Professor
Julie Ann Gardner Treloar
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - This is one of the most incredible teachers I have ever had the privilege to learn from at UCLA. Her lectures are succinct and interesting. I would 100% recommend anyone to take this class because it will teach you so many valuable things about finance. Prof Gardner was kind and I found that when it came to reasonable requests, she happily granted them. By FAR the best teacher I have had at UCLA and she teaches the information incredibly well.
Winter 2021 - This is one of the most incredible teachers I have ever had the privilege to learn from at UCLA. Her lectures are succinct and interesting. I would 100% recommend anyone to take this class because it will teach you so many valuable things about finance. Prof Gardner was kind and I found that when it came to reasonable requests, she happily granted them. By FAR the best teacher I have had at UCLA and she teaches the information incredibly well.
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Most Helpful Review
Her lecture is certainly entertaining and it keeps you awake. But dont expect to rely totally on her lecture for exams (which is all MC). She gave you the big picture for what you need to know in lecture and course reader. But the questions on the exams are mostly a particular example in which you need to apply the ideas behind. I agree with everyone else.. good luck in the guessing game because all the choices kind of make sense and you need some luck to choose the "most appropriate" answer. Even though you know the materials inside out, it's still not a given that you'd be able to answer the questions right. Study guide helps as it has some MCs that are relevant in exams. Dont buy the textbook. I try to read everything in the textbook for midterm but turns out confusing myself.
Her lecture is certainly entertaining and it keeps you awake. But dont expect to rely totally on her lecture for exams (which is all MC). She gave you the big picture for what you need to know in lecture and course reader. But the questions on the exams are mostly a particular example in which you need to apply the ideas behind. I agree with everyone else.. good luck in the guessing game because all the choices kind of make sense and you need some luck to choose the "most appropriate" answer. Even though you know the materials inside out, it's still not a given that you'd be able to answer the questions right. Study guide helps as it has some MCs that are relevant in exams. Dont buy the textbook. I try to read everything in the textbook for midterm but turns out confusing myself.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2018 - Highly recommend this class. Gardner is a very clear and engaging professor who provides real-world examples and great investment and career advice. She can be a bit repetitive but that's how she makes the material stick. This is one of the few classes where you will actually remember the material after completing the course. I recommend doing all the assigned textbook problems in addition to reviewing the course reader to prepare for exams. The course reader lays down the key concepts you need to know for the exams and the textbook questions are good practice. Don't stress about the tax returns she makes you do - they're a small fraction of your grade and aren't correlated with exam questions. I got below 60% on two of them and still got an A in the class.
Winter 2018 - Highly recommend this class. Gardner is a very clear and engaging professor who provides real-world examples and great investment and career advice. She can be a bit repetitive but that's how she makes the material stick. This is one of the few classes where you will actually remember the material after completing the course. I recommend doing all the assigned textbook problems in addition to reviewing the course reader to prepare for exams. The course reader lays down the key concepts you need to know for the exams and the textbook questions are good practice. Don't stress about the tax returns she makes you do - they're a small fraction of your grade and aren't correlated with exam questions. I got below 60% on two of them and still got an A in the class.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - This class was completely asynchronous. There was generally one pre-recorded lecture a week since she left the second lecture time open for groups to meet up and discuss the assignments. Our grade was originally based on 90% group assignments (8 total) and 10% final exam, but a few days before the final, Gardner announced that we could opt out of the final and accept our current grade in the class. She also provided 3% extra credit for filling out the course evaluation. Each assignment consisted of reading some provided articles, watching videos, and/or reading a chapter of the Business Fairy Tales book (which you can buy on Amazon for less than $10) and then answering some questions. Some assignments were shorter, consisting of 20 pages of reading and writing 1-2 pages, but there were also extremely long assignments such as one that required reading 6 articles, watching over 2 hours of videos/movies, and writing 2-3 pages or another one that required reading 70 pages of Business Fairy Tales and answering over 100 questions. Before we finished writing up an assignment and submitting it, the next assignment's instructions were already posted, which made the entire quarter feel like a neverending stream of projects. As with all group projects, your experience will vary depending on your group members. We were free to choose our own groups of 5, but if you don't know anyone else in the class, you just have to hope you end up with responsible group members. The grading seemed very nitpicky and my group consistently lost points on assignments, but it seems like she tried to correct it by grading more generously for the last few assignments and adjusting her grading scale accordingly. She gave everyone 100% on the last group assignment after realizing that the assignments required a lot of time reading and watching videos and that the back-to-back nature of the assignments was overwhelming. Besides the Business Fairy Tales book, expect to also spend around $5 on movies or episodes of TV shows/documentaries. On the bright side, she provided her course reader notes for free.
Spring 2021 - This class was completely asynchronous. There was generally one pre-recorded lecture a week since she left the second lecture time open for groups to meet up and discuss the assignments. Our grade was originally based on 90% group assignments (8 total) and 10% final exam, but a few days before the final, Gardner announced that we could opt out of the final and accept our current grade in the class. She also provided 3% extra credit for filling out the course evaluation. Each assignment consisted of reading some provided articles, watching videos, and/or reading a chapter of the Business Fairy Tales book (which you can buy on Amazon for less than $10) and then answering some questions. Some assignments were shorter, consisting of 20 pages of reading and writing 1-2 pages, but there were also extremely long assignments such as one that required reading 6 articles, watching over 2 hours of videos/movies, and writing 2-3 pages or another one that required reading 70 pages of Business Fairy Tales and answering over 100 questions. Before we finished writing up an assignment and submitting it, the next assignment's instructions were already posted, which made the entire quarter feel like a neverending stream of projects. As with all group projects, your experience will vary depending on your group members. We were free to choose our own groups of 5, but if you don't know anyone else in the class, you just have to hope you end up with responsible group members. The grading seemed very nitpicky and my group consistently lost points on assignments, but it seems like she tried to correct it by grading more generously for the last few assignments and adjusting her grading scale accordingly. She gave everyone 100% on the last group assignment after realizing that the assignments required a lot of time reading and watching videos and that the back-to-back nature of the assignments was overwhelming. Besides the Business Fairy Tales book, expect to also spend around $5 on movies or episodes of TV shows/documentaries. On the bright side, she provided her course reader notes for free.