ECON306 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Andrea Vilchez ECON306 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/24/2024	I appreciated the discussion sections and the dedicated time they gave to help with the work we have. She was good at helping me come to understand certain topics on my own without her completely explaining it.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/16/2024	Dr. Finkle is a quirky and chill guy. He does class in person but also live zooms the lectures which is nice. He also brings his dog to class! Dont worry about the online hws and quizzes because they are much harder than the exams just do them because they will boost your grade. The weekly worksheets are the most similar to exam questions. Overall the class is really not that hard just tedious, but if you study for exams you'll do well. He gives you everything you need to pass.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/13/2024	Finkle is a really good professor! He teaches the concepts well and provides a lot of review material for all the exams. I personally really liked the class and learned a lot.
Lixi Wang ECON306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/27/2024	Lixi is a great instructor, he was able to teach 15 week material in just 3 weeks (winter term) and honestly I couldn't have asked for a better instructor to take this class with. He always gives students the opportunity to ask questions whether they're unsure about the material and he'll gladly explain the material to you in detail. He also has office hours in which I highly recommend to attend. He knows ECON306 is a difficult class so he does provide generous curves to the exams and an extra credit assignment that wasn't difficult at all. Take econ 306 with him, you literally won't regret!!!
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2023	Finkle is a really straightforward and fair teacher who won't waste your time at all. Just show up to lecture, and every once in a while try to do a problem that he goes through in class, and you should be set (if you are comfortable with calculus and intro econ concepts). You can ignore the textbook to intermediate macro, hop into the homework problems that he assigns on Pearson, and just grind the course out by practicing those. Also, Dr. Finkle makes studying very easy, as he posts past exams along with answer keys which essentially mimic what is on the actual exam. Overall, ECON306 is an extremely well-structured class that makes it easy to understand the entire course as long as you are willing to put in the work.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2023	Professor Finkle was very straightforward in his lectures to teach us how to do the practice problems we would see on the exams. I like econ so I showed up to all of his lectures but you don't have to since he posts supplemental videos and records the lectures. The pearson homework and quizzes were very time consuming and definitely the most annoying part of the class. The exams were exactly what you would expect since he posts practice questions and practice exams for you to study with and they were always almost identical to the exam you would receive. I didn't do as well as I would have liked on the exams because of the amount of open ended questions. I would know how to do the problem but would make one mistake along the way and then receive 0 credit since he doesn't look at your work or give partial credit. You definitely need to put effort into this class to do well on the exams, since the curve was usually only 1-3%.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2023	This is one of the easiest classes I’ve taken - as long as you pay attention in lecture and do the practice exams, you’ll be set. The homework takes about 4 hours a week but it’s pretty helpful when it comes to exams. Professor Finkle explains the concepts very clearly and doesn’t put hard questions on exams.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2023	I think the most difficult part of this class is the course load. You will have an online Homework and Quiz weekly (that sometimes take hours), on top of a Worksheet, completing the readings, and showing up to class. However, I truly believe that if you put in this work you can succeed in the class. Professor Finkle makes his exams very similar to the practice exams you are given. As long as you understand how to do the math, and you understand the concepts that he had gone over, then you should be able to apply them to the exams and do well. I believe the class was graded fairly.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/11/2023	The course is a lot of work considering its required for all business majors. It feels like a lot of busy work because the homework is very long. Also, he does not do partial credit on his exams but they are also very similar to his practice exams. He have a nervous energy when he teaches but seems knowledgeable.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/08/2023	Dude honestly makes the class 100x harder than it needs to be...if you can teach yourself the material, you'll be much better off. On the exam topics and questions document, he often has typos which just confuse students even more. He barely has basic business knowledge to the point where I think he is confusing himself. I honestly felt bad for him at some points in the semester and thought he kept drawing graphs so he could confuse students so he didn't look like he was the idiot.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a B Anonymous 09/25/2023	Literally so much busy work I would spend 10 hours a week just doing HW, quizzes and worksheets. You have to be tight with the TA's to do well or else you will lose easy points on assignments. The exams are hard. partial credit did not exist and each question was worth so much. He goes so fast in lecture and really uses his ipad, so if you do not have one, good luck! 3 times a week is brutal also.
