Reviews for AREC345

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Steven Jaffee AREC345 Anonymous 05/04/2021	Overall the class wasn't too challenging in terms of the content and how the course is set up. Three papers, a midterm and a final. Overall not a very engaging professor for such a bland and boring subject, which made the class worse than it had to be. If you do the readings and attend lecture you should get no less than a B. Wouldnt recommend though for any gen ed requirement that this class fills out though
Steven Jaffee AREC345 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/04/2021	This class is very difficult for a gen-ed requirement. There is a lot of reading and requires you to analyze data that is probably unfamiliar with a lot of students. Professor Jaffee is not a terrible teacher but this class is going to be hard for anyone who has not studied economics before or is not aware of world economics. The exams are not terrible as they are just short answers and a couple essays. The three papers are very hard to conceptualize and the curve on them is minimal. I would advise taking another class if you are trying to get a distributive study course out of the way.
Steven Jaffee AREC345 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/07/2020	I had him during his first year teaching at UMD. Professor Jaffe is a very nice person. He is genuinely engaged with the material and has first-hand experience from his work at the World Bank that he brings up and is really interesting. Sometimes his lectures will seem a little dry, but the content is really interesting. There was a lot of reading in the class and it was overwhelming, but he recognized that and plans to make changes for the curriculum. For his first time as a professor, I think he did a great job and you will learn a lot if you take his class. The essays he had us write were very cool and engaging I had a lot of fun with them.
Kenneth Leonard AREC345 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2013	Prof. Leonard was extremely approachable, very knowledgable and excited about the topic, and very fair. The exams were of average difficulty, but his lectures and the readings more than covered what was necessary to pass. He utilized Top Hat for in-class questions and participation, which I found efficient. Overall, he was just a likable guy and he made a boring subject interesting with his personal passion for the topic. If you're looking for an upper level elective, this is a great choice.
Kenneth Leonard AREC345 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2013	Do you need a non-major 300 level elective? AREC345 is for you! Minimal work, laughably easy exams (the lowest of which is dropped, by the way, so don't even worry about a final), copy-answers-from-the-book homework and free points abound just for attending class (sadly not free in the monetary sense, you'll have to purchase the TopHat service for a semester to do them). Protip about TopHat by the way: Because it works via the internet, you don't need to be in the room to answer questions. Feel free to skip lecture and have the TopHat window open back in the dorm and just answer the questions there for credit. You don't need to be correct, just put in anything for participation points. Exams are based almost exclusively on lecture notes which he posts in a relatively complete form. He'll talk a little bit more on specifics during lecture, but nothing that's not directly cited in the readings (which you WILL need to do for homework, though they're just a few pages a pop). Attending the discussion section was optional. Provided nothing really in terms of new information. Got an extra credit point or two for attending but when there are hundreds of points in the class, it never mattered terribly much. An easy class, overall. Material was sort of interesting. No economics background needed.