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Nathan Wilson
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Based on 45 Users
I honestly don't know why Professor Wilson has such terrible reviews. They scared me when I first read them. This class really isn't bad at all, and I definitely learned a ton during it. The class consists of 5 case studies (1 done solo and all others with a group), an open note midterm, a final project done with your group where you pitch a business idea, study questions due every week based off readings (which are very helpful to have for the exams and are only graded on completion), and a final which was half open notes half closed notes. All in all, super informative course. It can just be tricky because of the breadth of concepts that are covered in such a short time period, as this class is designed to dip your toes in the water of practically every business topic there is.
Although there are a few things I would agree with on some of the other posts I have seen, I believe most of them do not serve Professor Wilson justice. Some reviews have suggested that Professor Wilson can be snarky but from what I have witnessed, this guy just disagrees with any response/idea that he does not see fit... which is perfectly fine. I am a sensitive person myself, and yet whenever he would shoot down a suggestion of mine I would not get offended because that is just how a class and learning goes. Professor Wilson was actually extremely helpful in making sure that everyone had an opportunity to improve their grade in class. The first time we took an exam, it did not go well so the class had an option to take a second exam to average the first score. I cannot emphasize enough that Professor Wilson was super accommodating about this and even held a session after class for students that wanted to talk over how the exam went, etc. It is true that most of his exams are based off the readings heavily and a bit off his recorded lectures, the live lecture is more for in class activities and to talk about the case write ups. Even if you feel like you did terrible on the exams (as I did, and trust me, my scores were BAD) Professor Wilson's curve is pretty beneficial for those that struggle and as long as you're in an awesome group for the case write ups and the final presentation, you should actually do pretty well in this class. There are so many ways you can improve your score. And yes it is true, he shoots down ideas for the class project/presentation but it's not like he just leaves you with nothing... he tells you the best one out of all the options you came up with that you can do. Professor Wilson is very knowledgeable and is a great connection to have at UCLA, not everything can be served to us. Just like at the work place, at school you have to smile through the pain and not complain!
I really enjoyed this class. Professor Wilson is really funny and we used engaging methods to learn (e.g. startup simulations and discussing the business news).
We had weekly quizzes that were pretty brutal tbh. They were usually almost identical to the practice quizzes but we had barely any time to complete them. I think barely anyone finished the first quiz. We all woke up after that lol. (Thankfully he’s drops your lowest grade). Also, you’re expected to know the answers from the readings word-for-word. On the positive side, you do get used to them by the third quiz at the latest. Also, studying properly for the quizzes is really great preparation for the final, which is pretty much a very long quiz.
The final was long (122 multiple choice and 40-something? short answer questions) and tricky. But it’s doable as long as you put significant effort into studying. Also be sure to read all the readings and slides fully at least once, because a few small details show up on the exam.
There are cases and a presentation that you will have to work on in groups. They aren’t very difficult or long.
Overall, this is a great class with heavy but doable workload. Would recommend taking Wilson.
MGMT 160
The lectures are alright. The reading content (aka the stuff that determines your grade) is really really dry. You have to read a bunch of stuff about the frameworks and strategies and the exams expect you to memorize it all. The midterm is the same as the practice midterm. If you memorize it you get an A. I wanted to put that information out here because knowing that was the only way people got A's in the class. The median for the midterm was a 92%. The median for the final was 42%. the questions are all about defining, listing, mentioning what you read in the readings , so this change in the curve was caused just by the fact that you can memorize the midterm but not the final.
I did learn some interesting things about entrepreneurship in the discussion. However, the readings and testing procedure was so frustrating that it makes it hard to focus on the good stuff.
This class has a LOT of information packed into each class session (at least in the slides). For the tests you have to memorize most of the diagrams and many of the details in the (mostly) long readings for the long and tight-on-time exams. Professor is mostly helpful in office hours.
But, the class group project takes up a lot of time and you don't even get any feedback about your final project/ presentation grade [at least for this quarter] which is about 30%-40% of your grade {presentations + participation is graded on a scale relative to how others do}, and the grading for every presentation seems very arbitrary [because the rubrics for presentations are never released, you just get a number for some of the presentations].
I am not sure what I am learning from this class honestly. I never skipped any lectures, but I just never understood what he was trying to say. His lectures were very unorganized. It seemed like he only threw random stories that had little relation to the lecture materials. Instead of trying to make it fun, he ended up bringing unrelated materials. The exam? The exams were all pure memorization. You don't have to understand anything. As long as you can memorize, that's good enough. I learn nothing from this class. There is a group project as well. Honestly though, it is completely meaningless. Everyone faked their interviews. Go take ENGR 110 or 111. These classes are more fun and better.