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting a C Anonymous 08/23/2023	Im giving him a five stars because I quite literally failed my first exam 6/25. Then got a decent score on final. He is pretty aware of students failing and tries not to do it, and I think out of kindness he did not fail me and curved me up.
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/22/2023	Agree with all the previous reviews. This is probably a really good professor if you are smart since he really does not care about making the exams challenging. The exams were open note 24 hours and problem sets were graded very leniently. Im talking like if you got a few questions wrong it would still be 10/10 on the problem sets. The curve was very generous. Will agree with other students and say he is oftentimes confused at the material but to be honest, the pearson slides are trash and you do not need to buy the textbook nor look at the slides to succeed in this class with a high score. 100% take him over Aaron Finkle who has a horrible GPA avg.
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/22/2023	For his first time teaching, it was sometimes confusing in lecture, but that really doesn't matter because the problem sets + exams he gives you are his "version" of what he thinks is good material in intermediate economics. This is great because you can refer to the practice problems in canvas files which are identical to what he tests you on. CONS: Absolutely horrific at replying to emails. He probably sees them but since he gets so many, he is too lazy to even respond to a single one probably unless it is super important.
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/22/2023	He gives you all the resources for you to do well. The exams are 24 hours and yes some questions may be challenging, but if you refer to the slides or practice problems he gives in class, you will notice they are the same thing. Would 100% recommend since the other teacher has a pretty bad grade distribution.
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 08/20/2023	Great professor. This was his first time teaching the class which is something you should always consider signing up for when it comes to first year professors. Yes, the previous reviews said he had no clue sometimes (which is understandable he is a first year professor) which is part of the reason which made this class super easy for me. I ended the class with a very high raw score but to my knowledge the cutoff for an A was around a low B raw score. The exams were identical to the practice problems he gave in class and each exam was open note and 24 hours open. The exam questions can be found through practice problems and just Ctrl+F the slides for the information about it. Very relaxed professor and pretty fair, just kinda new to teaching so I will excuse him on this part. Anyone who complains about this professor 100% guaranteed skipped lecture, didn't use their resources, or lacked common sense because this was the freest A compared to the other professor and GPA average for this class.
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/19/2023	Preaty good teacher. You just have to review your notes. He definitely gives you the tools to succeed.
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/19/2023	His tests are pretty much identical to the practice problems he writes up and shows in class. It seems like he is pretty fair in his exams, although the averages are like 50% for each one. This is due to students not utilizing their resources as the exams are literally free. Problem sets are also graded very easy and at least 25% of the class gets an A with the curve.
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting a B- Anonymous 08/18/2023	Not the greatest. He oftentimes is confused on the lecture material and always throws a really confusing hard question on the exams everytime. If you are super smart sure I guess this class is good for you but even with 24 hours on the exam, its pretty difficult
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/18/2023	Pros: His tests are 24 hour online and you can use notes and search the web. Problem sets are graded very liniently, free 100% if you ask him about it in office hours Cons: Does not check email, sometimes confused in lecture, and the calss is only problemsets and exams. There is no defined grade distribution so your grade depends on how smart or dumb your classmates are
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 08/10/2023	Not the best teacher. Was often confused about the lecture slides and took time to get himself together. Was a new professor but clearly is unprepared and unwilling to communicate with students. It seemed like he did not even want to teach the class at times.
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 08/10/2023	Harsh grader, exam averages were 12/25 each test.
