To be honest, this class was brutal. It's not one of those classes where are you have to do is watch lectures and you'll get an A. It's one of those where you have to do a lot of self-study and going to office hours a lot. He did post-practice exams, questions, and quizzes that all help with fully understanding the material that'll help you with the test. The quizzes are extra credit so that'll also give a boost to your grade. My advice for this class would be to fully understand the material, not just memorize equations and graphs, that'll help in the long run.

PS: Textbooks help for a deeper understanding but you don't need it for the class, lecture notes should be enough

I found Econ 102 with Professor Surro to be one of the most interesting Econ courses I have taken so far. He supplements the problem sets with relevant reading about macroeconomics, making sure that students gain a working understanding of applications in the real-world economy, not just a simplified, theoretical model. There weren't many problem sets during the quarter, and each could easily be knocked out in one day if you understood the lecture material. We took one midterm and a final, neither of which were easy A's. Comfortability with math is a plus. There is also a final project that is given after the first midterm. There is plenty of time to work on it, and it isn't too bad if you don't wait until the last minute. The project focuses on working with Excel to help you build valuable career skills. After the final, some people were upset that he promised a curve and didn't deliver. In reality, he promised a score range for the median grade, which was reached without a curve. Surro is a great professor and fun to talk to outside of class. I will definitely be watching for more classes to take with him.

THIS WAS THE BEST ECONOMICS CLASS I HAVE TAKEN! The structure of the class was conducive to learning, for a few reasons:

-Short quizzes (credit for completion) after every lecture let you stay on track with material. You know what concepts you should have gotten from the lecture and if you didn't understand quiz questions it was easy to just go back and review the lecture slides. This is unlike other econ classes where you are unsure of what you need to know and to what depth you need to understand material until practice problems are released (or even worse for some classes just midterms).

-The Solow Excel project was a great way to learn excel. Felt very relevant to future job demands. Also a great way to review class concepts. Felt like my time was well spent while working on this project.

-It is very clear what is expected of you on exams. Surro explicitly says that 80% of test material will be similar to questions we have seen (quizzes, problem sets, practice midterms) and 20% will be new questions where we must apply the knowledge.

-Surro is a good lecturer. He explains concepts well. Powerpoints well organized.

-There is material to work with. When studying for the final, I could review the quizzes, problem sets, practice midterm, solow excel project, and practice final. A lot of problems to work with along with organized lectures = easy studying.

I was never stressed taking this class, but not because the material was easy, because Surro was a great teacher with a well-organized class. Would 100% recommend anyone to take this class.

I highly recommend taking Professor Surro for Econ 102. Lectures were pre-recoded and 45 minutes, with a 30 minute live portion during class time. The live portion consisted of doing practice problems related to the lecture, plus office hours at the end. There were 2 open note exams (30% and 45%, or 75% for the final if you improve), an Excel project (15%), HW (10%), and optional quizzes. The optional quizzes added points to the numerator and denominator of the total number of points in the class, which helped pad grades. Professor Surro is a clear lecturer with good slides, exams were tough but fair, and office hours and the Campuswire forum helped a lot with the Excel project, HW questions, and understanding the material in general. Overall I would definitely take this class again, or any other Econ class, with Professor Surro.

My FAVORITE class ever!!! If you can, please choose Chris at all cost. He is the best! I really love his teaching philosophy, that it is more important for student to understand the class materials than simply getting an easy A. Sometimes it is really tempting to choose some 'easy classes' but I feel like I did not learning anything at the end of the day. For this class, yes it is not that easy, but I did feel I learn a LOT and fall into deeper love with Economics.

A few tips for this class(I hope they are useful):
1. Do all the problem sets and quizzes, even if they are not required. The quizzes are super easy, but the problem sets may be a bit more challenging, and more on the intuition side of the problem. But since the midterm and final have a bunch of questions that requires us to understand those intuition, it would be better just to do all the problem sets.
2. Go to office hours!! Chris is super helpful and approachable, and he can explain everything in a logical manner.

In short, I really really really recommend taking Econ 11 with Chris!!! You will learn more than you expected. : )

!!Don't take this class if you want to get an A!!
I agree that Surro is a great lecturer who explains everything clearly and is really helpful. However, he is a tough grader. The midterm and final is about 70% of the total grade, and the class average for each exam is approximately 75% everytime. Surro promised us that there will be a curve to adjust the mean to B/B+ range, but he went back on his words and did not curve at last. I put in a lot of effort and got 88% on my exams, and I ended up with an A- at last. It was frustrating to see his email notifying us that he won't curve, and I would say that similar scores for other econ dept courses will definitely get some kind of curve.

Tried hard, Failed hard

If I know about this beforehand, wouldn’t take the class

DO NOT TAKE A CLASS WITH SURRO!! BY FAR THE WORST PROFESSOR I HAVE EVER HAD AND THE WORST GRADE I HAVE EVER GOTTEN. VERY CHALLENGING TESTS. HE TOLD US THE CLASS AVERAGE WOULD BE A B+ FOR FINAL GRADES AND IT WAS AROUND A B-. He didn't even curve 1% after saying earlier in the quarter that he wants the average to be way higher. Just don't take this with him he's just one of the worst professors ever.

This class can be challenging but still doable. As other commenters noted, the majority of your final grade will come from your performance on exams, which can be very intimidating. I would first suggest going to every lecture and discussion if possible, as they provide great intros to the content and reinforce important concepts. On your own time, I would advise redoing problem sets and ensuring that you form a graphical intuition behind what you're trying to accomplish. This will be especially helpful when you're going through different types of equilibrium towards the end of the class. Before starting the class, try to go through partial derivatives if you can. Generally, the exams are an elevated version of the problem sets done in class except with more challenging numbers or rephrased questions that require you to think about the concept more. For the exams, I would highly recommend that you focus on these concepts and their economic meanings: utility maximization vs expenditure minimization (convex vs concave preferences), compensating vs equivalent variation, income/substitution effect, short and long run supply curves (partial equilibrium), and the difference between the general equilibrium situations we cover in class. It can be easy to lose points on these concepts since they involve a great deal of graphical and numerical interpretation. Overall, I felt that I have learned a ton in this class and feel more confident in future courses because of Professor Surro. So, if you can, definitely take the class with him.

Great professor but veeerry difficult class. Tests are weighted very heavily--even with the most forgiving grade scheme, the final exam counts as half of your grade. If you aren't great at math, prepare for a looot of studying. While the problem sets were typically not too difficult, the exams were extremely stressful. The midterm (and to a lesser extent, the final) were time crunches and included questions that were worded in ways that you wouldn't have expected based on the problem sets, practice problems, and practice exams. I kinda felt awful after both exams, but the pretty generous curve came to my rescue. With that being said, Professor Surro is one of the best instructors I've ever had. He lectures by writing out his notes and all the steps to problems in a very systematic fashion. I would definitely recommend attending his office hours because he explains the concepts very clearly. Furthermore, he provides an immense amount of resources to help his students learn the content (practice problems, typed notes, study groups, written advice for how to do well in the class). If you want an extremely strong foundation for future econ courses, then definitely take Professor Surro!