I do not think that Brown is a very effective teacher. however, I do not think his tests are very hard. I had never taken a stats class before, but I still managed an A in his class. Lectures are mostly pointless because he's not very good at explaining but sometimes he goes over material on the board that is not in his power points. He does test on this material so you'll need the notes. As a whole, I didn't really pay much attention in class, mostly dozed instead, unless he was doing something on the board. I could teach myself from the power points later. I wouldn't shy away from this class because I feel that it's fairly easy and you can teach yourself the material even though he's not the best at explaining it.

Bruce Brown:

25% Midterm 1
25% Midterm 2
50% Final

He posts up previous exams and sample problems which are basically all you need to know to get an A. The material for the course is definitely not hard. It's basic statistic, and your calculator does most of the work for you. He is not the most organized professor and he makes a lot of careless mistake during lecture and on the exam (it gets annoying when he stops you every 15 min pointing out another error). When he lectures, it's like he's on speed, talking really fast and acting all hyped up 8 am in the morning. You can basically not attend lecture if you can learn the material yourself. Also, choose a TA is can help you understand the material better. Trust me, his exams are not hard.

To be honestly, I have never thought about UCLA has such an "outstanding" professor who gave me the worst lecture in my life. Be smart, I definitely recommend you not to take the class
If you must take it with him, I strongly suggest you not go to his lectures ever throughout the quarter. His lecture is just time wasting. Good luck!

You really don't need to go to lectures. I never got anything out from them. He never teaches the concepts thoroughly because he jumps from one topic to another. If you have taken Statistics AP in high school, this course is pretty much the same material. Try to take this with another professor.

Professor Brown is a nice man, but he makes too many mistakes that can really mess with his students' performance. I would say that purchasing the book is optional, as he posts old exams and sample problems for every chapter anyway. I honestly never really looked at the book, but would review everything he posted at least 3 times each, and pulled an A in the class. You will basically see the same problems on the midterms/final. Because he makes so many mistakes, he would always drop a lengthy problem from our exams, which can help if you didn't really study, but can also go against you if you took the time to review.

While he does make many errors with his work, as previous posters mentioned, I would still recommend going to lecture because there are a few problems he shows you how to do that aren't covered anywhere in the book. If you're going to take Econ 41 with him, I hope you are the kind of student that can learn everything on your own.

This guy is useless.

Avoid at all possible costs. He is incredibly disorganized, and the material that he makes available like old tests and lectures notes are filled with errors. You literally do not know whether or not you can trust his material because so much of it is wrong. The final was filled with so many errors that he had to interrupt us literally every 15 minutes or so. This is on top off an error correction sheet that he passed out at the beginning of the final. He's a nice guy, but just not very capable. AVOID!

terribly confusing and incapable of explaining. makes large amounts of typos on midterms and problem sets. made an inexcusably large amount of typos on the final. first of all, it was way longer than the old finals he posted on the website. i thought it was bad enough when i showed up and there had been enough errors that he thought it necessary to pass out an errata before the test. than quite literally every 5 minutes, our test was stopped so he could explain yet another typo. hey mr. brown, if i work hard all quarter and study hard for your final, the least you can do is learn to proof read! avoid avoid avoid if you can, not a great prof and too lazy to check his work on top of it.

UGH I hate this professor. He makes SO many errors and docs you points for the errors he would make in lecture or in general.. When studying old exams, I had to question myself... is this correct?! and not surprisingly it's wrong. I've never taken a statistics class before, and if you haven't either.. dang, its really going to suck for you. I'd say calculus was easier than learning statistics from Prof Brown. He is very unorganized too.. it's pathetic.

Sure, the material in this class is easy, but Brown somehow complicates everything to a pathetic degree. When his posted notes, class notes and sample problems all conflict and contain numerous errors, he can only be called an embarrassment to himself and the Economics department. As the previous posts have stated, it is possible (and necessary) to study on your own.

I've never taken a stats class before, and I am so glad that this will be my last one. I've pretty much aced all the lower division math classes required for the math/econ major, yet I'm insanely frustrated with Econ 41. Why? Well, frankly, Brown proves himself barely capable of putting one foot in front of the other. He's taught this class for a fair amount of time, but I guess it's too much to ask for a set of notes/course materials he doesn't have to correct every week (assuming he catches every error). He's a nice man whose heart is in the right place, but Brown is an awful professor who seems to barely understand the material himself. Avoid him if at all possible. I'm still amazed UCLA deems him qualified to be a professor.