William Le Roy ECON306 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 08/08/2023	Course has no grade distribution. Grade depends on how well the class does. The class is pretty free if you are a math major. It is general math such as slope, derivatives, and algebraic expressions and the exams were exactly the same as his examples in class. Furthermore, the answers could be found by just Ctrl+F the topic from the question. The summer session was easy af. He let us have 24+ hours for each exam.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/19/2023	Overall this class wasn't that bad. Professor Finkle would go through the notes in a way that was generally easy to grasp and the homework, while annoying, matched what was covered in class. The weekly worksheets were also extremely helpful because we got to ask the TA's questions and the questions were worded similarly to the exams. The classes are short (50 mins) so he occasionally had to send supplemental videos which were annoying but it was overall doable. I also appreciated that he recorded the lectures.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a D Anonymous 05/16/2023	Literally rushes through practice examples in class. TA's are the ones you're mostly gonna be reaching out to for help. You'll spend so much time doing the homework and quizzes. Practice exams are literally nothing like the actual exams. I would attend class, rewatch lectures if I needed to and study 1 week prior to exams and still got horrible test grades. I wouldn't bother if I were you. Should've dropped when I had the chance.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 05/08/2023	Dr. Finkle is very kind and approachable but his explanations of the material were not all that helpful. I found the homeworks and quizzes to be unnecessarily difficult and not closely related to the exams. The exams were difficult only because they had questions where the numbers built off each other and no opportunities for partial credit. This is certainly a good class to take if you need the upper level econ requirement, but I would not say its enjoyable.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2022	I don't understand why Professor Finkle is receiving such bad ratings, especially this semester. He is a kind and interesting professor, gives ample time to ask questions regarding material, and the homework is nowhere near 10 hours a week, 4 hours at most. The practice exams are fair and give you an idea of what concepts will be on the exams, but like most teachers, it is not enough to simply do the practice exams and expect to do well on exams. 306 is overall not a hard class, go to lectures, do the work on time, and study for exams and you should be more than fine.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a D- Anonymous 12/12/2022	So bad I literally had to drop the class
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/12/2022	Teaching style is not the best, and the practice exams do not really help in comparison to the real exams. He's a great professor to some, and a not so great professor to others. I happened to fall in the bunch that cannot learn effectively with his teaching style. Homework assignments are weighted equally to the first three exams, and the final exam is optional. You generally do not have to do extremely well on the exams to pass the class, but again, do not go in expecting the exams to be easy just because the practice exams were.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/11/2022	Finkle isn't the best professor in the world, but he's also not the worst. Econ is already a hard subject and he does an okay job of trying to explain concepts. He spends a lot of time drawing graphs and jumping around, but what you really need to pay attention to are the examples he goes over and the weekly worksheets. There is a good amount of hw in this class that is very unnecessary but is normal for an econ class. I would make sure to come to class on Fridays so you can get help/concepts explained to you by the TAs or Finkle himself. My advice is to try and understand concepts before exams so you're not trying to learn everything last minute. His exams are somewhat similar to past exams and worksheets, so make sure you understand them.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/02/2022	Terrible teaching style and his practice exams are all so easy, wait til u get the real exam.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/29/2022	Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. With three weeks left in the semester, Finkle realized that our grades were not weighted correctly in ELMS and changed all of them shifting my grade by 7%. I dropped from a 93% to an 86%. Ridiculous and irresponsible. He’s a good professor who knows how to teach but this oversight was so bad and costed me so much.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/13/2021	Economics is a HARD subject. With that in mind, Professor Finkle was probably the best professor I could have gotten to teach it. His exams are very similar to what he covers in class. Attendance and reading the textbook is optional, but it will be very hard to do well without doing both. Grading is also fair and offers curves if necessary. It is very clear that Prof. Finkle understands what he is teaching, and conveys the material well with lots of examples to try and make it easier for those who don't understand.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/15/2021	Only parts of the syllabus were published at a time so the exam schedule was unknown. The class was difficult online but there were a lot of assignments, three midterm exams, and an optional final exam so one grade did not make or break anything. Also, the TAs were unhelpful.
