This class has been my most useful, most practical, and one of my favorite classes at UCLA so far! I highly recommend this class to any student as Professor Shawn teaches useful personal finance topics, and the assignments are actually relevant to your everyday life, very eye-opening, and relatively short (less than 1 hour per week of work). Each assignment is due by the beginning of the next class (you have an entire week to do it), and he is totally chill with you showing up late to class. Attendance and participation are counted toward your grade, though I was very interested in the material, asked a lot of questions, and therefore got a good participation grade in the class.

Professor Shawn himself is a private wealth manager and went to UCLA for both his undergrad and his MBA. Therefore, he has a lot of relevant and relatable experiences as a UCLA student, and frequently brings in and uses these experiences in his teachings, such as when we learned about credit cards, insurance, and financing/leasing cars. He is a very friendly and approachable dude and was always open to meeting outside of class to talk about anything. When I mentioned I was interested in PM, he introduced me to his business school friend and paved the way for me to have a great conversation with him. Professor Shawn really cares about his students!

The only downside of this class is that was one 3-hour long seminar each wee, which was difficult to focus in during the end. He would teach for an hour, then give up a 15-minute break to do whatever we wanted (I usually went on a walk outside during this time). We would then return with him teaching for the two hours remaining. It was difficult to focus during the second hour, especially when I was tired from little sleep the night before.

In terms of enrollment, he is very generous in giving out PTEs. Don't be fooled by the strict enrollment standards on myUCLA, anyone can take this class! I actually reached out to him on LinkedIn (since he is a private wealth manager, he has a very detailed LinkedIn) and messaged him about joining the class. He said he didn't have any space in the room but takes as many people as fit in the classroom. A month later, he messaged me out of the blue saying he got a bigger classroom and offered a PTE code to me! Here was the LinkedIn connection message I sent him that eventually got me the code. Feel free to use it!

"
Hello Shawn,

I heard about your personal management class at UCLA, MGMT 168, from my accounting TA and am very interested in taking it this upcoming fall. Besides personal interest, I'm a member of UCLA MoneyThink (where we teach high school seniors financial literacy), so taking this course would help me be a better mentor. However, I'm a rising sophomore and have not yet entered the entrepreneurship minor (I plan on applying in Fall 2022), so I am unable to enroll in the class currently. Can I enroll in the course later if there are spots available? Thanks!

Best,
[my name]
"

Here is a breakdown of the course material and assignments:
Week 1: Budgeting and Cash flow → Create a monthly budget based on your past year of expenses, then track your expenses against your budget for the next 2 months (report to be done at the end of the quarter)
Week 2: Time Value of Money, Credit, and Debt → Research three credit cards and savings accounts, then recommend one for yourself based on your personal life factors (also run a credit report)
Week 3: Auto financing → Research financing and leasing the exact same car, then write a report about what you learned
Week 4: Home financing → find a home in your planned living location in the future, analyzing the mortgage and other expected costs of home ownership
Week 5: Equity investing → Choose a stock and predict its price after its upcoming earnings report based on factors learned in class (correct predictions equal extra credit!)
Week 6: Debt investing (bonds) → no assignment
Week 7: Insurance (you apparently can insure pretty much anything) → no assignment
Week 8: Retirement Planning → no assignment, though can begin working on the final project
Week 9: Life Insurance/Estate Planning → research term vs universal life insurance and write a report about what you'd recommend for yourself and what you learned
Week 10/Finals: The final project is a 40-year financial plan, from the beginning of your career until your retirement. You should use all of the knowledge, skills, and tools you learned during the course. The professor is very helpful in completing this if you reach out. The project is worth 35 points, with the presentation to the class being another 15.

Each assignment is graded from 6-10/10, with the following distribution:
Bottom 10% of the class on the assignment: 6/10
10-30th percentile of the class on the assignment: 7/10
30-70th percentile of the class on the assignment: 8/10
70-90th percentile of the class on the assignment: 9/10
Top 10% of the class: 10/10

Therefore, the class is curved relative to other students, but ~50% of the class ends up getting A's. I got 9s and 10s on every assignment with about an hour of work per assignment, sometimes a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less. It's easy to get an A in this class if you actually care and put in some effort.

Overall, I would recommend this class to every UCLA student!

currently trying to be busy in my internship so here i am. this is for mgmt 159, idk why it wont let me put it down but whatever. Great class, great guy, and honestly you will learn something. i think everyone should learn about the prorcess of starting a business and i think mgmt 159 is what does that. in terms of grades, honestly just put in some effort and the rest will be fine. the only challenging part is the midterm/final which make up about 50% of your grade, make sure to watch his review and then do the homework chapter problems that we have access to. If you do both of these things and retain the information you will do amazing in this class. ok cool its only been 3 minutes, idk what else to do

This class was by far the most practical and applicable class I've taken at UCLA. The personal finance concepts introduced are immediately applicable to life and for that reason alone I would strongly recommend taking this class. Particularly as a student interested in entrepreneurship, I felt this class gave me a strong footing to prepare me for being financially responsible as I pursue my career goals. In addition to its practicality, Professor Patt is one of the most reasonable, relatable, and engaging professors I've had at UCLA. His approach to finance and teaching is very informative. Overall, I would highly recommend this course to literally every student at UCLA.