Writing this review on my first day. No computers allowed in class. I've never had a professor say this. It's a 3 hour class. Diabolical. 80% of grade is exams and participation. I don't know how I will survive this.
Overall, Nathan's a pretty chill guy, funny sometimes, but he lost his sxxt when half of the class didn't show up. I guess it was pretty self explanatory as to why they didn't show up. It got boring.
The tests were all memorization based; so, it would be more practical to cram it than listen to 1 hour 45 mins long lecture without a break. They go through so many materials at once, so, it's better that you take your time to study at home. (Or cram the night before) But, if you memorize all your readings and the slides, you should definitely be fine in terms of getting an A.
If you are an engineer, which most of you will be, and want to start a business, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. You can do better without this class. This is a class where you learn how to put yourself in a box. It's true and I understand that you want to know the market and pre-evaluate your product before you get it in the market; but, those only hinder your ability to do, make, and invent great things. Instead of wasting your money, youth, and time on something useless like this class, use your resources to build your product first. The least you can get out of it is something to put on your resume. SO, START TODAY.
Professor Wilson teaches relatively easy and straight forward material but to boost himself up, he makes the exams unreasonably difficult and long. This would be especially hard if english is not your first language. His tests were all free response and 24+ pages long, which felt extremely excessive. On the final, I really tried my best to write as efficiently and fast as I could but it was such a long exam. Its not like they are hard, it is honestly was one of the stupidest exam that I ever took, he literally tested you on 4 different definitions of .entrepreneurship One answer was citing him self, two were from the book, and the last one was from the notes; also if you missed one word you didn't get it right. He doesnt even test you on if you have any understadning of the material, it is more like a test of how fast you can write and memorize random definitions. He even tested us on his "slang" that he used in class sometimes. My favorite part was the fact that on the midterm he wrote that after this line is EXTRA CREDIT questions. But since people did pretty good on the exam, he deicded to consider the extra credit part of the grade. What if some people decided not to answer them? The class material is very easy and not very helpful to CS major. Its not going tell you anything about how a start up works. If you are a cs major and have a dream to build your own company one day, don't take this course.
I honestly don't know why Professor Wilson has such terrible reviews. They scared me when I first read them. This class really isn't bad at all, and I definitely learned a ton during it. The class consists of 5 case studies (1 done solo and all others with a group), an open note midterm, a final project done with your group where you pitch a business idea, study questions due every week based off readings (which are very helpful to have for the exams and are only graded on completion), and a final which was half open notes half closed notes. All in all, super informative course. It can just be tricky because of the breadth of concepts that are covered in such a short time period, as this class is designed to dip your toes in the water of practically every business topic there is.
Although there are a few things I would agree with on some of the other posts I have seen, I believe most of them do not serve Professor Wilson justice. Some reviews have suggested that Professor Wilson can be snarky but from what I have witnessed, this guy just disagrees with any response/idea that he does not see fit... which is perfectly fine. I am a sensitive person myself, and yet whenever he would shoot down a suggestion of mine I would not get offended because that is just how a class and learning goes. Professor Wilson was actually extremely helpful in making sure that everyone had an opportunity to improve their grade in class. The first time we took an exam, it did not go well so the class had an option to take a second exam to average the first score. I cannot emphasize enough that Professor Wilson was super accommodating about this and even held a session after class for students that wanted to talk over how the exam went, etc. It is true that most of his exams are based off the readings heavily and a bit off his recorded lectures, the live lecture is more for in class activities and to talk about the case write ups. Even if you feel like you did terrible on the exams (as I did, and trust me, my scores were BAD) Professor Wilson's curve is pretty beneficial for those that struggle and as long as you're in an awesome group for the case write ups and the final presentation, you should actually do pretty well in this class. There are so many ways you can improve your score. And yes it is true, he shoots down ideas for the class project/presentation but it's not like he just leaves you with nothing... he tells you the best one out of all the options you came up with that you can do. Professor Wilson is very knowledgeable and is a great connection to have at UCLA, not everything can be served to us. Just like at the work place, at school you have to smile through the pain and not complain!
I really enjoyed this class. Professor Wilson is really funny and we used engaging methods to learn (e.g. startup simulations and discussing the business news).
