark you off for incorrect answers given during class, but rather will help you figure it out). He always adhered to the class times, and often would end early. Sometimes he would upload a 15 minute video lecture on the more mundane stuff and ask you to watch it before class, then start the live class 15 minutes after the regular start time and only lecture for an hour in order to not go over the allotted class time of 75 minutes in total. Very considerate!

The class consisted of a midterm, final, two homeworks, and a final project. The homeworks were exceptionally easy, by design. The midterm and final were very doable if you attended class and participated in the discussion; many of the test questions are based closely on examples from class discussion. Helpful, too, are reading CNBC or MarketWatch or other similar websites to improve your financial statement literacy overall. The final project which is a financial model of a public company is very interesting, appropriately tough, but graded very fairly. Everything mentioned above about his approachability apply extra around the time of the final project. Professor Borman made himself more available than usual during the weeks leading up to the submission date, he would spend time at the beginning of each class answering questions, and the examples in class would be from the companies that the project was on. So everything tied together.

For anyone interested in learning and who is tired of the high-stress, low-support accounting professors at UCLA... take this class with Prof. Borman for a supportive and low-stress experience that really teaches you a lot!

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.