Satyendra Verma ECON306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/12/2020	I am taking this class online Fall 2020 semester. His class is very difficult to follow. His lectures seem very rambling and his handwriting is difficult to decipher. Often, he has technology problems. The reason for my high rating and expected course grade is because he curves and listens to students recommendations. His teaching style is not preferable. However, the class is passable with a decent grade.
Satyendra Verma ECON306 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/23/2019	This man is a horrible teacher. I took Neri for ECON201 and Verma makes me miss him. He goes too fast because he handwrites his notes instead of using Powerpoints and there are no whiteboards in the front. Additionally, his handwriting sucks. If you have to take him, make sure you go to class. Even though it will feel like a waste of time, he says things he does not include in the handouts he uploads to ELMS. I think I failed two out of the four exams we took in this class. The only reason why I am passing is because of all the extra points and curves he has given.
Aaron Finkle ECON306 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/20/2019	I really suggest Aaron Finkle for anyone who needs an UL Econ class. Econ isn't an easy subject, so I still wouldn't say he's an easy A but he's probably the best shot you have at getting one. You can tell he really knows what he's talking about and he communicates it well. Class does get boring but every huge lecture does (and you don't even need to go to every class). Most topics are manageable to teach yourself, between the Learnsmarts, his posted notes, the text and the homework you have plenty of resources.
Peter Coughlin ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2018	Boring but you'll know the material. Tempting to skip, but go to class
Peter Coughlin ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/24/2016	Professor Coughlin has to be the most considerate professor I've had besides from Verma (ECON230). He structures the first half of the course going over key micro principles. The latter half, he skips around in the book covering topics in a more logical order. Trust me, if you study in the order he teaches them, the information flows better. He'll also set aside time to cover larger topics such as public choice, game theory etc. This actually help you gage what's interesting/clicking in your head and you can go on to register for those specific respective classes at the 400 level. He has 2 midterms, 1 final, and weekly Aplia hw - no discussion/clicker/attendance stuff. The material he covers in class is directly from the book just in detail with lengthy run-through explanations. The exams and hw are TRICKY but DOABLE. Make sure you know the concepts well and HOW TO APPLY THEM! I think he drops one hw but they are freebie points anyways since the answers are often available online. Before each exam, he has TAs set up review sessions to go over concepts and last minute questions we all have. The TAs are all very knowledgable. Svetlana is the best at explaining concepts, Prateik is best for the game theory chapter, Hao will give you the most straight forward answers to the math application problems. When the grades come out for each class, he likes to run stat models on them and use a regression model to make the class average around 80. This means you could potentially get a 60% and be bumped up to 75% depending on the respective curve. It really helps those that are towards the bottom but not so much so those that do well to begin with. IN THE END: Go to class, ask questions, put in a decent effort and it's not hard to walk away with a B!
Peter Coughlin ECON306 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/16/2016	This is my second time having Coughlin and he has been a horrible lecturer each time. He always seems nervous and is undeservedly rude to his TAs. Lectures are dry and the material covered in them is easy theory and straight from the book. Definitely buy the book. The homework questions and exams are difficult - much more in-depth and complicated than any of the lectures. Don't worry about going to class. Just read the chapters and do all of the homework questions yourself - even though you can find the answers to basically all of them on CourseHero.
Peter Coughlin ECON306 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 06/02/2014	Dr. Coughlin is a nice person, but he really doesn't teach the material well for this class. The hw doesn't really relate to what we learn in class. I didn't miss a single class and still did badly on the exams, except for the first one. I had him for 200, and I think he was better at teaching that material than this one. I wouldn't recommend this class, Dr. Coughlin really did not teach the material well. And it's kind of annoying how he uses the projector and the computer at the same time. The notes just kind of become very disorganized.
