Vogel was a good lecturer that was entertaining at times. 8.5/10 experience.

Enjoyment of the course material and the grade you receive in this class are not really related. Vogel himself is a generally clear lecturer but if you find yourself confused about little details such as the math then he will brush over these things very fast. Often in lecture he explains the concepts with words only and excludes the exact mathematical steps to get there, so be prepared to do lots of self teaching. Shoutout to my TA Jack Sitarski if you take this course I definitely recommend him. He explains the concepts and connects them to the math very well and made me more interested in the material. As for Vogel's grading methods, he curves very generously but still grades based on three exams. Making the midterm so close to the final drastically reduced my motivation to study for the final which was for sure the main reason why I did the worst on it. Vogel's humor is dry and I think certain people find it condescending but for me it made lectures more engaging. To do well on the exams just work through every single problem from past exams, discussion sections, homework sets, and the lecture slides.

Idk why ppl say he's bad. He's literally one of the best professors. If you want to actually understand what is happening in class instead of just memorizing slides, he is the professor to take.
Yes, his tests are tough but honestly, the challenge is fun because he gives you the impression that he knows his shit and when you are done with this class, so will you.
Take him to experience how fun and interesting Econ can be.

If I'm being honest, I hated ECON 101 with Professor Vogel. It's not so much that his class was difficult as it was his attitude. Vogel came from teaching at Columbia, which he mentioned a few times, comparing our program with theirs in a condescending manner. Sure, their program is likely much better, but there's no need to be rude about it. He did not like to help students, in fact I remember following one exam, he told the entire class not to email him at all with any questions. I distinctly remember the TAs not liking him either, criticizing his teaching methods. Oh, and perhaps to explain this attitude, he did brag to the class once that he had tenure and would never have to worry about unemployment.

Now onto content: the class was not impossibly difficult, but it was difficult. While the midterms were quite different from the practice exams he gave, the final was much more similar to what he provided as study materials. After the exams, I did end up finding some questions identical to those of the midterm questions in the slides, but ironically, I had notes on my own slides next to those specific questions: "He did not go through this example. Try it at home on your own." So that was annoying. Also, there was one question on the first midterm that involved using inequalities. In class, he said that the inequalities wouldn't matter in terms of whether or not you used less than or less than/equal to. He ended up marking down significantly on the exam.

To sum it up, I wouldn't take another class with Vogel. His attitude stinks and he's a bit rude.

Professor Vogel is rude and often times condescending to students who have questions regarding class materials. In addition, he managed to give a midterm after Thanksgiving during Week 9, which is totally unnecessary. Not to mention, he cancelled class Tuesday of Week 8, when he could have given us the midterm. Furthermore, his tests are only 2 questions. That's right, if you don't understand what a question is asking, you can easily get a 50%. I would give him a 3/10 as a professor.

I don't know why people are so sour about this class. I thought Professor Vogel made it much easier to learn Economics 101. It was definitely much easier to grasp than Economics 11 was. He takes you through the course, and he tells you what you need to know or if you've already covered things in some form or other. I thought he was very helpful. The course is self-contained, and he didn't require any outside materials. All the information you need comes from the lecture slides or from discussion. It certainly isn't the EASIEST class you can take, by any means, but the work was certainly trimmed with Vogel's help. I thought he made game theory--a most challenging concept to teach--very easy and very manageable; he made the math so easy; and, he assigned very easy homework that you can basically pull from the lectures. Now... if you did pull from the lectures to do the homework without giving any thought to it, and you didn't do well on the midterms, I think that's on you. I got good scores on the midterms, so they obviously weren't impossible.

Granted, he isn't the most personable professor, but I thought he was a great professor overall. People just expect professors to be nice all the time, and Vogel isn't nice all the time. He'll get annoyed, like all of us, and he'll be curt when he's annoyed. He cracks jokes occasionally, which are actually quite funny if you understand the references; his analogies can be unrelatable, especially if you didn't grow up with the culture he is referencing.

Overall, a great professor, and I highly recommend taking this class.

Professor Vogel's test is by far the most ridiculous test I've taken in UCLA, and I had Ronchetti just for comparison's sake. I have never seen a professor who just determines a student's entire grade based on 8 questions. PLUS, the points he assigns to each of the 8 questions are TOTALLY ABSURD, for example one question may be worth 50 points while the other one is worth only 10 and the latter requires WAY MORE CALCULATION. ALSO, he does NOT give partial credit. I got THIRTY points taken off just because I did not write boundary solution, which is literally two lines. He also brags about how he has tenure so he can't be fired no matter what happens. Seriously, UCLA needs to be careful of who it's offering tenures to. In conclusion, just like one of the previous comments, HE DESERVES TO BE BALD.