Some of these comments about Professor Pinto are just outright DISRESPECTFUL & INACURATE.
I'll directly counter the points made by the review post that starts with "I disagree with the posts here claiming that negative reviews of Pinto..."

I. Professor Pinto is NOT an "average-to-low" professor (sooo out of pocket)! I didn't feel all confident going into 103, given that it is well known to be difficult. However, Professor Pinto EXTREMELY SIMPLIFIED the class content through his WELL DETAILED slides and literally OVEREXPLAINING during lectures. This class heavily stems from 41 content, and there were people who seemed to struggle, given that they had taken 41 a couple quarters before 103. They would ask 41 based questions, and Professor Pinto always explained in the most basic manner, not once complaining as other Econ professors would!
While I do agree that the R portion of the class wasn't really mandatory, Professor Pinto still put a great deal of effort in explaining content during lab sessions. P.S, you don't need to have any coding background prior to taking his class to be successful. He literally took baby steps in introducing us to R and thoroughly explained the applied class content in R, while always saying that he genuinely wants us to enjoy and appreciate learning econometrics
II. Yes, the exams in this class were fairly EASY. All you had to do was understand the intuition behind all the topics, do the problem sets and DO HIS PRACTICE EXAMS. That said, he is the most straightforward Econ Professor I've had at UCLA thus far. The fairness of his exams by no means downgraded my learning experience. Regardless of the difficult level of exams, I believe that students who truly care and are unbiased towards certain professors should be responsible for their own learning especially when given ALL RESOURCES as Pinto did.
III. Professor Pinto is NOT LAZY. The man LOVES Econometrics. He literally went overtime every lecture trying to cover as much content as possible. We also covered Heteroskedasticity which other professors don't usually make it to.
Emails- I was in a study group with friends for this class, and Professor Pinto ALWAYS responded to each of our emails, in a timely manner too, and I can't say the same for Rojas when I took his 41 class in Winter 2021.
OH- People would go to OH expecting the Professor to just review the entire course content prior to the final, which is UNREALISTIC. I attended Pinto' s OHs primarily to know what questions other people were asking, and 90% of the time, everyone would just be quiet. So yes, it was only fair that he answered whatever questions students had, even beyond the scope of 103; as long as it was about Econometrics (again, the man LOVES talking about econometrics in any given context). Thus, he did not indulge curious ("kiss ass") students, and did his best in attending to all questions.
IV. PROFESSOR PINTO IS KNOWLEDGEABLE! I don't think he would be a professor at UCLA with an EXCEPTIONAL educational background if he wasn't knowledgeable. He indeed had to teach econometrics at the most simplified level to enhance clear understanding of course content; the man is INTELLIGENT.
Given that he is being compared with Rojas; will you learn a great deal from both of them? YES. Will Rojas make life more difficult for you while learning the SAME thing and MORE? YES.

It is common for most UCLA ECON MAJORS to equate a great professor with the capability to succeed in a very difficult class. But the reality is, the content of Econ classes aren't extremely difficult if you genuinely care about what you are learning. However, some Professors make it their mission to give out as little good grades as possible and PINTO IS NOT ONE OF THEM. HE TRULY CARES, and I suggest taking his class if you're someone who wants to enjoy an econometrics class (never thought I would associate enjoyment with 103 lol), but of course, at your own discretion.

THANK YOU FOR AN AMAZING QUARTER PROFESSOR PINTO!

I felt the need to review professor Pinto after seeing all the terrible reviews. He is hands down the best econ professor I had in my time at UCLA, he gave practice exams that actually resembled his exams and had plenty of office hours where he was very welcoming in helping students. He used slides and tried to make class interesting, if Pinto made me enjoy Econometrics I know he is a great professor.

Pinto is THE nicest Economics professor at UCLA. During our final review day he went almost an hour over time during lecture to go over every problem on the practice exam. What other Econ professor would do that. He is super humble and genuinely wants his students to learn. Econometrics is tough but Pinto made it worthwhile. The labs consisted of him teaching us R every week, and the problem sets were to be done using R. He listened to our concerns as well, we had four problem sets and he canceled the fifth one because it was approaching finals week and we told him we wanted more time to study. I would take him again in a heartbeat.

This is probably the most underrated professor i've ever had. Yes he has an accent, but he acknowledged it and tried his best to speak as clear as he can (honestly took me less than an hour to get used to it), plus it's something he CANNOT control, and it doesn't change his quality as a professor, so whoever complained about his accent, it's your f**king problem.

This class is hard as f, I struggled every time a topic was introduced, but Pinto would go out of his way to make sure everything was presented clearly and logically. His slides are so organized and just reading the slides are more than enough for you to do his exam. If you have questions, he would make sure to stay overtime (yes he stayed over time EVERY SINGLE CLASS because he answered questions in class). He also held office hours sometimes twice a week to answer your questions, and he again would stay over time if you still had questions. Office hours are also meant for you to get to know the professor and ask him about anything, so what's wrong with asking non econometric question?? SO WHOEVER CALLED HIM LAZY, DID YOU NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR LYING???? PINTO EVEN TAUGHT AN EXTRA LESSON COMPARED TO OTHER PROFESSORS WHY ARE YOU STILL NOT HAPPY??? When I started the class, i thought i was going to fail because for the first 3 weeks, it was rough and I understood nothing. But gradually with his teaching and passion for econometrics, i felt more confident in myself and got more interested in this, which I think if I took someone else I would hate it till the day I die.

As of the workload, we were supposed to have 5 problem sets, they each took about a few hours to work through the coding, but he canceled the last one because he wanted us to have more time to study for the exam. uhm like no one would do this for their students except for Pinto. He did simplify the code part which I like, so if you like R and want to learn R, he still uploads his code and you still can learn.