Charles Hulten ECON306 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2013	Really depends what youre looking for in an econ class. Attendance not required (its used if you're between grades. 3 exams are all that determine your grade. Exams are 85% from the problem sets he posts online. Powerpoints posted online. So if you want to go to a class 3 times a semester and still get an A, this is for you. On the other hand if you want a real teacher this guy is hands down the worst. Dyslexic (really annoying when his test questions need editing), mumbles, makes class really tough to pay attention in. No class interaction just powerpoints and mumbling. For a business student that doesn't care about economics this was a perfect class for me.
Charles Hulten ECON306 Expecting an A aoiara 04/29/2013	I rarely ever review professors. But this guy is special. I wanted to wait until the CourseEval came up so I could give him a scathing report. Hulten is the worst professor I've ever had in my entire life. It baffles me that people are giving him higher star ratings. I'll tell you now: I rate professors not based on how easy the class is, but based on how good the professor is. If the professor sucks, but I still get an A, the professor will get a low report. If the professor is amazing, but I get a B, the professor will get a fantastic report. That being said, Hulten is horrendous. Here's why: 1) His class is extremely boring. There's a reason why no one goes to his class. When you go, he spends the hour muttering off, and there's absolutely no way to hear him. You can sit right next to him and he'd still sound like one of those grumpy old men. 2) He is not interested in helping his students. His office hours are extremely inaccessible, especially if you have schedule conflicts. He does not agree to meet you anywhere outside of his walk in hours. He says he's "too busy." If you ask him a question regarding the class material, he will tell you to ask the TA. The only time he would talk to you is if you had a question regarding the class itself, not the material. Such as what the grade curve is. 3) I don't know why, but he didn't give any homework or quizzes or anything. The three grades you have are the three exams. You have nothing to boost your grades. 4) He doesn't post the grades online. He takes 5 to 7 days to post up freaking exam answers, which can easily be posted up an hour after the exam like most professors do. He then just leaves ELMS completely empty. There's not a single grade in there, and it's already May. I don't know the class curve, and I am not 100% sure of my own grade. What if I changed an answer or accidentally filled something wrong? I'd never know. He apparently curves the class based on the class's performance. Too bad we never know the class's performance. 5) The powerpoints are useless. He literally changes letters/symbols for the same variable. For example, when he says "change in X," he sometimes writes it as dX (which, by the way, is normally the symbol for the derivative of X), and then sometimes he writes it as lower case delta X. Why not just triangle delta X? Baffles me really. 6) He puts in completely random abbreviations and terms. You will NOT know what they mean. He puts everything in equation form. For a class like econ, that's not beneficial. For example, he randomly put on the letters "VRTS" in one of his powerpoints. No other mention of it anywhere else. Just VRTS. What the hell is VRTS? I made a guess, but I'm still not absolutely sure. Googling it? I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean Virtus Investment Partners. 6) There are literally three practice set problems available for us for the midterm. You would not be able to understand how to do these practice problems by looking at the powerpoint. I had to google how to do these questions. I had to youtube search some random microeconomic teachers in order to understand some concepts. Yeah that's right, I actually had to find teachers outside of Hulten in order to learn the material that Hulten should teach himself. 7) He is absolutely inept. Usually, even if a professor is bad (such as Pfieffer), I still admit that they are very smart or passionate individuals who understand the material completely. But Hulten simply does not care. You ask him why German markets are so inept, he answers "because they have strange work hours." The hell does that have to do with this course? I would accept this class a lot more if there were just homeworks, quizzes, or some kind of practice material that isn't the practice sets. The practice sets do help in the exams, and doing the practice sets will guarantee you to get most of the questions correct. However, the exams are 40 questions. The practice set might help with 30. If you are content with getting a C in every exam, that's all you have to do. I wanted an A in every exam, meaning I could only get 2 questions wrong per exam. Two. There are at least 5 to 10 questions on the exam that come out of absolutely nowhere. Oh, and DO NOT BUY THE BOOK. He teaches maybe 1/3 of every chapter. All the book does is slightly clarify the points. You can easily get the same clarification using google. I don't know why he skipped over so much material. 1 star is too much. 0 stars need to be made available.
