ECON 11
Microeconomic Theory
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisites: courses 1, 2, Mathematics 31A, 31B, with grades of C or better. Laws of demand, supply, returns, and costs; price and output determination in different market situations. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - YES YES YES! Professor Goncalves is everything you want out of an Econ 11 professor. Spring 2020 was is first quarter at UCLA (I believe he did some post-doc work in NY after graduating from Princeton) and he blew all my expectations out of the water. Especially during all the chaos with the pandemic/BLM protests, he was super understanding and tried to make the best out of the situation. His lectures are very clear, and he goes through a ton of examples to really solidify the content (side note: he REALLY listens to student feedback; he adjusted the difficulty of the 2nd midterm/final after looking over the results of the 1st midterm, for example). He sometimes holds review sessions before exams, and a TON of extra office hours during midterm and final season (use them)! The material of econ 11 is obviously very challenging--the class is a weeder for a reason--but Prof. Goncalves is an absolute gem of the econ department. The grade distribution for Spring 2020 is inflated because tests were open note due to corona, but even if this class was in-person, I'd take this class again in a heartbeat. If I had one complaint about this class, it's the "flipped classroom" structure where you learn the content by watching pre-recorded lectures and lecture is a Q&A session, but this is really more a complaint about the constraints of COVID.
Spring 2020 - YES YES YES! Professor Goncalves is everything you want out of an Econ 11 professor. Spring 2020 was is first quarter at UCLA (I believe he did some post-doc work in NY after graduating from Princeton) and he blew all my expectations out of the water. Especially during all the chaos with the pandemic/BLM protests, he was super understanding and tried to make the best out of the situation. His lectures are very clear, and he goes through a ton of examples to really solidify the content (side note: he REALLY listens to student feedback; he adjusted the difficulty of the 2nd midterm/final after looking over the results of the 1st midterm, for example). He sometimes holds review sessions before exams, and a TON of extra office hours during midterm and final season (use them)! The material of econ 11 is obviously very challenging--the class is a weeder for a reason--but Prof. Goncalves is an absolute gem of the econ department. The grade distribution for Spring 2020 is inflated because tests were open note due to corona, but even if this class was in-person, I'd take this class again in a heartbeat. If I had one complaint about this class, it's the "flipped classroom" structure where you learn the content by watching pre-recorded lectures and lecture is a Q&A session, but this is really more a complaint about the constraints of COVID.
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Most Helpful Review
Not a great econ teacher. This class is meant to be hard to begin with, but she sure doesn't help. Lectures don't explain anything that the book doesn't, and she flies over the important concepts as quickly as the unimportant ones. Also, another professor taught our class for the first three weeks. I stopped going to lecture because it was so ridiculously boring (and I've had some boring lectures). I'm re-taking the class right now w/ the TA Viola Chen and she's much fairer. For comparison, Guarino's midterm was deriving all these different formulas that everyone memorized. Chen's were problems similar to those out of the book. The worst part about Guarino's class was that she curved the first 2 midterms and then did NOT curve the final. This hurt me. A lot. Tread lightly.
Not a great econ teacher. This class is meant to be hard to begin with, but she sure doesn't help. Lectures don't explain anything that the book doesn't, and she flies over the important concepts as quickly as the unimportant ones. Also, another professor taught our class for the first three weeks. I stopped going to lecture because it was so ridiculously boring (and I've had some boring lectures). I'm re-taking the class right now w/ the TA Viola Chen and she's much fairer. For comparison, Guarino's midterm was deriving all these different formulas that everyone memorized. Chen's were problems similar to those out of the book. The worst part about Guarino's class was that she curved the first 2 midterms and then did NOT curve the final. This hurt me. A lot. Tread lightly.
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2021 - I felt that I was doing well in this class and could understand the material quite clearly, but the way questions are formulated and the time crunch during exams was enough to bring my grade down. The math in this class is not so bad, but it can be conceptually difficult to remember when to use certain formulas. Andrew was very clear in lectures, and offered good notes which were helpful for review. The workload when I took the class during summer was very manageable, with only a few quiz problems per week.
Summer 2021 - I felt that I was doing well in this class and could understand the material quite clearly, but the way questions are formulated and the time crunch during exams was enough to bring my grade down. The math in this class is not so bad, but it can be conceptually difficult to remember when to use certain formulas. Andrew was very clear in lectures, and offered good notes which were helpful for review. The workload when I took the class during summer was very manageable, with only a few quiz problems per week.
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Most Helpful Review
A nice guy...but boring&confusing lecture it is a wasting of time to go the lecture because you will find yourself sitting there, but doing hw of another class or sleeping.. tho u can skip the class...dont skip the discussion!!TA helps a lot in going thru the class bare in mind to choose a good TA for Hellwig's class..go to every TA's website and search if they have any notes, i used to study TA's notes rather than the prof's notes... Hellwig's notes are somtimes very confusing.... some of my friends just go to all TA sections in the first few weeks and find the best among them ...coz u should have a great TA when u hv a poor prof!! exams are straight forward from practice midterms and final, just make sure you know and understand how to solve it and u will get A hw are optional (to compensate the midterm if u did bad on it...), but i highly recommend to do because it really helps u to understand the materials (especially for students like me who seldom go to classes) overall...an easy A class if u go to TA sections and do hw
A nice guy...but boring&confusing lecture it is a wasting of time to go the lecture because you will find yourself sitting there, but doing hw of another class or sleeping.. tho u can skip the class...dont skip the discussion!!TA helps a lot in going thru the class bare in mind to choose a good TA for Hellwig's class..go to every TA's website and search if they have any notes, i used to study TA's notes rather than the prof's notes... Hellwig's notes are somtimes very confusing.... some of my friends just go to all TA sections in the first few weeks and find the best among them ...coz u should have a great TA when u hv a poor prof!! exams are straight forward from practice midterms and final, just make sure you know and understand how to solve it and u will get A hw are optional (to compensate the midterm if u did bad on it...), but i highly recommend to do because it really helps u to understand the materials (especially for students like me who seldom go to classes) overall...an easy A class if u go to TA sections and do hw
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