Professor Haanwinckel is one of the best professors I have ever had. I saw previous reviews, and they weren't very good, but he was improving a lot, and as a student, I appreciate it a lot. I believe the professor did a perfect ratio of real-world problems and ease for the problems we were solving. Daniel was very helpful during office hours. The material itself isn't hard (easier than Econ 11) if you pay attention and do homework. He published about 3-4 practice midterms and finals, which was very helpful. Definitely would recommend taking this class with Professor Haanwinckel!

I really liked Haanwinckel. He truly cares about teaching and about his students. I know he has a lot of bad reviews but HIS CLASS IS NOT AS DIFFICULT AS IT USED TO BE. The tests that we took had better phrasing to the questions, and the questions themselves were not as time consuming as previous years. In my opinion, he explained the material well and gave real world examples which made the class more interesting. A good amount of this class involves material from Econ 41 or math 170E so if you are taking that while taking Econ 101/ before taking Econ 101 it'll give you an advantage. He will teach you the material that you need to know from Econ 41 but it's easier to understand the concepts if you actually take Econ 41.

He definitely changed his style of teaching in recent quarters. Material was super light and he provided a lot of content that were helpful for studying like all of his annotated lecture notes/videos and exams (though the older versions were definitely a lot more different and harder than the newer ones so I don't really recommend that you bother with those). Was an engaging lecturer, and he only made you do like a 10 question problem set every week. As long as you knew how to do those and did a bit of review of the old exams, this class should be an easy A. Do note that the final was a bit harder than the two midterms though, so be a bit prepared for that.

Material is not as difficult compared to Econ 11 and Econ 41. Only work is doing a problem set every week. He's a good lecturer and he also publishes/records his slides/lectures. However, he does DOWNCURVE if the class scores above average so be aware.

I struggled a bit in the class because it is more conceptual and theoretical than ECON 11 and ECON 41. ECON 101 is harder than both 41 and 11 combined just because I tend to do better with mathematical calculations than theoretical real-world implications. Professor Haanwinckel is a great lecturer and he cares about students' learning. He would go slower on topics that students struggle with and his lecturers are engaging. Even though he did downcurve our grade (92 is a cut-off for A-), he offers two different grading schemes (one of them allows you to drop your lowest midterm). In terms of the exams' difficulty, they are definitely easier than the previous quarters (hence the downcurve). To succeed in this class - pay attention to lectures (you can join on Zoom or watch the recording), do a lot of practice, and ensure that you actually understand the theoretical concepts.

Professor Haanwinckel made the class, which I already expected to be difficult, way harder than it needed to be. The problem sets and practice exams he'd give us before the midterms and final were significantly easier than the actual exam so when you'd take the exam, you'd be completely loss; There are 2 midterms and 1 final. The average score of the second midterm was a 44% and the class consisted of over 400 students (how did 200 students score below a 44% despite studying over a week or two weeks in advanced)? Most of the students in the groupme said they guessed on most of the exam too. There were also several mistakes on the exams, one of which he forgot to put the correct answer in the multiple choice options so half the class wasted several minutes working on the problem only find out they had the correct answer in the first place. Then, they ran out of time for the rest of the exam. There were errors in the slides which was confusing and I know that he could've gotten a fairly accurate idea of our understanding of the material by not giving us ridiculously hard test questions. He was nice though!

PLEASE take this class with Haanwinckel he is a good and engaging lecturer. I probably put in less than 1/3 of the time/effort studying for this class compared to Econ 11 w Surro and still ended up doing better in this class (this was the first Econ class I got an A in). His tests are pretty predictable and straightforward, all multiple choice with a lot of t/f questions (he posts all his previous exams for you to review but I only did the 2024 & 2023 ones bc the older ones are way too hard). The averages for each exam were pretty high (around a B) and we did end up getting our final grades down curved so that you would’ve needed a 84 for a B-, 92 to get an A-, and 20% of the class got an A. For both midterms you get 3 pages of cheat sheets (6 sides) and for the final you get 6 pages (12 sides) which is more than enough, I always ended up using less. Lectures are recorded but the audio is crunchy. Problem sets are multiple choice, graded on accuracy but not timed. Only complaint is that he sometimes would word things weirdly when explaining concepts, like he would try to use simpler words to explain something but it ended up making it more confusing. It wasn’t a big deal since none of the concepts are that complex and I still thought he taught at a really good pace. Overall this class was genuinely a breath of fresh air coming out of Econ 11 and made me like econ again so thank you Haanwinckel

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.

All you need to do is dedicate 10 hours a week to the class by doing the discussion problems and problem sets on your own. Don’t review exams from before or on 2022 because they were ridiculously challenging, as that was when the professor was very tough. Take your time when studying—don’t rush things, rewatch the lectures, and take good notes. On average, it took me 2 hours and 15 minutes to take good notes for each of his video lectures. After that, I would do the discussion problems for that week, then work on the problem set problems. I got an A+, so if you follow that formula, you should do well.

I took this in Winter 2023, and the professor seems to have learned from his past mistakes of making exams too hard. He's a wonderful professor as he seems to genuinely care about the students, and I love his lectures. He assigns weekly multiple-choice problem sets as homework. There are 2 midterms and 1 final.

I found the exams difficult, and it was due to the nature of multiple-choice questions, e.g. a question gives you several statements and asks which is true, and a choice might be "more than one". As a math student inclined towards calculations, I found these types of problems incredibly difficult even with practice.

I think the material is interesting and helps me understand strategies and games better, so I don't regret taking the class. However, if you're a math-inclined person like me and want to get good grade without struggling too much, I'd recommend taking a math class instead. I'd also say that Prof. Haanwinckel made this course more enjoyable, and it's my favorite econ class at UCLA.