Let me start off by saying, he’s a nice guy to converse with, but the class is a mess. Exams are full of mistakes and extremely difficult. No matter how much I studied, I never felt prepared for his midterms/final.

He definitely does not provide slides/lectures that clearly articulate the content. Although he’s a nice guy to converse with, his attitude towards his students is extremely discouraging, and quite unprofessional. He was never straightforward about how to prepare for his exams, and proceeded to brush off the failing average of both midterms.

I want to preface this review by saying that the professor really is a nice guy, and I found the class content much more interesting than Econ 11. That being said, I did not enjoy my experience with this class. The first midterm had about a 58% average, the second about a 40%. I'd say I genuinely guessed, as in had no idea what the question meant and picked a random answer, about half the time during his exams, especially on midterm 2. I didn't really understand how to study and be prepared for these exams, and I'm assuming most people felt the same way, as a 40% average meant nobody knew how to do the exam. After midterm 2 I genuinely considered dropping the class and just retaking it a different quarter, but I ended up seeing it through and got a B (I didn't want to drop after dealing with it for 8 weeks already if I didn't have to). However, if I'd known the class was going to be like this, I would have waited to take it a different quarter. The final was much more fair, and I think if the whole class was structured like the final exam was, it would've been a better experience (still difficult, but better). But for some reason, he gave us these questions that I think would've been difficult for econ PhD students, let alone sophomore/junior undergrads.

We also didn't have a lot of material to prepare for the exams. The lecture slides were alright, and we had weekly problem sets, but I don't feel like the practice exams were an accurate representation of the real exam. One out of two practice exams he posted before the final didn't have answer explanations, which made studying from it useless because you couldn't learn how to get the right answer from a question. This made the exams even more frustrating, and made studying feel extremely futile at times.

What also frustrated me about this class was his attitude towards the difficulty level. It seemed like he really didn't care or didn't understand how bad the class was. After midterm 2, he emailed us saying it didn't really matter how bad we all did, because he'd just curve the grades anyway. I don't think he understood how awful it feels to study all week for an exam, just to have to guess on over half the questions anyway. He followed up with an email saying he thinks a 55% is a good average for an exam, and that he can't give a lot of students As because he has to "preserve the reputation of UCLA's econ department." Additionally this class was graded on a ranked curve system, so you were just competing against everyone else in the class for a good grade, which is fairly typical of UCLA econ classes but I feel is also unfortunate.

Overall, I think he has the potential to be a really good professor, but the class this quarter was insane. If I knew it would be like this, I would've taken 101 another time.

Very, very difficult class. Slides, problem sets, and practice tests felt useless when trying to study for both midterms. Quite hard to gain motivation to study for the final when it felt all luck based. I am not a huge fan of microeconomics to begin with, but this class probably killed any sort of passion I had left for it. Professor is extremely nice and I feel bad writing this review because of that, but I do not think I would take a class again with him unless his expectations of undergraduate students is lessened.

He’s a good guy but this class is just not it. Your grade is basically based off how good you can guess on exams because you will never study enough to be ready for his tests. I only got an A because I had luck with guessing. This class is no better than Econ 11, except for that I was able to guess easier on the exams. The best you can do is hope that you score at/above the mean. He literally told us that he makes his exams so hard so that he can find the exceptional students and write them letters of recommendation.

This was one of the worst classes I have ever taken. The professor's slides and lectures were incredibly hard to understand and the problem set and exam answers often had mistakes. Furthermore, the exams were so fucking hard for no reason - as I'm sure you've read already, most students guessed on the majority of the questions as the difficulty level far exceeded anything we ever saw in class or for homework -- I believe the average for the second midterm was a 44%. Then, to justify the ridiculous difficulty, he claimed to be the arbiter of excellence for the UCLA Econ department, saying that its reputation would suffer if he gave easier tests, which in and of itself makes zero sense. Due to what I believe were an inordinate amount of complaints, the final was slightly easier than the two midterms but the average was still around a 60%.

Take someone else pls

Listening to Dr. Haanwinckel's made me want to start cutting myself again.

the worst professor i have ever had

Love him. King. Pro-Daniel movement rise up

It seems like the professor has acknowledged his past reviews and has improved a lot this quarter, giving more fair tests and giving a lot more practice material overall. The class isn't too bad, and conceptually, it's one of the more interesting Econ classes I've taken, and it's one I would definitely take again. My main criticism would be that a lot of questions aren't worded well, I've lost some points on assignments and tests that I maybe wouldn't have lost points on otherwise. Overall, good teacher and definitely much improved from Winter 2022.

Daniel did acknowledge the exams in the past were extremely difficult and he tried to improve by making exams more similar to problem sets and slides. However, his exams were still extremely difficult and not worded well at all as if it’s purposely trying to trick or confuse you. He claimed that he won’t try to “trick us” on exams, but I personally felt otherwise. I personally felt extremely prepared walking into exams but then ended up guessing on more than half of it.

Teaching wise, he had really helpful and detailed slides, but the way he explained some of the concepts made them harder than it should’ve been to understand. Even though I was familiar with some of the concepts beforehand, I was still confused by it after hearing him explain it.

Overall, Daniel is extremely knowledgeable in his field of Economics and great person to talk to, but unfortunately that didn’t reflect onto his teaching in my opinion. All the reviews in the past still stands with the exception that exams were “easier” (still very difficult) and I wouldn’t recommend taking him if you want a class that truly tests you on what you know rather than it be a guessing game on every exam.