hands down one of the best econ classes taken at UCLA so far. professor Rojas is really knowledgeable and approachable, i went to his office hour for help before midterm and finals and he helped a lot. yes I've had countless mental breakdowns crying in the library because i couldn't understand the material sometimes but with enough efforts studying his lecture notes and doing the group projects i feel confident before the exams

Rojas is a great professor - he's clear, well prepared, and gives us all the resources we need to succeed. That being said, this class is very difficult. The projects can take a lot of time, especially if your group is slow to get work done. The midterm had an easy coding component & the final didn't. You can have a few pages of notes for both. The tests are fair but extremely difficult.

This guy is the definition of researchers should not be educators. He's smart as hell and has a ton of knowledge but can't transfer that knowledge in an effective way. He sort of assumes you can teach 103 so imagine a class where the professor builds on material you were never taught, then proceeds to ask if there are any questions to which the class sits in dead silence because no one can even gather enough shreds of understanding to form a question in the first place. The projects were valuable in a "hindsight is 20/20" kind of way but in the moment you will want to die. Rojas gives you maybe 3 pieces of information and throws this indecipherable coding project at you that will actually drain your life force and if it weren't for the TA's (who are for the most part minimally helpful but thankfully easy graders) my group actually would have gotten a 0 on the projects. We were making up code at one point. I shit you not Rojas's lectures became so unhelpful that I stopped going to lecture for the entire second half of the quarter and made my TA teach me the material and that is genuinely the only reason I finessed an A- in this class. So idk good luck, try your best, find a good TA that will save your GPA

The class consisted of: 45% group projects (15% each), 20% midterm, 30% final.
Midterm and final were 20 & 40 multiple choice q's, respectively. This class was really tough. It's basically a continuation of 103 - so make sure that you're 103 knowledge, especially in R, is very solid or you will probably be playing catch-up all quarter. Rojas really likes to teach the econometric math/proofs behind the material, and back up this math-heavy content with R examples once in a while. The material was incredibly tough to understand, especially if econometrics isn't your thing. On exams, however, he mostly tests your R knowledge (ability to understand lines of code, interpret outputs, perform rudimentary statistical tests, etc.). Lastly, the group projects were tough but were graded fairly easily (I think they posted grades for the first ones like 2 hours after the deadline lol). Make sure you're in a group with competent individuals or you'll be stuck doing the entire project, which will take up a ton of your time, especially because Rojas often doesn't teach all the content needed for the project until the week it's due.

Easily the most useful course in the Economics required courses. Professor Rojas is incredibly patient and will be more than happy to provide further in-depth explanation on potentially confusing topics if you are not afraid of raising your hand. The course's workload -- projects and tests -- are challenging but more than reasonable as long as you are engaged in class. Don't be afraid to take this class sooner in the Economics degree! Do not worry at all about the intensity of the R coding. As long as you have a reasonable handle of the basics (the easiest content from Econ 41 and 103), Professor Rojas has your back! Just remember to ask questions in class and visit in his office hours whenever possible.

This was overall a very tough but useful class. This class builds off of the material we learned from 103 so it is very important to have strong R skills as you will be doing group projects using R. The group projects were tedious but are mostly graded based on completion. Since this was the first quarter having exams in person, we didn't have to code on exams but instead they're mostly conceptual, some calculations, and some R code interpretations. Overall a pretty good class and prof rojas is very helpful and open to answering questions.

This is really the hardest class in the econ department. Imagine Econ 103 x 10 for level of difficulty. Professor Rojas is very inspiring and engaging, although the materials are hard and he’s a strict professor, he still managed to make me like the class way more than I thought I would. The key to do well in this class for me was practicing coding and understanding the theory enough to be able to code and understand the output. Professor Rojas expects you to know a lot, so if you didn’t take econ 103 with him, let him know so he can provide some sort of R workshop (which he did for us) or his lab notes from 103 so you can catch up. Otherwise I recommend learning R using datacamp or something like that to get ahead. Always take advantage of his office hours because he’s very patient, and he truly wants his students to succeed. I asked a lot of stupid questions but he would try a lot of different ways to explain. The skill set I learned from his class is honestly the most useful out of all the econ classes i’ve taken due to the coding aspect.