ECON 41 is difficult in its nature, but Buchinsky complicates it further through his ineffective lectures (all on power point). I can see how the use of powerpoint slideshows with the aide of laser pointer can be convenient for short seminars on real estate development and informational workshops on family planning, but I'm sorry...when you have 400 + students packed in a statistics class (only a vital component of the requirements for the ECON degree), what was he thinking? Truth is....he doesn't care whether you pass or fail, which makes him a dishonest person. He once said that he wants us all to do very well and get at least a B. During one class he said that he can give students a free "A" and let them walk right out without any knowledge of statistics. Yea right.... A man should make promises he can keep. I'm sure that a handful of people did not walk out with A's in his class (probability wise this works out), and as the preceding reviews illustrate, myriads walked out without any knowledge whatsoever in the long run. Then, he has a requirement that we must learn how to use the STATA program for this class in order to do the ridiculously long hw assignments (They usually came out to 13 + pages typed at the end, there were 5 of them and the final did not reflect one bit of what was assigned in the hw). Yes, the midterm was easier than the final, but also note that the midterm was given before he handed out student-teacher evaluation forms. The final is 70% of the grade. The fact that the final was close to impossible is an understatement. Basically, as a person Buchinksy is "a nice guy". But honestly...who cares? This is all about business thus making any personal additives irrelevant and unnecessary. Example... Half of the quarter he joked a great deal about anything from his personal life to you name it...anything. He wasn't making me laugh and certainly this class was by no means "funny." Hmn...what else did I learn in this class....gee let me think....I learned he was once in the Israeli army and you get to see his daughter quite a bit as her photo is the screensaver on his computer. You know he was rambling on about nothing because her photo would come up many a time as he didn\355t move from one slide to the next and his computer would go into screensaver mode. Being given this information and a truthful/honest account of what really happened during 10 wasteful weeks, make your own judgments based on this, but take the necessary caveats as you choose who to take econ 41 with.

This class is tricky to rate. I got an A-, so it's hard to be that negative. Midterm was super easy. Homeworks, while time consuming, were pretty straightforward. The final was hard. Like really hard (read the other comments).

As a professor Buchinsky is moderately entertaining and tends to keep class from being that boring. He doesn't cover half of what's on the syllabus and did an extremely poor job of preparing us for Econ 103.

i never felt so lost taking a final in my life. He's not a very good lecturer, it was very hard for me to understand what he was trying to say.

Unless you have a good TA, it would be very hard to understand stats (especially if u've never taken stats before!)

If you're taking a class with him...hahaha...good luck.

First of all, what he teaches in class is nearly impossible to follow and understand. Giving us all these symbols and theories isn't enough. What about some numeric example? Even till now, I can't really identify all the symbols in this course.
Secondly, what he teaches is really different from what's tested (especially in final). I find no correlation between what he teaches and problems in HW. Yes.. you can probably go to TA sessions and find some answers. HW consists of a lot of computer work. I was glad that I knew how to use TI- calculators and didn't need to look up those stupid tables. Be warned though... they never really teach you how to use calculators to do HW. And you'd be stuck with looking up tables and wasting your time with the time-consuming program while it only takes you like 10 seconds to get the answers from calculators. But of course, some simulation can only be done by the software so you do need to know how to do it on computer if you're to take 103.

Final is open-book open- notes, which is great. I got a good grade but this class is simply a pain to me. The textbook makes you only more confusing. I would not recommend this professor...

Prof. Buchinsky only covered about half of what was on the syllabus (i.e. what is needed for Econ 103), and what he did manage to get to he covered poorly. The midterm was easy but the final was outrageous. Buchinsky is a good guy, but a terrible teacher. I think he should stick to researching or whatever it is professors here spend their time doing instead of preparing for their classes. Overall, don't take him if you don't have to.

Horrible teacher...not effective or efficient at all. He did not even finish the material that was necessary to prepare Bus Econ students to take 103.