Bernardo is a pretty solid teacher. His slides are clear but when he strays off to his iPad that clarity is sometimes lost. He has funny handwriting that is in all caps but it is not a big problem. The class has 5 or 6 homeworks which are grades on accuracy for 10% of the grade - lowest one is dropped. Sometimes these homeworks can take hours but it does help you understand if you fight through. There are 2 midterms and a final. Midterm one covers mostly monopoly, some oligopoly, and the basics of game theory. I found this midterm to be the harder of the two. After this, the class content takes a huge dive and honestly becomes very hard. However, the content is also interesting if you enjoy Econ / game theory. I preformed well on midterm 2 but I think I got lucky. The last two questions were prefaced with “you have never seen anything like this before but…”. The final was very difficult, the median was a 68. In the end, Bernardo followed through on his promise to curve the class fairly, at least in my opinion. Overall, he is a solid teacher and the class is difficult but not horrible.

Bernaardo is a GOAT!

Very fair and reasonable professor, this is a hard class but if you have a chance to take it with Silveira definitely go for it. Tests are easier than I expected (still hard overall) because they’re a lot like the practice tests. There are two midterms and homework and your lowest midterm and hw gets dropped. I scored between 7-10 points/100 above the median for one midterm and final and got an A-.

Bernardo is the best professor. Just pick him and enjoy your econ 101.

Honestly went better than I expected and I thought it was easier than Econ 11, but very similar format. My only issue was the curve barely improved my grade, even though I did relatively well.

Well, I passed, so that's the pro part. I came from the sad class of pizzas and champagne for Mazz's 11 class and so, comparatively, this class was slightly easier. I laugh at the ECON department instead, for just stressing students out and placing them in a tough situation because of classes like these. IMO, Bernardo tried HARD to help us out. However, with that dumb ECON curve, it is a system of failure that decreases students' academic and work opportunities with these weeder classes, and ironically, you would think economists would know better.

Class-wise, it was fine. The class is what is it is - more calculus than economics. Midterm was sad. Final was long afk = sad. What else is there to be said? Bernando really does his best though - Can't take that away from him.

overall, the class was pretty difficult, but i found that the pre-recorded lectures were really clear and didn't need to go to the q and a sessions. akina is also an amazing ta and would go through the problem sets step-by-step with me. the first midterm was definitely the harder of the two and the second one was almost identical to the practice ones he gave us. the final was really difficult, but gave a super nice curve. he's really understanding as an econ prof and definitely wants us to understand the material

Overall, Professor Silveria is a gem within the economics department and did a great job teaching this course that is notorious for being difficult. His lectures were clear, the tests were pretty fair, and the class content was well organized. I highly recommend that you take this class with him.
Lectures: Due to remote instruction, lectures consisted of recorded videos explaining key concepts both with slides and examples done on his iPad. None of the lectures were too long, he does a good job balancing both theory and examples, his explanations were clear, and I found them to be engaging. He also held informal Q&A sessions during scheduled class time (these were optional and I only attended a few times but found them helpful for exam review)
Discussions: Discussions were live on zoom and recorded. They consisted of going over additional practice problems and reviewing midterms.
Problem Sets: We had a total of 7 problem sets (only 4 were graded as the others lined up with exams). They consisted of 3-4 problems each and were graded half for participation, half for accuracy on one problem. I found the questions to be of similar difficulty to the exams (although worded in a different format). Great review for exams. Lowest one also dropped.
Exams: This class can be notorious for difficult exams, but I found them overall to be pretty fair. The first midterm was the most difficult for me (he included a multi-part curve ball question that threw many people off), but the second midterm and final were more straightforward. Averages were in the 70s for the first midterm and final and 85 for the second midterm. He also provided two practice tests for each exam that were pretty helpful for studying. Questions were all multiple choice and consist of multi-part questions. As long as if you review these exams, your problem sets, and review your notes, you should do well.
Helpfulness: Overall, Prof. Silveria was very helpful and transparent throughout the quarter. He would frequently email us with updates, hold office hours and answer questions over email, and genuinely takes the student's interest to heart.

Great class and great professor!

I would say that Professor Silveira is one of the better professors in the econ department. His lectures are concise and even though we covered a lot of topics, they weren't too hard to learn. However, the exams are definitely harder than usual, but this seems to be a trend for all econ classes during the pandemic unfortunately. Problem sets also take a really long time and sometimes cover things that we didn't learn so it took a while to figure all the problems out. But this is overall a good class and I'm glad that the prof made the online learning go pretty smoothly.

LECTURES:
- Lectures were prerecorded and posted about 2 days before the lecture day. You're expected to watch the lectures before actual lecture days. You will be provided PPT lecture notes, and only need to write in the margins for some things.
- "QnA sessions" (similar to office hours) take place on lecture days, where you submit questions in a webinar-format. He ends class on-time, not a second over.
- Downside: You can't see questions other students have posted, thus forcing the professor to sort through duplicate questions in the sea of questions.
- Duration of each prerecorded lecture is (almost) always the exact duration as regular class would be.

EXAMS:
- Grade turnaround is very slow.
- All multiple choice questions (Note: COVID-19, online quarter)
- Two midterms, 1 final exam. If you score better than both midterms on your final exam, he'll drop your lowest midterm.
- Proctored by T.A. over Zoom. Webcam is required.

HOMEWORK:
- 4 problem sets are assigned for a grade. He drops your lowest problem set. 50% of the grade is based on completion. He will pick one of the questions to be graded for accuracy (for the other 50%).
- 3 additional problem sets and solutions are given, 1 just before each exam.
- NO late submission accepted.

COMMUNICATION:
- Uses email to share when prerecorded lectures are posted and when problem sets are uploaded.