Satyendra Verma ECON306 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/16/2012	Verma is by far the worst professor I have ever had at the University of Maryland. For our ECON306 course, he did not use slides and only wrote on the chalkboard (with illegible handwriting) for the entire lecture. Also, the only thing he will post on blackboard to study off of is handwritten notes that do not make any sense and require detailed explanation. His tests are absurd as well. Avoid taking this class with this professor at all costs.
Charles Hulten ECON306 Expecting an A ledz713 05/15/2012	There's not much to really say here. The dude can't teach. At all. I haven't gone to class since the second week, have a 90 average, and might very well get a B only because I was way too lazy to hand in the homeworks. Point is, take the class, but don't expect to learn, and do expect to spend about an hour every two weeks doing the homeworks. Oh, and studying a little bit. A few hours most.
Charles Hulten ECON306 Anonymous 04/09/2012	He lecture is boring, but he is knowledgable. He doesn't take attendance. There are 6 homework, two midterm, and a final.
Charles Hulten ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2011	While Hulten's teaching style is not super helpful, the class is not too bad. ECON 306 is definitely a class where teaching yourself will really help. If econ comes somewhat naturally to you, to do well in the class all you have to do is memorize/understand his PPT slides and then look up anything you don't understand in the book. If econ does not come naturally to you, read the chapters and look through the PPTs. For tests, Hulten gives the best advice: look at each slide and think about the purpose of the slide and the questions that he could ask you about it. Though the most important thing for this class is making sure you UNDERSTAND the material and it MAKES SENSE to you. If you just memorize it with no rationalization, the tests will be harder than they need to be.
Charles Hulten ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2011	Definitely not great. He is very dry, and while he definitely knows his subject, he is not great at keeping class interesting and lecture attendance drops to 15% by week 7. He tells you the first day that you don't have to come. The material isn't that much different than ECON200 and while they show you some calculus, you don't need it. 6 online quizzes, lowest gets dropped. they start out easy and get pretty tough at the end. He provides problem sets before the quizzes which are very similar, so make sure you pay attention to those. 2 midterms and a final. They are very similar to old exams and problem sets, so not that tough. Scales the class against your peers, so if you beat the curve, you'll be fine.
Charles Hulten ECON306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/11/2011	I understand that ECON is a tough class to teach and that students will never be very interested in it, but you have to do SOMETHING to try to get them involved. He drones on monotonously for an hour and 15 minutes to the point where you can't listen to him. My suggestion is to learn from the textbook and use the quizzes to practice.
Charles Hulten ECON306 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/09/2011	If I somehow was not accepted into the Smith School, my last choice would have been majoring in Economics, and this class solidified this. I have never experienced such an inefficient, ineffective, and generally incompetent teaching style as ECON306 with Professor Hulten. To myself and most students I have spoken to, I have gathered that he is highly disliked for several reasons: First, his lectures are incredibly boring. Over the course of the semester, you would have thought the class came down with a case of SARS, only to miraculously return to the class when an exam was scheduled. Second, the TA’s were very ineffective when he was out with a sickness. When several students asked for practice problems, the answer was simply, “We don’t have enough time.” Are you kidding me? What kind of teacher/TA deliberately doesn’t want their students to learn the material by practicing? None of the lectures included problems that we would see during exams, which made studying very difficult. This leads me to my third reason; the slides presented in class were very different from the ones put on ELMS. On many occasions, slides were missing or completely different from the ones online. This made it extremely difficult to study for quizzes and tests, since the material simply wasn’t there. When quiz answers were posted, they were simply answers. No work was shown, god forbid you get a question wrong and not know how to figure it out when it comes time for a test. I understand that economics is a part of business...if a professor who actually could relay the