Hahn is a good professor. He's articulate, has a well-organized course structure and makes good effort toward making the subject understandable. His class, as he mentions a lot, is to prepare students for 103, which is great because then he doesn't waste time on ridiculous long mathematical proofs (because why reinvent the wheel) unless there's something to be learned from the proof itself.

That said, the class is no fun. If you know his lecture notes well and if you really understood the practice problems (like 5 every week, which weren't even mandatory), and possess an above-average intelligence level, you'll do well in the class. His exams had really tricky options (like .2896 when the answer was .2986), and seemed time-constrained for a majority of the students, but well, that's when the curve helps. 25% of the top students get some A.

His teaching style is slow and sometimes the lectures seem drab. But it seems like he's one of the easier 41 professors.

Take Hahn. He's nice. And you'll learn some stuff WELL for 103.

I just finished taking a course with Professor Hahn. I haven't seen my grade so this is somewhat unbiased.

Professor Hahn provides all of his lecture notes online that include about 5 practice problems per section. Print them out and bring them to lecture because the notes on the board are supplemental to the online notes. There are only four chapters. The homework problems are ridiculously simplistic relative to his tests. I would definitely recommend knowing how to do these very quickly because a few are reworded on the test and are easy points.

His class was 50% midterm, 50% final. There were 36 questions multiple choice for the midterm and 71 on the final. VERY time constrained and the average was in the mid-60s for the midterm. Final grades haven't been released yet. However, people still got raw A's on the midterm so it is possible. He follows the department's guideline and assigns A's to roughly the top 25% of the class.

His tests are similar to the SATs. Know the concepts really well and go to lecture to see what he emphasizes. If you know all your formulas and know how to manipulate them, you should be able to do a lot of the test. Then there are the ridiculous questions that take forever to solve...I couldn't tell you how to tackle them because I didn't find an efficient method.

As for Hahn himself...he's Harvard educated so he's very articulate. He also speaks perfect English in case you were worried about a language barrier. He likes to elaborate on topics in the notes, so glance at them before class. He also frequently mentioned that this course was designed to prepare students for Econ 103 and that teaching material relevant to 103 was his main goal, which I appreciated. The quarter ended pretty fast...his last lecture was Wednesday Week 9 so there was a review session and a question forum on Week 10. It was nice he finished the material early but it felt a little rushed.

The TAs that taught this quarter were Matias and Jesper, in case either of them TAs again. Matias goes over basic aspects of the concepts and then provides shortcuts to solve for them by manipulating formulas. This definitely helped with the tests so if Matias TAs again, I HIGHLY recommend going to his section. Jesper is a little more low key about what will be on the test, but he goes in depth so that you understand the material conceptually.

Despite my review, please keep in mind that this was a very painful course. Econ 41 is not Stats 10...I can tell you that.

He might seems to be strict at first, but he is very nice indeed. He is very patient to answer your questions and help you on concepts.

One problem is that sometimes he seems to use a more confusing way to explain a concept again. Maybe that method works for others, but not for me. But no need to worry about it, at least you can understand one of the method he expained. His exams are not easy, but the grades are strictyly curved. I like it. I get less than 90% in the midterm and final, and end up with an A+

Take his class if you like super nice and knowledgable but not-that-effective teachers

I would like to say I don't learn anything in this class except for formula derivation. I guess he is a theoretical statistician. Anyway, I am selling my textbook. Hardcover, used for Econ 41. In great condition with some writing or marks (original condition when I bought this book). Text me at **********.

I agree with basically everything the evaluation below brings up except that I would argue that the majority of the final fell into the ridiculous category rather than the "can do somewhat easily so long as you've done the homework". Also I'm willing to bet you think we're exaggerating on the no one finishing the tests thing but not. a. single. person. walked out early or admitted to coming close to finishing. I hope he gets his act together because it did seem like our grade was overly reliant on chance and he used the econ department guidelines to determine curves so they weren't generous. (Meaning, fewer than the 20% cited below got an A so it's not even like he curved our horrible test grades generously.) He's so paranoid about the department I hope he gets called out on his current testing policy so he cuts it out for future students.

Also my roommate, an econ major, swears Rojas was one of the best professors she's ever had so choose as you will.

Probably the worst experience I've had at UCLA. His lectures are absolutely terrible. He spends most of his lectures deriving formulas and poorly attempting to elucidate concepts by using inappropriate analogies. His assigned homework is straight-forward and trivial.

