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!

So hard I had to pnp this class

Exams are really difficult. The final exam will be at least 50% of the overall grade, so if you mess up with the final, the overall grade will be bad.

1. Extremely tough class which helped me to decide that I'm not up for Econ
2. His tone of voice and style of speaking is hypnotizing. It was boring as hell taking his class.
3. Extreme difficult class, but did not have textbooks and other resources to help me learn.
4. Extremely tough tests (testing stuff not in class) and I had no idea how to do them

I went to my first lecture today for Econ 101 with another Econ professor and it made me really miss Professor Surro and his teaching style so here I am writing this review:

Absolutely loved Professor Surro. He is a great lecturer. He is very clear and organized. If I have the chance to take Professor Surro again, I definitely will. I highly recommended taking Econ 11 (and other Econ classes if you have the opportunity) with Professor Surro.

There is no textbook required for this class. Also, Professor Surro doesn't use slides but has typed notes that he posts before each lecture. I found it useful to read through the typed notes before lecture and understand it then go to lecture where he explains all the concepts in the typed notes and often goes more depth. This isn't necessary though because Professor Surro makes his lectures very clear and easy to understand. Professor Surro also provides a lot of opportunities for practice by posting practice problems after each lecture that cover the content learned that day. He then goes over the practice problems in about the first 30 minutes of the following lecture.

Your grade is based on problem sets, quizzes, one midterm, and the final. However, if you do poorly on the midterm and better on the final, your midterm will be dropped and your final will weigh more. I personally found the midterm and final to be fair, and they reflected the problems done in class and on the problem sets and practice questions. Also, the problem sets and quizzes are completely optional but are very helpful so I recommend you do them. Plus, they are graded on effort and they can only help your grade! The points you receive from the quizzes and problems sets you get are added to both the numerator and denominator of your grade. i.e. if you score a total of 500/600 (83.33) on the midterm and final but completed all quizzes and problems (worth a total of 150 points), you would have a 650/750 (86.67) in the class (note that your grade may be higher because this class is curved). Professor Surro also posts the answers for the problem sets after the due date so you can check your answers. He goes over quiz questions in office hours.

Overall, amazing professor and definitely recommend taking this class with him!

Being my first econ class, I can come out and easily say that if Surro is ever teaching another class i need to take, I WILL take his class. He is a very good proffessor. Lectures are straight forward but the concepts are not. This is not an easy class because it takes a lot of time and practice. The concepts are not necesarily hard but they do require a full understanding and mastery. That means a lot of self-teaching, but Surro's lectures made it easy to do that.

The midterm is hard but if you study a decent amount, you should be fine. However, prepare yourself to work quickly. Most students did not finish the midterm in time. For me, the final was harder but still manageable - time is less of an issue with the final.

Please do the problem sets and quizes, they help your grade a lot and are good practice.

If you were good at econ in the past, you should get a good grade given you put a lot of time into studying and practicing. The entire grade is based on the midterm, final, and some participation. Also, he gives a cheat sheet for each exam (front and back of printer paper).

I love Chris and his lectures, but I didn’t get good grade because this class is totally dependent on final and midterm, which are very very very hard and are basically speed tests. Furthermore, it is really hard for students in middle.

This class at its very core is not difficult. The concepts are all intuitive and if you do enough practice, you will begin to see the patterns on how certain problems should be solved and the basic intuition on why it works (at the very least enough to do well on the tests). Surro is pretty nice and funny at times, however, i found him to be a very boring lecturer and almost fell asleep during most in-person lectures. He also didn't organize lectures the best, sometimes spreading one concept over 2 lectures which created a disconnect when trying to learn that concept. I learned the most when doing the practice midterm and final, redoing the practice problems, and reading the typed notes, thus this class is very taught yourself IMO.

From a grading standpoint, this class has a midterm (worth 150 points and a final worth 300 points) however your midterm grade is dropped and replaced by your final grade if you do better on the final. There is also another 150 points you can add to your grade by doing optional quizzes and problem sets which can only help your grade as wrong answers don't count against you. MAKE SURE to do these quizzes and problem sets as the class is graded on a curve and you don't want to drop ranking just cause you didn't do some participation practice.

TLDR: attend lectures or at least watch the recordings, DO the practice problems before every lecture, DO the quizzes and problem sets, show up to disc if you want (depending on whether u think it's helpful or not, mine was p trash), DO the practice midterms and finals and you should be fine

This class was definitely a tough one for me. The concepts are extremely difficult to grasp, especially over zoom, and so I definitely struggled with it. The coursework throughout the quarter was definitely manageable, but, the exams were something else. The time constraints and difficulty of the questions made it super difficult for almost everyone I know.