Professor
Randall Rojas
2 of 4
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - I came into this class expecting something great because of the reviews from past quarters. However, this class is quite simply the worst I've ever been in. Homeworks took 30+ hours for me since I had no previous coding experience and the basics weren't taught during class. The homeworks did eventually get shorter, but only after essentially the entire class complained to Rojas and the department. The tests were nothing like the homeworks. The homeworks all involved coding everything while the tests required knowledge of how econometrics worked and how to calculate everything by hand. As for the lectures, they were essentially useless. Rojas just read off a pdf that was riddled with errors. Moreover, he ignored questions half the time and when he did respond to questions, he answered with "You should know this from Econ 41" or "Hang in there, it's the learning curve." He also did not respond to emails and was not very accommodating in my experience. If you can take this class with literally any other professor, do it!!! This class is near impossible if you have no prior coding experience and I'm, quite frankly, shocked that I even got a B (I was expecting a C). If you get stuck with this guy, good luck
Winter 2021 - I came into this class expecting something great because of the reviews from past quarters. However, this class is quite simply the worst I've ever been in. Homeworks took 30+ hours for me since I had no previous coding experience and the basics weren't taught during class. The homeworks did eventually get shorter, but only after essentially the entire class complained to Rojas and the department. The tests were nothing like the homeworks. The homeworks all involved coding everything while the tests required knowledge of how econometrics worked and how to calculate everything by hand. As for the lectures, they were essentially useless. Rojas just read off a pdf that was riddled with errors. Moreover, he ignored questions half the time and when he did respond to questions, he answered with "You should know this from Econ 41" or "Hang in there, it's the learning curve." He also did not respond to emails and was not very accommodating in my experience. If you can take this class with literally any other professor, do it!!! This class is near impossible if you have no prior coding experience and I'm, quite frankly, shocked that I even got a B (I was expecting a C). If you get stuck with this guy, good luck
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - The lab lectures were theoretically supposed to teach you R and apply the concepts from regular lecture to coding. However, there were no basics given, so it was really hard to keep up early on in the quarter. Later in the quarter, he gave up on connecting the material to lecture and instead would talk about stocks and machine learning, neither of which were relevant to the homeworks or exams. The only good part about this entire class were the TAs since they were really available to help us try to make sense of the material. When Rojas did actually go over coding material that was related to lecture, it was usually something from the homework that would be due THAT DAY. By this point, most of the class had already taught themselves the concept and googled how to code it into their homework, rendering the lecture useless. Overall, the lab lectures were a waste of time and didn't integrate well into the course.
Winter 2021 - The lab lectures were theoretically supposed to teach you R and apply the concepts from regular lecture to coding. However, there were no basics given, so it was really hard to keep up early on in the quarter. Later in the quarter, he gave up on connecting the material to lecture and instead would talk about stocks and machine learning, neither of which were relevant to the homeworks or exams. The only good part about this entire class were the TAs since they were really available to help us try to make sense of the material. When Rojas did actually go over coding material that was related to lecture, it was usually something from the homework that would be due THAT DAY. By this point, most of the class had already taught themselves the concept and googled how to code it into their homework, rendering the lecture useless. Overall, the lab lectures were a waste of time and didn't integrate well into the course.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - This course should not be a requirement for Biz Econ majors. It is far to complication and completely unnecessary for any business professions. I'm going into accounting. I don't need to know how to code and do data science. Rojas was really good. He is very nice. We weren't prepared at all by our 103 professor, so it was a bit of a learning curve. He basically has to teach 41, 103, and 104, because we are all bad at data science and weren't prepared. Rojas is a really good professor, especially given our failures. His exams are very reasonable.
Winter 2024 - This course should not be a requirement for Biz Econ majors. It is far to complication and completely unnecessary for any business professions. I'm going into accounting. I don't need to know how to code and do data science. Rojas was really good. He is very nice. We weren't prepared at all by our 103 professor, so it was a bit of a learning curve. He basically has to teach 41, 103, and 104, because we are all bad at data science and weren't prepared. Rojas is a really good professor, especially given our failures. His exams are very reasonable.
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2015 - Professor Rojas prepares very good slides and delivers lectures in an easy-to-follow way. I like how he uses markers of different colors for lecture notes. Econ 106V is not hard, but actually fun and beneficial, if you take this class with Professor Rojas! Highly recommended!! :) P.S. Attending lectures is very important as he will walk you through the slides and concepts.