From previous reviews, I believed that his exams would be very fair. However, Hahn claimed that his prior students complained that his earlier exams were too easy, so he decided to make them more difficult in recent years. Now, his exams are EXTREMELY time-constraining. You get less than 1.5 minutes per question. While, about 60-70% of the exam is pretty straight-forward and can be done in less than 1.5 minutes if you know the material like the back of your hand, he throws in some difficult and time-consuming questions, which you should just skip. Averages on the midterm/final were in the 50%'s. The exams are multiple choice and, no one finishes his exams (and I mean no one). On the midterm, probably 80% of the class didn't get halfway through the exam. On the final, I'd say most students were able to get through about 65-70% of the exam. Therefore, the performance on the ~30% of the exam that students either skip or do not finish is based primarily on chance and, thus, so is your grade, which I believe to be quite ridiculous.

If you do not test quickly, you will not get an A in the class. The top 20% of the class gets A's, but what separates an A from a B is about 2-5 questions, so your grade can easily be determined by chance. I managed to get an A- (I got the average on the midterm and top 10 on the final - primarily because I guessed better than other students on the final). If you want to maximize your chance of obtaining an A, I'd recommend being able to do his homework questions in under a minute and also to memorize formulas (even though you get a cheat sheet) so that you can conserve time on the test.

This was the worst class I've ever taken and the only class that I've received any grade lower than an A. I would not recommend this class. He tests SPEED, not understanding of statistics. You do not need to understand anything in the class except how to use the formulas. You do not need to know what the formulas represent or what they tell you. You just need to know when to use them. Also, you do not need to know any conceptual ideas nor any of the derivations he does in class. They are all irrelevant on the exam. Oh, and his office hours are pointless - he basically repeats the same crap he says in lecture.

Hahn is one of those professors some students really like and some students really despise. His tests are very time-pressured (about 46 questions in 60 minutes) to the point that the best way to study for his exams is to grind the course material into your brain till it becomes second nature. He allows the use of a cheat sheet on exams, but many students will not have time to search for answers on their cheat sheets since time is so limited.

Hahn can sometimes come off as condescending when he is explaining material in class and implies that the statistics we learned in previous classes was useless. He is super strict on his grading policy and almost flat out rude about the way he explains his grading policy. Your grade is based purely on your performance relative to the class, and the ratio is 40-60 between the midterm and the final.

Easily the worst class I've taken at UCLA. Lectures were unclear and unorganized. Notes had little to do with how the test was run. Studied for at least 50 hours for the final and was still blindsided by most of the questions. Both the midterm and final were incredibly time pressured (200 questions in 2 hours?). Ended up with a B which was not terrible, but haven't had a worse experience with how a class was taught or tested.

EXCELLENT lecturer, some people talk trash about him but his tests are EAAASY A street, and his final is pretty nice and fair too. He's a very nice guy, I didn't have to go to office hours but I could tell.

This prof seems to split some people, but he really knows what he's talking about. TAKE HIM, you won't regret it!

I didn't enjoy his class very much. Considering that this is basically an introductory stats class, I believe that he didn't do a very good job. Throughout the course he was very condescending and assumed that we wasted our time with any stats class we had taken before his class (such as the Stats AP exam- I think I learned much more from my Stats AP class...). Anyways, despite the fact that it was an 8:00 class, I dragged myself out of be everymorning to go to his dry and repetitive powerpoint lectures. It would take him forever to progress through simple topics, yet would speed through a little more complicated topics. The first midterm was easy, everyone did well, and the second midterm was a joke. He tested us on topics he basically sped through during lecture. I felt that if he was going to give such a significant amount of weight to those topics he should have made sure we knew that. One significant roadblock I encountered was that the topics he emphasized were solely based upon his lectures. The topic was not covered at all in the book. I had the feeling he had given us such a difficult second midterm because so many people had been skipping lecture, although I don't think he should have been so shocked considering it was an 8:00 class. The lecture following the second midterm he said "I can't believe more people aren't here after such a difficult exam", which led me to the conclusion that he purposely made that exam difficult to boost his attendance. My experience with this teacher was less than satisfying and just made me annoyed most of the time. I would suggest trying to avoid his for this class. (As a side note, I got a decent grade in this class and I'm a math person but just didn't like his way of teaching)