Like a couple of other posts mentioned, you can definitely feel the disconnect between students and staff in this class.

Took this class a pre-req for my major (not an econ major), and I got an A, but I didn't necessarily end the class happily.

The grade structure is midterm, midterm, final, and then the weekly homework was 15% I think. I stopped going to lecture after Week 4 because reading the online materials and watching Youtube was much more helpful. I think by the last class, only 20-30 students were still attending lectures. If you have no prior familiarity with Econ, prepare to self-study a lot. Most people don't find his lectures helpful. One of the reviews compared this to a kindergarten class, I do not think it is THAT easy, but you'll probably do well if you've taken econ in high school.

I've never seen my TAs face. He sent us videos of him doing a few problems every week, and then he went MIA after week 3. Radio silence when the people in my discussion tried to reach out to him. I was genuinely worried for him for a while. He didn't come back until the end of the quarter.

The online final exam crashed when we were taking it. The TAs host a zoom call for students to join while they take the exam in case there are technical issues. When the website crashed some people in my discussion started panicking, and he just sent us all into the waiting room and emailed us the new directions to take the test. Didn't open the Zoom again.

The website wasn't working for a good 30minutes, and we only received an additional 15 minutes to submit the exam. That included transferring your answers from the online exam (which was segmented into a different page for every question, so you had to view every question and response independently) to a document or piece of paper and then transferring THOSE answers to an email to send the TA. I know someone who had to cancel a therapy appointment they had already paid for and another classmate who was super late to work because of this. So the lack of understanding was :/

This was one of the first classes I've taken at UCLA--I'm a first-year--and I still feel so sad that I'm paying top dollar for these kinds of classes. Don't know if it's a common feeling since it is only my second quarter now, but I felt like I wasn't perceived as a person who wanted to learn. It is obvious that the TA and the professor wanted to be as impersonal as possible. I guess I get it if the class is 400 students big, but the lack of understanding, empathy, and sincerity still made me really disappointed, especially from the #1 public university in the US.

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.

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.

This class was an ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE. If you have to take Econ 1, DO NOT take it with Rojas!!!!!

No assignments, no quizzes, no extra credit, no participation grade, nothing. Just two midterms (25% weight each) and a final (50% weight). The professor says that by completing the practice problems on Mindtap we should be well prepared for the exams. This is a lie. The questions on Mindtap are easy and give zero indication of if you'll do well on the real exams or not. The actual test questions are much more application based and require a deep understanding of the material (an understanding that is almost impossible to reach given the professor's lack of support).

Both midterms are incredibly brutal, the questions are designed to confuse students and trip them up. Even after weeks of studying and practicing the material, I still did very badly on both midterms. The only reason why I managed to get a B on the final was because I buried myself in the material for weeks leading up to it. I re-read every single chapter in the textbook, watched videos on khan academy, and did countless problems on Mindtap. This is an obscene amount of time devoted to one class that is meant to be a basic introduction to microeconomics. And yet I still ended with a C- overall.

I took AP Micro and AP Macro in high school and assumed that I would be well prepared for econ 1 this quarter. No matter how well you think you understand economics, Rojas will find a way to make you fail. Whatever you do, do not take this class if you care about your GPA.

Worst class I took as a freshman. The professor sounds like he's AI generated because of how boring he is and the grade distribution is ridiculous. There's no homework which is good, but it also means that each midterm is worth 25% and the final is worth 50%. Additionally, the averages were all pretty low for the tests (very low Bs for the midterms and D+ for the final). Going to class feels useless because you end up having to teach yourself everything and the TAs for this class also suck. Moral of the story, don't take this class unless you absolutely have to for your major.

The professor feels quite lazy with the way he teaches, only reading off of the slides the entire quarter. The way the grades are structured are a nightmare for those who are poor test takers; AKA: 2 mid terms and a final. Also his canvas is UNORGANIZED. Alas, this course has made me realize that I had to switch my major out of Business Economics, so a win is a win I guess.

*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

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.

Rojas is probably the most chill Econ professor you will ever get. Take advantage of that. Here are some key points.

1. Lectures IMO are optional. Slides are posted on CCLE and Rojas mostly reads off his slides. By the end of the quarter, you will notice only 20% of kids actually show up.

2. Discussions IMO are a waste of time. I could not understand my TA and he was no help.

3. Grade breakdown: 25% midterm 1 (25 Questions), 25% midterm 2 (25 Questions), 50% final (75 Questions Cumulative). All multiple choice.

4. Each test gets a bit harder. Averages were 90% (midterm 1), 79% (midterm 2), 72% (final).

5. Rojas curves the overall class, not individual tests. Though I ended with a raw 93%, the curve brought me up to an A+. To be fair there were only 9 A's on the final (out of a class of 127).

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