information to the students in the class taught it. Professor Charles Hulten, in my opinion, has been the worst teacher in my 4 semesters here at the University of Maryland. Not just because he teaches a class that is incredibly boring and monotonous, but his overall demeanor during class. His voice was only audible if you sat within 11 inches from him or had incredible, supernatural hearing, and even then you could not hear his mumbling even with the aid of a microphone. Yes, I understand that he was out for a good month due to illness, but before his illness and after his illness, it seemed as though he was only teaching for the sake of teaching. Obviously, he has a great understanding of the subject, otherwise he wouldn't be teaching here. However, on one occasion, I emailed him twice and received no response. The matter at hand was a question on a problem set that is ungraded. After not returning my emails, I went to his office hours and explained the problem and asked for some help on the solution and to get a better understanding of the material. His response was simply, "Go ask the TAs." What type of “distinguished” professor denies a student the right to come to office hours to receive assistance and just turns him/her away without a valid reason? This is simply absurd. I have attended every single class and have learned absolutely nothing. Many students I have talked to in the class feel the same way and this is terrible. As a student, I feel as though you should learn at least ONE piece of information that you can use in the future, and this class nullified that theory with ease. To be honest, it really pisses me off that the University of Maryland would continue to employ such incompetent people to teach such an important course. Failure to give practice problems (seriously, how hard is it to put together 10-12 problems for each chapter) and blaming it on “not enough time” was the worst excuse I’ve ever heard in my entire life. How can you try to teach a class if there are no examples to base studying off of? If you don’t want to give practice to your students, then go teach at a community college where students don’t care at all, because here I know for a fact students want the best education and actually learn topics discussed in class.
Charles Hulten ECON306 Anonymous 04/02/2010	The business school keeps getting better and better! First Karen Gold, now this. He won't answer questions, responding that "the TAs will go over it in discussion." TAs don't give a crap and hurry through discussion trying to avoid answering questions, cus, you know, they have more important things to do. Waste of money and time. Don't go to class and teach yourself, you'll do better than if you go to class.
Peter Coughlin ECON306 Expecting a B toypajme 12/14/2009	Aplia is annoying as everyone said. The exams are 30 questions or so multiple choice and the average is around an 80 normally. He tries to make the class interesting but doesn't (as most of the econ department). He does test on things not completely explained which sucks. As with most UMD econ courses, some of the questions on the tests come out of left field and you have no idea how to do them. You just roll with the punches
Peter Coughlin ECON306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/16/2009	It sounds like this class has changed. There was no discussion, Coughlin taught everything in lecture. The Aplia homework can be annoying, but it's really not very difficult. You will see some of the homework problems on exams, so understand them. The exams were pretty fair, but a lot of the questions come from lectures, so it might be helpful to attend them. A lot of the concepts he teaches are theory, yet the exams seem to have a good bit of algebraic/numerical problems. He doesn't really go through too many of these, but they were on the exams. Overall, Coughlin isn't such a bad professor, but his exams can be tricky. It's pretty difficult to get an A, but the top 50% or so should get at least a B.
Charles Hulten ECON306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/07/2009	Worst teacher and TAs Ive ever had. Hulten could give a crap about any of his students. None of the students seemed to understand anything he was saying and everyone just stopped showing up. It took him and his TAs weeks to post the answer keys to the tests and the grades. Overall, dont expect to learn anything in his class.
Peter Coughlin ECON306 Expecting a B tulch 04/10/2009	Professor Coughlin wasn't that bad, I can't say that I enjoyed the class, but it wasn't miserable. The book is more helpful than lecture. He makes corny jokes/shows corny comics in class, but I thought it was sort of endearing. Don't make the mistake that I made and think that there won't be a lot of questions about game theory on the final, it's what dropped me to a B from a 93%.
