Very kind professor, really patient when answering questions (even if the question is stupid). It might be due to the nature of econometrics, or due to her strong accent, she is not really good at explaining the contents, but she is so nice and caring. I feel like this class fits better into mathematical department, or at least should have some math prerequisites, so that students’ discrepancy in math would not be this large. Then the professor can focus on real “advanced” econometrics, rather than explaining mathematical concepts to some of students at the beginning of quarter repeatedly.

I have mixed feelings about Professor Matzkin.

On the one hand, she is not very engaging in her lectures and gives tough exams and heavy homework. ECON 143 is probably THE most stats-intensive course in the Economics Department and covers everything ECON 103 did not cover in the econometrics textbook. Be aware; ECON 143 is nothing like ECON 103 regarding difficulty and workload. In my own words, I would say ECON 143 is five times harder than ECON 103. So, if you care about learning and are not very strong in stats and math, avoid this class.

However, Professor Matzkin gives the most generous curve I have ever seen in Economics Department. She assigned about 60% A/A+/A-!! She knows this course is challenging, so she is extremely considerate and is always willing to help.

Overall, she is the kindest professor I have ever met at UCLA. Unfortunately, she may not be the best instructor I have ever met.

Selling the textbook (5th edition) for $15. Hmu @8582867245 if interested!

The assignments are super unclear and expectations are also very unclear. I agree with other reviews that it's probably due to the varying math abilities. This together made the class quite stressful but you get at least exposure to a bunch of econometrics that builds off OLS. I'm not sure I would take it again if I had the choice.

During Covid, there were no tests or quizzes. It's jut problem sets and research projects. In a poll in the groupme, about 60% of the class got As or A+s. 15% got A-s, 15% got B+s. The rest had a lower grade than that.

This is the least interesting class I've taken at UCLA. I took it because I'm an econ stats double major and it fulfills elective requirements for both. Whenever I went to lecture it was truly mind-numbingly boring. The professor seems solid, nothing against her personally. You end up being graded based on a few mini projects, and you should actually take those seriously and be diligent about them. I let something slip on the final project and got an A- because of it. There were no exams at all when I took the class, which was cool.

Teaching a stats/math heavy class out of the econ department can be difficult due the different backgrounds in math and stats people have when entering the class, so I can imagine it was very hard for Professor Matzkin to cater to all levels of students in the class. If you have completed some stats upper divs (especially the 100 series), the class is extremely simple, but for other people who had just completed the required math 31a/b and econ 103 the class is more difficult. Prof. Matzkin is very helpful if you need additional help or have questions though. Also, topics are a bit redundant from 103. Your spending half the quarter learning things covered in 103 but at a slightly more rigorous level, and you are required to do some proofs.

You know what, Prof. Matzkin is such a sweet and caring lady. She is. Her curve is INSANELY generous because she knows econometrics is hard. So you don’t have to worry about this class tanking your GPA. In fact, you can take it as a GPA boost.
I cannot, however, bring myself to say that she’s a good professor. This was a really really awful class and I would not do it again. I took this class because I really enjoyed 103 and I wanted to learn more about using Stata. I was disappointed in the first class when she said our class was purely theoretical and that it was essentially an “applied math class.” But I stayed regardless. Tell me why we always had Stata problems on our homework tho?? In homework 1, it was fine because you could just use 103 knowledge to answer them but, after that, we literally started learning a bunch of new models, tests, concepts, etc. and we had to do them in Stata with absolutely zero direction from our professor. Doing the homework always took forever because of this (as you probably know, googling how to do something on stata is pretty difficult).
Her lectures are also extremely boring and just straight up difficult to follow. She uses slides (I’m strongly against slides in a math class. I think the board is best but anyway) and she always puts superfluous info on them so she ends up skipping a bunch of things and saying “only these things are important”. Okay so only put the important things on the slides then?? Following her classes are difficult and studying for exams are even harder because of this. There is so much unnecessary info on the slides. So. Much. She even usually posted a newer version where the “important” parts are highlighted. It was barely anything compared to the original slides. Crazy.
I really like econometrics but this class was just so disappointing for me. I don’t know if the A was worth it tbh. I do not recommend.