This was probably one of the most interesting and useful econ electives I've taken at UCLA. I took this course with Rojas during the pandemic (AKA when everything was online/remote), so I'll give my review based on that.

First, you should definitely take a class on R, set aside some time to learn how to use the program, or have a friend who has experience and can teach you how to use R. I went in with really minimal programming experience (I've only taken PIC10A, so C++), so there was definitely a learning curve with it. Since the quarter was all online, Rojas gave us more time to complete the one midterm and final, but he put more weight on programming than he usually would with the class. That meant we had to come up with and submit our own lines of code for both exams.

In terms of content, I think I learned a lot of really useful information through this class. If you're looking to go in the data analyst direction, this is a great course to take. Rojas is also a very clear and helpful lecturer, and probably one of the best professors the econ department has to offer.

If you want to take a more challenging yet helpful econ elective, I highly recommend taking this with Rojas.

I had Rojas in econ 1 and got an A- and many people have been told to wait until Rojas is teaching this class because he is the best professor for 103. I didn't love him in 103 but to give him the benefit of the doubt, this was the first quarter he transitioned to giving homework in R instead of Stata but he did not estimate how long homework would take so we were doing 30 hour homeworks for the first few weeks. Over time, you learn how to code a little better and the homeworks get shorter (you can also work with other people and split up the problems). The problem though is Rojas sees the concerns of students but doesn't really care. He expects students to figure out their life and take this class like we arent in the middle of a pandemic.

The tests are actually pretty easy if you study for them. His exams used recycled questions from practice/previous exams so try to find prior problems because he does not update his tests.

The overall worst part of this class is the assignments in R took hours and the exams had very little to do with them. So we spent hours learning to program and 85% of our grade (2 midterms and a final) had little to the majority of the course.

A word of advice if you have never programmed before: it starts out intimidating and you think you will never figure it out. I had never coded or anything like that and I thought I was going to fail the course. It gets easier after 2-3 weeks so try not to get too anxious in the early weeks and by week 5/6, you can knock out 2-3 problems per hour. Figure out which TA is the best and go to their sections because my TA (Alvaro Boitier) was super unhelpful but a different TA Ben Shapiro (lol) really helped me learn the basics which saved me a ton.

I took Econ 2 with Professor Rojas Fall 2020, it was a very well organized and well taught course. The material itself is straightforward, and Professor Rojas was always very clear and informative in lecture, providing a solid understanding of the material as pertaining to the problems and tests, while also tying in its relation to macroeconomic issues in the world today. He was always prompt and helpful with emails, the grades were easy to understand and fair, definitely recommend!

Despite the many positive reviews, I did not enjoy this class at all. Rojas is extremely boring and reads directly off his slides, which are taken straight from the book. The two midterms were incredibly easy, but his final had a average of a D with no curve, and it was 50% of your grade. I know that I and many others were screwed because of the final. While the $180 mindtap was not required, it was practically essential to do well in the class.

Took this class at my first quarter in UCLA and ngl, Rojas worsened my expectation for college. You can feel that he doesn't care about his students: never reply to emails, poor adjustment for students in different time zone (I had to take the final from 3am to 7 am). He does not explain how the curve works, has zero understanding for students experiencing difficulties under pandemic, and his lectures are meaningless to attend. Do not take him if you never learned econ before.

By far, the absolute most difficult class in the economics department. This class was tough and required a lot of effort to succeed, but it was worth it. It is the class where you learn theoretical but it's also very practical because you get to practice your R skills. The material is very interesting and even though the projects where challenging, it is impressive enough to use during internship/work interviews and gets you interested to learn more. Professor Rojas is one of the smartest and most patient professors. If you are willing to learn, he is more than happy to teach. Definitely attend office hours because you will understand the material and you'll be able to chat with the professor about interesting topics! Before the class, try to get a head start with learning some basic R skills.

He is the best choice for 103 HANDS DOWN. For my quarter, discussions did not help, but TAs did help if you needed questions answered. Do not slack off when it comes to the homework. DO THEM and problems related to the them. Trust me.

Ok, I'm shocked by reading all these positive reviews. The exams are hard, literally the average on the final was a D. Just look at his grade distribution. I wouldnt take this class again

I felt a great disconnect with the professor and my classmates this quarter as the professor and economics department attempted to adapt to an online format. I really disliked the professor's use of pre-recorded lectures from another professor since it felt like I was paying for videos that I could access outside of the class, while Rojas earned a living just posting videos that he didn't even make to the class website. Examinations were open-book and extremely easy as long as you did the readings and went over the practice problems on the class webiste a couple of times. The overwhelming majority of students in this class got A's.

*Covid-19 Review*

This class was kind of a mediocre experience for me. Rojas' lectures are basically just him reading off slides, they teach the material but aren't super engaging either. Attendance isn't mandatory so a lot of people ended up just reading the textbook. It kind of felt like Rojas was just going through the motions. During virtual covid finals, he also wasn't super flexible with allowing different times for other time zones.

That said, the assignments were not super hard in my opinion. You had to buy mindtap to do the homework and exams which was a bit annoying, but as a result, they weren't too hard since any question you would ever do just came directly from there. You could practice using the practice questions that came from the program, and with covid, everything was open note and open book. I got an A- instead of an A because I misread some questions on the second midterm and made dumb mistakes, but I'm not too upset about that. The exams did feel to get progressively more challenging, but I think that's just a feature of the material. I guess the assignments were kind of a tradeoff for the boring lectures