Don't be discouraged by the prior negative reviews. The professor does care about making class more interesting(although he might go on a tangent), more intuitive, fair tests, and more manageable. Homework for example was reasonably difficult, great for reinforcing the learned material, and generously graded. Exams were open book open notes and multiple choice on what I think is a generous curve. Legit for the final a score 10/21 was a 72%, with some questions being Econ 1/2 level difficulty. TA's are very helpful. lecture notes were useful, and workload was very manageable for a core major class. Answering some discussions posts was worth 10% (which is a easy win). Overall for someone who was worried this class would be a really tough one based on reviews, I would say this is one of the better classes I took. I think avg bruinwalk score should be at least a 3 imo

Honestly, I think the negative reviews are out of proportion. Yes, he’s not the best lecturer and does go on irrelevant tangents, but his slides are quite concise with a good amt of info, and homework is good practice for tests. He also posts past exams which are pretty similar to exams and has a VERY generous curve. I wouldn’t say I absolutely recommend, but don’t be afraid or put off from taking his classes.

The professor is fine not as bad as the reviews suggest. The exams were very easy (although there was a typo on the final which made 4 of the questions impossible to solve without me correcting it to the TA). He goes very slow, a lot of the topics were not covered. He spends lots of time on useless topics/obvious things happening in the real world and not enough content. We only covered Solow's model, GDP, and the labor market.

This was one of the most unorganized classes I have ever taken and I have taken a class with Haanwinckel. Our lectures were very random, and the material for exams was always unclear. the lectures weren't recorded but they are quite useless anyway. The professor did not explain most things on the syllabus. All the Ta's gave us different notes and asked us to focus on different things. In the middle of the Palestine protests, we were told our midterm would happen because "life goes on." It made me disinterested in the topics that I was excited to study. This class is very important in order to take other electives and if you can wait to take this class, please wait for any other professor.

Boring ah first class.

Terrible professor, literally run for the hills. The class itself was only manageable because of the TAs, but the way this class drained me and everyone I knew is so so terrible for your mental health. The professor is not helpful at all, in fact there's nothing I genuinely retained from this class other than how he's from Peru.

Anyone who took Haanwinckel 101 to Bigio Luks 102 back-to-back probably has not recovered. Do not take.

I understood nothing, had to leave half the exams blank, and got an A. Take that as you will.

This class is not the best, but not the worst. Especially, given that he gave a fat curve for the exams. Firstly, his lectures are hard to follow. He reads off his slides and skips the majority if not all the formulas which become very confusing (if you do not read the textbook). The first part of the course right before midterm exams was challenging. It was hard to follow and confusing. However, following the syllabus and attempting to grasp a bigger picture of what story he was trying to get across it helped somewhat. Do attend discussions, even if it makes you feel even more horrible about the class in the end it will pay off and be worth it. I took advantage of having access to all TAs files and materials, navigating through and deciding which one cliques with my studying method. He provides practice midterms DO solve them as many times as you can cause his real exams are fair. I personally did not enjoy this class it was a lot of pressure, worries, and nights of studying a lot with tears lmao which was worth it in the end. Best of luck.

This was the worst Econ professor I have had thus far. The majority of the class stopped attending lectures because they were useless and he was horrible at explaining things. The TA's helped, but the midterm was extremely difficult (but was curved up) and the final was also pretty difficult but less excruciating than the midterm. Take this class with literally any other professor.