Barry's lectures confusing at times. I passed the class thanks to the TAs who simplify the games much better than the professor can. Despite this, Barry does put passion into his lectures just has difficulty articulating the subject. Midterm was fairly straightforward, as well as the homework assignments.

Barry, bless his soul is a really funny professor but is terrible at teaching since he is so disorganized. Thank god for TA's like Michael who really help.

I can not stress this enough, Barry is the nicest professor I have ever had the pleasure of learning from.

However, he can not teach in an understandable or concise manner. He's fun to watch but the only time I ever learned anything was in my TAs section.

Barry is a nice professor and cares very much about his students. However to say he is disorganized and aloof is an understatement. His lectures are basically ramblings about random topics sandwiched between actual course material. When he goes over how to solve a game he often gets distracted or jumps to another topic which leaves the class more confused. His slides are a jumbled mess and its hard to really discern what they are saying. Even Barry admits he does not do a good job writing the presentations. The area you will get any clarity is in section where the TA will go over sample problems and give out a handout that breaks down the problems and concepts step by step. However not all the TAs are of good quality and sociability. My TA Yana Otlan was excellent about clarifying problems , and admitted that if you found Barry confusing you should take Kathy Bawn's PS30. Tamar was a other good TA , has she created review sheets for the exams. Aresiny is the worst TA, and my TA, told my section to avoid his reviews to prevent getting more confused.
The exams like his powerpoint where a jumbled mess that where literally written the day they were administered. The Midterm especially contained numerous mistakes which caused him to revise the exam while people were taking it, and he literally changed one of the questions after a sizable crowd of people finished and left. The actual game questions where pretty straight forward but the "conceptual" / multiple choice section was something out of left field. They asked about some of the most random diatribes he had in class, and I attended every single lecture. As of right now Barry has still not submitted the grades to the registrar, because he claims he made a mistake while attempting to submit them. If you want to take PS 30 and listen to random stories about Durians, bird courses, and other mundane topics with game theory sandwiched in between take this course. If you want to get game theory delivered in a more orthodox way I suggest you take Kathy Bawn or Michael Chwe.

Don't get me wrong, Barry is a sweet old Canadian guy who is extremely knowledgeable in game theory. However, he is also one of the most disorganized lecturers that I have ever had here at UCLA. Every lecture, I walked out of his class much more confused about the material than when I came in. He frequently jumps around between slides and even in the middle of doing example problems, which made it very difficult to even know what he is talking about, let alone understand the material. Another part of his disorganization is that he literally procrastinates more than the students. As of right now, the deadline for posting grades has passed, but they are still not up. Also, the midterm was written the day of the exam and had so many careless mistakes, but the class has this weird policy where you can't ask clarification questions during the exam. The actual problems on the exams were fairly straightforward if you took the extra time to learn the concepts yourself (because you probably couldn't understand them from class), but don't get me started on the mostly irrelevant multiple choice section that includes questions on the most random anecdotes and phrases that me mentioned throughout his ramblings in class. Despite all these issues, some youtube channel called game theory 101 saved my life in this class because my TA, Arseniy (the Russian guy), was pretty much useless compared to the other TAs. If you are stuck taking this class with Barry (really don't do it though), do not enroll in Arseniy's section. From my friends that had Yana and Tamar, I heard that they are much more helpful.

Terrible lecturer. TA Yana and AAP PLF's are the only reason I understand anything in this class. Lectures are pointless because you leave more confused than when you walk in. Professor O'Neill is a cool dude, but that is about it. He is awful as a professor, but truly does care about his students.

My favorite part of this class was my TA. I'm gonna give a huge shoutout to Yana Otlan, if it wasn't for her honestly I wouldn't understand anything going on in this class. She makes understanding the material SO much easier!! Professor O'Neill was not very helpful/clear in his lectures but Otlan was super helpful she even made extra review session for students to attend to. I got an 29/30 on the midterm and idk about my final but I must've done well since I got an A in the class. The midterm and final do consist of 1-3 multiple choice questions but basically everything else is written but if you have Yana you'll do good.
I also purchased the textbook, however, it was completely useless because I didn't even open it once, so you don't really need it so don't waste your money on it.
Also, I went to the test bank for previous tests to see how the midterm/final were gonna be. It was alittle similar but not really, but it was great practice. I would take this class again if Yana Otlan was gonna be the TA. My friends had another TA and honestly they were disappointed because their TA didn't teach them anything.
There are also homeworks due each week but find a friend in this class and you'll be fine, the homework's are pretty easy and DO give you a boost in your final grade.

Barry is funny and a nice professor, but his lectures are frankly disorganized and prone to errors. Super easy to get an A if you put in minimal effort and go to most classes.

Barry is super fun and plays games in class. You can also win a few bucks playing the games. As long as you do the homework and understand that, you're fine. His lecture slides are super disorganized but it is easy to just go through them and look for the important info. Barry is the best!!!

Prof. O'neill does care about his students learning, but this class is pretty difficult. I talked to my friends who took PS30 with different professors, and what we did in this class was much more complicated and difficult that what they did. The professor himself is the most adorable little old man ever, he's hilarious and always says something that makes the class erupt in laughter. He's very engaging, even though his slides can be confusing.