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.

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.

I have to say that this is my favorite class among all my econ electives. Professor Board is a very engaging and fun lecturer and provides great content about strategies. He would talk about different aspects of strategies during lectures, such as competitive advantages, sustainability, strategic moves etc. Every week, you would also do a case study write up with your group and apply what you learned in class.
Professor Board has an amazing group of guest speakers that he invites, who are all very successful people in their respective fields. This group includes people who are partners at Bain and BCG, investment bankers, VC fund managers etc. For Spring 2023, we also had Joe Walters, who's an alumni as well and works at Google, to give us three lectures on negotiation, which was fun and just awesome. I'm not entirely sure if Joe's coming back again in the future for the negotiation week but I would assume so because of how great he was.
Professor Board also cares a lot about students and you can go to him with any questions you have. I really enjoyed going to his office hours and I would talk to him about business in general, and also career development.
In general, it's an amazing class that I would definitely encourage you to take if you are interested in business. Do note that it is not an easy class and you have to actually put a good amount of work in. Also, majority of the grades comes from group work, so it's important to have reliable teammates. If you are coming to the class with reliable friends and ready to learn a lot, this class should be perfect for you.

Professor gives unclear and boring lecture. putting economics model thats useless and confusing. Bad lecture. The guest lecture is better. 70% group work is rediculous.

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.