Oh yes and the exams, they are as close as they can be to the practice exams. Okay professors make mistakes from time to time on the practice exams, they are just human, so if you bashed him for that, that's not fair. When we pointed out the mistakes, he fixed them. Why are you still complaining then? His final exam was a little harder than the midterm, but not impossible to do if you study. Pinto doesn't want to trick us like other Econ professors, which I think is the point of learning anyways. He made some stuff on the exam harder, but if you take time to think it through, you can do it, just don't rush the exam, that's my advice. He truly just wanted us to learn and enjoy econometrics, which I did. His exams are almost purely theoretical, which imo is a better way to understand the topics rather than testing us on how to solve the equations like other professors, which is just math, not understanding econometrics.

To sum up, professor Pinto is probably the smartest yet most humble professor ever in this entire whacky econ department. He cares about your learning and just wants you to love econometrics like he does. And about that not responding email bs someone mentioned, professor Pinto responded to me back and forth like an actual conversation. So always reach out to him, don't hesitate. He is very knowledgable in the topics, because some of them are very similar and can be easily confused but he will try his best to clarify them for you. So no, he did not give wrong answers, it's probably he just tried to simplify things for us to understand. He LOVES it when you ask a question, the way he reacted when you asked something is like he himself solved the greatest mystery in econometrics. He truly made me enjoy econometrics and want to continue learning it (which is what he wants us to get out this class), and I think he gave us pretty solid foundation in it. So professor Pinto, if you're reading this, you succeeded!!!

I feel like y’all did Prof. Pinto dirty with these poor ratings. Econ 103 has been my favorite Econ class so far. Prof. Pinto is ridiculously funny. Classes might not always be super engaging but I feel that’s more because of the material than because of Pinto (I think it’d be better as an online class tbh). Anyway, Pinto’s a really great guy. He’s super helpful and kind. The homework isn’t too bad: sometimes it can be pretty long, but questions are practical so they’re enjoyable. There’s an optional midterm and a final. I suggest going for the midterm because it could take up your grade or it could help you realize you need to study harder. I found the midterm pretty hard (thankfully I did better on the final and got the grade dropped). For both tests, you’re allowed to bring 10 double-sided sheets of notes as well as the formula sheet.
I really suggest taking Pinto. His class is great.

Contrary to the plentitude of negative reviews on here, I didn't mind the class. That being said, I didn't attend lecture and only went to discussion and taught myself from the textbook which is something I personally don't mind doing. The midterm was multiple choice plus short answer and it was HARD but his grading scheme drops the midterm if you get a higher grade on the final. The final was only multiple choice and basically identical to the practice final he posted, therefore my awful midterm grade disappeared and I ended up getting an A in the class. ALSO he lets you bring in 10 pages double sided of hand written notes to both the midterm and the final which can be very advantageous if you do it right. If you have to take 103, don't be too deterred by having to take Pinto. The class is going to be hard regardless who you take it with.

I will try to be more objective in my view. On the one hand, this professor's accent makes it impossible for me to understand what he said during lecture(since I am an international student and English is my 2nd language), but on the other hand, this professor is really nice and always really to help you when available.

Moreover, he is very fair on his exams. His midterm and finals are similar as his practice exams. Although his problem sets are tough and time consuming, it is only grade by completion which means free 20% of your grade if you put your effort in. He does not down curve the class so that students help each other outside of the classroom more often compared to other econ courses. He end up giving us 6.5% boost on the curve this quarter which is really generous.

Overall, I recommend him if you want a fair course without stress. But if you are the ones that cannot selfstudy through slides/practice exams, maybe he will not be your best choice(but at least a decent choice though) as it is hard to understand him during lectures. I stop attending lectures since week3 and still managed to get an A by studying of the slides and his practice exams.

Professor Pinto is a great professor! I was genuinely worried about Econ 103 since it had been some time since I had taken Econ 41. However, Professor took the time to go over econ 41 concepts the first week. He also simplified the class so that we learned only what was the most relevant and important. He would make it a point actually to say this is important, this 'data gathering or organizing' is important in the real world too. His homework assignments on Jupyter were long but it made it so that you subconsciously ended up memorizing lines of code and later on you got faster at completing the homework. It was also only graded for completion. During lectures, he would make sure to thoroughly explain concepts, compliment students for the questions they asked, clarify any confusion to the best of his ability, and work on examples. At first, I was having a hard time understanding anything but after giving it serious effort and time, everything started to make more sense. If you have a hard time initially just keep trying and I am sure it will get better. His exams were mostly concept questions with math questions that were simple enough to do without a calculator. He also posted exam practice questions and answers. I am very thankful that he was the professor for spring and that he taught it the way he did. I felt challenged but also motivated and confident enough that I can do well. He doesn't curve; however, I felt my raw score was higher than the score I received but that's using standard cutoffs so... Nonetheless, I would recommend this professor for Econ 103! Good luck!

Professor Pinto is way better than Rojas. I really wish I had him for 41. Pinto's slides and explanations for hypothesis testing and confidence intervals helped me fill in the gaps from 41. His slides are thoroughly detailed. Honestly, if you study the slides and watch lectures on some of the more nuanced topics, you should be good to go. Tests were fair compared to the provided practice exams. The R problem sets were difficult at times, but graded on completion. If anything, they helped reinforce ideas presented in lecture. I would for sure recommend Pinto!

The professor seemed really nice and the workload was pretty manageable, but I left with a poor conceptual understanding of the topics covered in class. In fact, every other economics class I've taken has been taught with greater clarity and organization than this one. Nothing against the professor as a person, and my grade was fine because the workload was manageable, but I'll never take a conceptually important class with him again.