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.

Okay so I personally feel that some reviews of Professor Vogel are a wee bit harsh. I’m honestly not a big fan of his but his class really isn’t that bad. My biggest problem with it is that he taught with slides and I’m really against slides in Econ classes. I feel it’s just harder to follow considering the fact that we are doing mostly math. I would’ve preferred if he used the board more often. However, Professor Vogel’s way of teaching game theory is the bomb diggity. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a topic in Econ that much in my life, and it’s supposed to be super complex too.
Professor Vogel warned us that the second midterm and the final would be much more difficult than the first midterm. I felt his “warning” was inaccurate because the second midterm really wasn’t that difficult; the graders just took off a ton of points for the slightest errors and that’s why everyone did badly. I’m still pretty salty about that tbh. The final wasn’t as bad, though.
Honestly, I probably wouldn’t take Vogel again, but he really isn’t as bad as everyone says he is. So if he’s the only one offering Econ 101, I promise you’ll be fine.