Okay: this was the first quarter of this class, so I came in having no idea what to expect, but this has by far been my favorite class in the Econ department. Professor Board's lectures are interesting, informative, and funny, and the weekly lab lecture is always a guest speaker.
The grading breakdown is 30% case study write-ups, 30% final paper, 30% final and 10% final presentation. The one-unit lab is separately graded, 50% attendance and 50% participation.

Though this class was really informative and enjoyable, it's not a light load; 70% of the class is done in a group of 3 people completing weekly 3-page write-ups on HBS cases and one 6-page final project with a presentation to UCLA alumni (so pick your group wisely). However, the cases are really interesting to read and super manageable, and I feel like I learned actually useful info (plus it's nice that there's no midterm). Take this class.

This was hands-down the best Econ class I've ever taken at UCLA. The topics were interesting and actually related to the real world. There's some mathy stuff, but you don't have to do any real math, just understand the concepts. Professor Board and my TA (Jingyi Huang) were very good instructors as well. This is not an easy class, however. The workload was pretty substantial, as we had a Harvard Business School case to read and answer questions on every week (30% of your grade). There's also a written report (30%) you do on a tech company of your choosing, and a presentation (10%) to consultants due week 10. All of the above is done in a group, so make sure you pick a good one. The remaining 30% of your grade is the final exam, which is pretty similar to the weekly case write-ups. Definitely take this class if you're interested in technology, strategy, pursuing management consulting, or just like Econ professors with cool British accents.

Okay so I asked Bruinwalk to create this class (because it is a new class) just to write this review. Hands down, one of the best or the best class I have taken at UCLA. Consider yourself lucky to get this class. You will learn basically everything about competitive strategy, but my favorite part is that you get to use it every week in HBS case studies, with discussions led by industry leaders. For instance, we had one of the heads (CEO possibly) of TimeWarner come in to talk about Disney and how he had to deal with their competitive advantages. Hearing Dr. Board and the speakers' insights week after week was so amazing, and was the highlight of my week. Some things to know:
1. No midterm. Grades based off group case study write-ups (weekly), 1 project (+presentation), and the final. Not too bad.
2. The 106SL discussion is not important, at least for this quarter. The only thing that matters is that you get the 106S lecture, 106SL lecture, but the 106SL discussion is not used by Dr. Board.

All in all, be prepared to learn A LOT in this class. If you want an easy A, this probably isn't the class for you. But if you WANT to learn about how the business world operates, expect good grades as long as you work hard. And Dr. Board, if you see this, thank you for a wonderful quarter.

70% of the class grade is based on group work, which sucks when your teammate is not as committed as you. It will become a nightmare for you because you will have to turn in homework, project, and presentation with your group member. Only recommend if you can find group members that are reliable otherwise it will ruin your class experience. It is an overall fantastic business class but with bad group members, you'll have a terrible experience in this class.

Put it this way: I'm taking Econ 11 again with Michael Sproul and everything Sproul's teaching us in that class was virtually different than everything Board "taught" us. Board's a nice, funny guy and his accent will probably keep you glued to his lectures but I really couldn't understand anything in that class.

The hardest professor i have had at ucla. i studied for this class more than i ever had, not because the material was hard, but because i had to teach myself everything. do not take this professor. he is very, very intelligent but not that great of a teacher. right about now i am wishing i took this class with sproul or mcdevitt.

This professor is totally a JOKE.
Like previous comments said, his lecture sucks cause its full of mistakes in his porwepoints
(ok, maybe the only good thing of going to his lecture is to correct the mistakes)
and he never really explain the stuff he teaches.
Also, if you are not really smart or you don't have a good TA, the HW will be tough; most importantly
, the midterm and final are MUCH HARDER than the homework and you have to do lots of thinking(and they have nothing to do with the homework lol)

Maybe I am too stupid and I didn't have a good TA until the first midterm is over, finally I did not get a good grade in this class, and my road to Bus-econ just ended as I found out I got a B- yesterday.
GOOD JOB SIMON BOARD.
By the way, as a U.S. citizen, I hardly understand the reason he called those non-citizens " damn foreigners", personally this guy just makes me so sick.

Extremely hard professor. Although he's a nice guy, he should stick to teaching grad students.

I had many reservations going into this class especially after reading all of the bad reviews from bruinwalk. I wish I could say that they were not true, but what I can say is that this class IS do-able. I was fortunate enough to have an AMAZING TA (Katherine Eriksson) who basically re-taught us everything during discussion. You do have to do alot of self teaching and spend a good amount of time studying for the tests but overall not that bad. I ended up only reading a few chapters in the book for clarification and referencing the slides when I was studying for the midterms and tests. The first midterm caught me a little by surprise and I ended up getting a C+ but I figured out what/how to study for the second midterm and ended up with an A. So with all that being said, if you NEED this class like I did because I wanted to take 11, 101 and 102 in sequence in a year, then it is possible to do well in it. However, if you can wait a quarter till another professor teaches it, then do that!

This professor explains his lectures from the power point slides that include countless mistakes in them. He does NOT then take time to correct those mistakes online. Moreover, he has hard time coming up with simple examples to explain the subject. Throughout the quarter when he had to discuss markets, the only ones he could come up with were Apps or MP3s. Are you kidding me??? That's all? So if you take a class with him, MAKE SURE you find a good TA, do all the practice tests, homeworks, and do NOT read the book (waste of time, find a better book in the library). On his midterms there WILL be a question that requires a lot of thinking; therefore, do the easy ones quickly and have some time for that hard question. Otherwise, there is no way of getting an A on any of his tests. P.S. I ended up doing well in the class because of my amazing TA.