We had weekly quizzes that were pretty brutal tbh. They were usually almost identical to the practice quizzes but we had barely any time to complete them. I think barely anyone finished the first quiz. We all woke up after that lol. (Thankfully he’s drops your lowest grade). Also, you’re expected to know the answers from the readings word-for-word. On the positive side, you do get used to them by the third quiz at the latest. Also, studying properly for the quizzes is really great preparation for the final, which is pretty much a very long quiz.
The final was long (122 multiple choice and 40-something? short answer questions) and tricky. But it’s doable as long as you put significant effort into studying. Also be sure to read all the readings and slides fully at least once, because a few small details show up on the exam.
There are cases and a presentation that you will have to work on in groups. They aren’t very difficult or long.
Overall, this is a great class with heavy but doable workload. Would recommend taking Wilson.
MGMT 160
The lectures are alright. The reading content (aka the stuff that determines your grade) is really really dry. You have to read a bunch of stuff about the frameworks and strategies and the exams expect you to memorize it all. The midterm is the same as the practice midterm. If you memorize it you get an A. I wanted to put that information out here because knowing that was the only way people got A's in the class. The median for the midterm was a 92%. The median for the final was 42%. the questions are all about defining, listing, mentioning what you read in the readings , so this change in the curve was caused just by the fact that you can memorize the midterm but not the final.
I did learn some interesting things about entrepreneurship in the discussion. However, the readings and testing procedure was so frustrating that it makes it hard to focus on the good stuff.
This class has a LOT of information packed into each class session (at least in the slides). For the tests you have to memorize most of the diagrams and many of the details in the (mostly) long readings for the long and tight-on-time exams. Professor is mostly helpful in office hours.
But, the class group project takes up a lot of time and you don't even get any feedback about your final project/ presentation grade [at least for this quarter] which is about 30%-40% of your grade {presentations + participation is graded on a scale relative to how others do}, and the grading for every presentation seems very arbitrary [because the rubrics for presentations are never released, you just get a number for some of the presentations].
I am not sure what I am learning from this class honestly. I never skipped any lectures, but I just never understood what he was trying to say. His lectures were very unorganized. It seemed like he only threw random stories that had little relation to the lecture materials. Instead of trying to make it fun, he ended up bringing unrelated materials. The exam? The exams were all pure memorization. You don't have to understand anything. As long as you can memorize, that's good enough. I learn nothing from this class. There is a group project as well. Honestly though, it is completely meaningless. Everyone faked their interviews. Go take ENGR 110 or 111. These classes are more fun and better.
Writing this review on my first day. No computers allowed in class. I've never had a professor say this. It's a 3 hour class. Diabolical. 80% of grade is exams and participation. I don't know how I will survive this.
Overall, Nathan's a pretty chill guy, funny sometimes, but he lost his sxxt when half of the class didn't show up. I guess it was pretty self explanatory as to why they didn't show up. It got boring.
The tests were all memorization based; so, it would be more practical to cram it than listen to 1 hour 45 mins long lecture without a break. They go through so many materials at once, so, it's better that you take your time to study at home. (Or cram the night before) But, if you memorize all your readings and the slides, you should definitely be fine in terms of getting an A.
If you are an engineer, which most of you will be, and want to start a business, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. You can do better without this class. This is a class where you learn how to put yourself in a box. It's true and I understand that you want to know the market and pre-evaluate your product before you get it in the market; but, those only hinder your ability to do, make, and invent great things. Instead of wasting your money, youth, and time on something useless like this class, use your resources to build your product first. The least you can get out of it is something to put on your resume. SO, START TODAY.
Professor Wilson teaches relatively easy and straight forward material but to boost himself up, he makes the exams unreasonably difficult and long. This would be especially hard if english is not your first language. His tests were all free response and 24+ pages long, which felt extremely excessive. On the final, I really tried my best to write as efficiently and fast as I could but it was such a long exam. Its not like they are hard, it is honestly was one of the stupidest exam that I ever took, he literally tested you on 4 different definitions of .entrepreneurship One answer was citing him self, two were from the book, and the last one was from the notes; also if you missed one word you didn't get it right. He doesnt even test you on if you have any understadning of the material, it is more like a test of how fast you can write and memorize random definitions. He even tested us on his "slang" that he used in class sometimes. My favorite part was the fact that on the midterm he wrote that after this line is EXTRA CREDIT questions. But since people did pretty good on the exam, he deicded to consider the extra credit part of the grade. What if some people decided not to answer them? The class material is very easy and not very helpful to CS major. Its not going tell you anything about how a start up works. If you are a cs major and have a dream to build your own company one day, don't take this course.