My first professor at UCLA made the class challenging, though this was partly because it was my introduction to UCLA's econ curriculum. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend him, but I don’t have strong negative feelings either. His accent occasionally made it difficult to understand him.

My review of other professors: https://www.reddit.com/r/ucla/comments/1gmshzu/review_of_econ_professors_as_a_transfer_student/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

When I looked at the reviews, I thought this professor was going to be hard but in reality, as long as you have a solid foundation in calculus, go to the TA discussions, and do the practice exams that he posts, you should be fine. Every time I went to his lecture, I really didn't understand what he was saying but my TA was really helpful (shoutout to Angela) and broke down his lecture into manageable pieces. Wouldn't exactly want to take him again but if I had to, I would.

This class wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. I'd strongly encourage going to lecture in person and then rewatching again online afterwards if you're confused. Weekly homework was never too much and covered things went over in the previous week. The exams weren't bad; the most important thing is to look at the old tests in depth. Questions are somewhat recycled so if you don't understand something on the old tests note it and either ask your friends or TA how they'd solve it. This is much more useful than reviewing notes unless you're completely lost. The calculus isn't bad at all just make sure you don't make simple algebra mistakes (which can happen because midterm 2 was a major time crunch). Mazzocco really isn't trying to screw anyone over, just go to lecture, take notes, study old tests and you'll succeed. Also he curves the tests up a decent bit. I'm not sure if he's objectively better or worse than other professors but I think that for my learning style he was a great professor.

ECON 11 with Mazzocco is a well-structured course that I would strongly encourage. Problem sets are 10% of your grade and there are two grading schemes for the exams: 30% midterm 1, 30% midterm 2, 30% final, or 40% best midterm and 50% final, which allows you flexibility if you bomb a midterm.

Lectures: Mazzocco's lectures are for the most part good, but can sometimes be tricky to understand due to his thick yet charming Italian accent. I attended the first two lectures and watched recordings after that and was fine. The class had over 400 people, so absences were unnoticed. You do not need to buy the textbook for this course as understanding the lecture material from the slides is enough.

Problem Sets: As far as homework goes, the problem sets are not bad. There are 2-3 problems divided between 7 mandatory problem sets and the lowest is dropped. The problem sets help you learn the material but aren't super useful towards exams.

Exams: The exams are all MC, and have short questions and essay questions, where a scenario applies (the name is misleading because nothing about them really relates to an essay). Midterms have about 23 questions and the final has about 47 questions. You are allowed a 1 page cheat sheet (2 for the final) which ensures you don't have to memorize anything. I usually dislike MCs, but if you are unsure, you can sometimes backsolve which is nice. The midterm averages were all heavily curved (M1 was +8, M2 was ~+16) so I ended up with scores above 100 on both exams. The final was curved from a 68 to a 75 as well. I was somewhat surprised by the low averages on the exams given that I perceived the class was set up well for student success. The grade as a whole is curved as well so I don't know what was required for an A, but it could theoretically be lower than a 93. My raw score of ~101 was an A+ which I guess is not too surprising.

Taking Mazzocco's class will definitely be a positive experience if you're willing to grind a few practice exams before the exams.

This class was pretty challenging. The math element of the class isn't too difficult and the concepts are not crazy hard either, but somehow the tests are rather tricky. Mazzocco is a good professor; his lectures are pretty solid (though I relied more on the slides) and fortunately he records everything. Homework didn't take long at all and was helpful to understand on how to do the math for each type of problem. His grading seemed rather generous to me, he curves each test as well your final grade.

Great lecturer. The tests were definitely difficult given the intense algebra that he puts on them, but if you have a strong base in algebra, you should be fine. Overall, I really liked Mazzocco he curves the tests very generously and gives you all of his past exams dating back to 2006, which really helps in studying.

Despite all the negative reviews, I think Mazzocco is a decent professor. I don't know what all the a**hole reviews are about because he genuinely wanted us to learn and would always answer questions we had about the material. The only negative thing about him is probably his refusal to accommodate students who had legitimate reasons, often concerning their health, for missing original exam windows. He does have a policy that allows you to drop the lowest of two midterms in the situation that you can't take one, or if you failed one, so that's helpful, but it's still somewhat unfair to students who absolutely couldn't make it. So if you know you can't make the midterm or final exams, I wouldn't take the class.

The workload is pretty light, it's just a weekly problem set of 1-3 questions with 1-5 parts that you have a week to do. There's a total of 8 problem sets and they account for 10% of your final grade. The TA's will pick one question from each problem set and your grade for it is based on that one problem. I found them pretty manageable and easy to complete, and I got 100% for all.

There are two midterms and one final, and the exams were all on CCLE for this quarter. Because they were held online, they were all MCQ, with two "essay" questions that were more heavily weighted with multiple parts. If you scored lower on the final than on the two midterms, then each exam is worth 30% of your overall grade. If your final is higher than your midterm grade(s), then the lowest midterm is dropped. The final would be worth 50% of your grade in this situation and the higher scoring midterm would account for 40%. You have an hour and fifteen minutes for each midterm and three hours for the final. The only one I didn't have extra time for was the final, but I did answer every question.

The average grade for every exam was a low C (~71-73%), but I always scored above the average. He posts past exams for you to use as study guides, and I completed about 5-10 of those in preparation for each exam. I didn't read the textbook and it isn't really required, so I just followed his slides. I got a 91.5 on the first midterm, 89 on the second, and 84 on the final. I had a raw score of 89.4, but after the class was curved, I had an A (not sure what the actual percentage is). If it helps, my friend had an 84 and got an A- after the curve.

The TA sections aren't mandatory, they just go over questions similar to ones you'd find on the problem sets. I only attended the first section and the review sessions they held prior to an exam. Overall, I think this course was decent, you just have to put a little time and effort in to get a decent grade. I'd definitely take a class with Mazzacco again. I am a decent test-taker though, which is how I think I managed to get an A. If you usually do poorly on tests, I wouldn't recommend him since 90% of your grade is based on the exams.

Overall the class is definitely not as bad as some people make it out to be. The tests are mostly going to require you to do maths so if you are confident in calculus it should be okay. The lectures themselves are more theoretical although the professor often does do a worked example calculation. The sections are definitely the most helpful because you basically review the theory taught in the previous/upcoming week but do a bunch of exercises to apply it. These exercises are often similar to the problem sets/tests so they are very helpful.

For workload the weekly problem set is quite easy and with reference to the exercises done in section it is often just applying same methods to different numbers. The workload does increase around test times because it is definitely very helpful to do the past exams (the professor posts about 10 past exams before each test). I did all the past exams and was able to get 100 on every test because of that (when I did the first past exam I would always struggle, but by the time I got to the 7th/8th I was flying through them).

To summarise: sections are more helpful than lectures in doing well on tests. Lectures are more helpful for actually learning theory and content. Do past exams.