A lot of these ratings threw me off and made me not want to take 101 with this professor, but they could not have been more wrong. I thought that he was very engaging and funny, and the tests were very fair with high averages.

Nice guy and exams weren’t bad if you study enough. Only a few homework’s total. Lectures are kind of boring, but they’re recorded and he posts slides so it’s not too bad.

This class is very difficult, but it is doable as long as you really review the material and do all practice provided. TA sections were not very helpful to me and I preferred to study on my own. The professor really cares about making sure students understand and he is very nice, but not the greatest teacher. His tests are hard, but he does curve them quite a bit.

I came into this class expecting bad things from this professor. And it was hard to believe the ratings as he appeared to be nice and accommodating. The reality was his lectures contained the info. but he didn't actually teach it well at all. The hw is very straightforward with about 10 questions and multiple choice. However, the tests were complicated and it would be hard to believe the questions were similar to the hw assignments. I received an A in Econ 11 and expected i would do alright as well in this class. I just couldn't understand his tests well enough to score past a 76%. The cherry on top was his inability to round or really look into my final grade as I was .3 away from a B-. Really pretty disappointing and just expect to be confused on his tests. Nice guy but just not the best teacher.

-- Professor Haanwinckel (H) has completely restructured his class, so this is a more accurate review for his class after Winter 2023! His exams are much easier than in previous years and his lecture notes are very detailed. He mostly just goes over the lecture notes in class, and is very knowledgeable and answered every question I asked him this quarter. He was very happy to answer questions and an overall friendly dude.

-- The grade was made of 2 midterms, a final, and 6 problem sets. Each problem set took 1-2 hours to do, very manageable, especially because you could compare with your classmates and submit answers together after reviewing the questions. The grading was as such:

-- 10% problem sets
-- AND
-- 40% Best Midterm and 50% Final
-- OR
-- 30% Each exam

--The averages for the exams were all about 80, I got 101, 102 (setting the curve), and 83 for the two midterms and final, respectively. Exams are cumulative, but more weighted toward the material covered since the previous exam. You get 6 pages of notes for each exam. I didn't actually use the notes during the exam, but it was helpful review preparing the cheat sheet.
--Overall, he was very nice and friendly, discussion notes were very helpful, and the problem sets weren't too bad. An A is very manageable if you put in the work and take the time to study for his exams. Good luck!

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.

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.

worst professor i've ever taken at ucla

This class was the actual bane of my existence winter quarter. I was so confident on all the homeworks and honestly did super well on every one of them, but then the exams were COMPLETELY out of nowhere. I actually did surprisingly well on all three exams (no thanks to Haanwinckel) but it is honestly just because I am good at intuitively guessing. He made this class harder on purpose because he wants to single out the stellar students and weed out the non exceptional ones which is ridiculous honestly. Avoid him at all costs.

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!