Summer 2015 - Professor Rojas prepares very good slides and delivers lectures in an easy-to-follow way. I like how he uses markers of different colors for lecture notes. Econ 106V is not hard, but actually fun and beneficial, if you take this class with Professor Rojas! Highly recommended!! :) P.S. Attending lectures is very important as he will walk you through the slides and concepts.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - This is by far the most interesting and useful economics course I've taken at UCLA. Be aware, aa majority of the class drops out throughout the quarter. The quarter started with 145 students and a full waitlist and only 69 were left taking the final. There are a couple of reasons why. First, the course description says, "Preparation: familiarity with data analysis software (e.g., R, Excel, MATLAB, Stata) and/or programming experience." This is not a suggestion. No, opening stata once and copying down 10 lines the professor gave you in 103 does NOT count. Most people dropped because they have never done any programming before and could not keep up with the pace. It is crucial that you take at least one programming course before. (If you want to use Stata from 103, actually learn it). Rojas gives you a homework week 1 in R that will generally weed out most of the class who takes a week and can't figure out how to upload a dataset. The course has 1 midterm, 5 homeworks, 2 projects, and a final. It is a lot of work. You learn a lot. If you are an econ major, this will probably be by far the most difficult course you will take at UCLA. If you are a math major (most of the class had a math/stats/ physics background), this should be easier than most of your other classes. Most people do well on hw/projects. The midterm and final are very difficult. Averages were around 68. The course itself covers a broad range of topics. He will test you on topics barely mentioned and push you to really learn a lot on your own. Your success in the course depends on how much work you are willing to put in outside of class. The curve is very generous. I think it's misleading to think this is an easy course because of the grade distribution. The people left at the end are all very smart and willing to work hard, and Rojas rewards that. Overall, I really recommend this course. Besides Econ 103, I think this is one of the only Econ courses that can actually benefit you in a career. You'll have to put in a lot of time and effort, but I think it's really rewarding. Whether you should or should not take this class really depends if you're here to get easy A's or want to learn valuable skills that will require a lot of time and hard work.
Spring 2018 - This is by far the most interesting and useful economics course I've taken at UCLA. Be aware, aa majority of the class drops out throughout the quarter. The quarter started with 145 students and a full waitlist and only 69 were left taking the final. There are a couple of reasons why. First, the course description says, "Preparation: familiarity with data analysis software (e.g., R, Excel, MATLAB, Stata) and/or programming experience." This is not a suggestion. No, opening stata once and copying down 10 lines the professor gave you in 103 does NOT count. Most people dropped because they have never done any programming before and could not keep up with the pace. It is crucial that you take at least one programming course before. (If you want to use Stata from 103, actually learn it). Rojas gives you a homework week 1 in R that will generally weed out most of the class who takes a week and can't figure out how to upload a dataset. The course has 1 midterm, 5 homeworks, 2 projects, and a final. It is a lot of work. You learn a lot. If you are an econ major, this will probably be by far the most difficult course you will take at UCLA. If you are a math major (most of the class had a math/stats/ physics background), this should be easier than most of your other classes. Most people do well on hw/projects. The midterm and final are very difficult. Averages were around 68. The course itself covers a broad range of topics. He will test you on topics barely mentioned and push you to really learn a lot on your own. Your success in the course depends on how much work you are willing to put in outside of class. The curve is very generous. I think it's misleading to think this is an easy course because of the grade distribution. The people left at the end are all very smart and willing to work hard, and Rojas rewards that. Overall, I really recommend this course. Besides Econ 103, I think this is one of the only Econ courses that can actually benefit you in a career. You'll have to put in a lot of time and effort, but I think it's really rewarding. Whether you should or should not take this class really depends if you're here to get easy A's or want to learn valuable skills that will require a lot of time and hard work.
Most Helpful Review
Course Taken: Econ 41 Dr. Rojas is definitely one of the better professors here at UCLA. He's a very kind and diligent person in the way he teaches. He takes the time to answer questions and go slowly through examples, which helped me since I didn't have any stats experience coming in. Even though it was an 8 AM class, I didn't have any problems staying awake or focused since Dr. Rojas has a unique sense of humor and is actually coherent in his explanations. The other reviews were pretty accurate, as he did speak in statistics at times, and made the actual method of solving the problem unclear. Regarding the tests, the two midterms were fair and not too difficult, and the final was challenging. The TA's in this course put a ton of effort towards helping the students, especially Amanda. Finally, the book is really bad! Do as many practice problems as you can (sometimes I actually wished I had more), and try to figure out the concept from the practice. The actual problems Dr. Rojas gives will be much more straightforward mathematically than the theorems in the book.
Course Taken: Econ 41 Dr. Rojas is definitely one of the better professors here at UCLA. He's a very kind and diligent person in the way he teaches. He takes the time to answer questions and go slowly through examples, which helped me since I didn't have any stats experience coming in. Even though it was an 8 AM class, I didn't have any problems staying awake or focused since Dr. Rojas has a unique sense of humor and is actually coherent in his explanations. The other reviews were pretty accurate, as he did speak in statistics at times, and made the actual method of solving the problem unclear. Regarding the tests, the two midterms were fair and not too difficult, and the final was challenging. The TA's in this course put a ton of effort towards helping the students, especially Amanda. Finally, the book is really bad! Do as many practice problems as you can (sometimes I actually wished I had more), and try to figure out the concept from the practice. The actual problems Dr. Rojas gives will be much more straightforward mathematically than the theorems in the book.
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