Peter Coughlin ECON306 Expecting an A natashkamd 12/23/2008	I hated his class. His lectures are useless, his exams are hard, his voice quite irritating (he sounds like Gilbert Gottfried), korny econ jokes and comics. 2 exams and a cumulative final. Hard to get an A. Some questions are ambiguous including computation problems. Note that he never mentions problems during lecture nor does he explain how to do them. Aplia homeworks are mostly stupid and unrelated. The only suggestion that I can give is read the book to do well on the theory questions and understand how to do the ADDITIONAL GRADED SET problems (only these types of problems are on the exams, not the regular sets). Problems require some basic knowledge of calculus. Don’t even bother going to class. I showed up once in a while just to feel good about myself for not attending class. His lectures are truly just confusing you more. I got an A, his curve on the 2nd and final exam helped.
Peter Coughlin ECON306 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/14/2008	Coughlin is a good guy. His class is difficult but an A is easy if you keep up with the homeworks. Do the homework, understand it, and you'll get an A
Peter Coughlin ECON306 Anonymous 08/22/2008	All i gotta say is DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR! he does not get the class involved..and any questions during the lecture are strictly discouraged! Discussion is taught by TA and you'd be very lucky to get a "good" TA who can actually answer your questions. Tests are very HARD and full of ambiguous questions. rest is on you..
Peter Coughlin ECON306 ecdysis7 06/09/2008	Not a great professor but not a terrible one. Lecture was not mandatory, although you probably will want to attend your discussion section. Aplia was worth 25% of the grade. While the tests were hard, you were allowed to bring a page of notes. I'd advise taking the class with someone else, but Coughlin isn't the worst professor in the economics department.

Andrea Vilchez
ECON306

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/24/2024

I appreciated the discussion sections and the dedicated time they gave to help with the work we have. She was good at helping me come to understand certain topics on my own without her completely explaining it.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/16/2024

Dr. Finkle is a quirky and chill guy. He does class in person but also live zooms the lectures which is nice. He also brings his dog to class! Dont worry about the online hws and quizzes because they are much harder than the exams just do them because they will boost your grade. The weekly worksheets are the most similar to exam questions. Overall the class is really not that hard just tedious, but if you study for exams you'll do well. He gives you everything you need to pass.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/13/2024

Finkle is a really good professor! He teaches the concepts well and provides a lot of review material for all the exams. I personally really liked the class and learned a lot.

Lixi Wang
ECON306

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/27/2024

Lixi is a great instructor, he was able to teach 15 week material in just 3 weeks (winter term) and honestly I couldn't have asked for a better instructor to take this class with. He always gives students the opportunity to ask questions whether they're unsure about the material and he'll gladly explain the material to you in detail. He also has office hours in which I highly recommend to attend. He knows ECON306 is a difficult class so he does provide generous curves to the exams and an extra credit assignment that wasn't difficult at all. Take econ 306 with him, you literally won't regret!!!

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/21/2023

Finkle is a really straightforward and fair teacher who won't waste your time at all. Just show up to lecture, and every once in a while try to do a problem that he goes through in class, and you should be set (if you are comfortable with calculus and intro econ concepts). You can ignore the textbook to intermediate macro, hop into the homework problems that he assigns on Pearson, and just grind the course out by practicing those. Also, Dr. Finkle makes studying very easy, as he posts past exams along with answer keys which essentially mimic what is on the actual exam. Overall, ECON306 is an extremely well-structured class that makes it easy to understand the entire course as long as you are willing to put in the work.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/19/2023

Professor Finkle was very straightforward in his lectures to teach us how to do the practice problems we would see on the exams. I like econ so I showed up to all of his lectures but you don't have to since he posts supplemental videos and records the lectures. The pearson homework and quizzes were very time consuming and definitely the most annoying part of the class. The exams were exactly what you would expect since he posts practice questions and practice exams for you to study with and they were always almost identical to the exam you would receive. I didn't do as well as I would have liked on the exams because of the amount of open ended questions. I would know how to do the problem but would make one mistake along the way and then receive 0 credit since he doesn't look at your work or give partial credit. You definitely need to put effort into this class to do well on the exams, since the curve was usually only 1-3%.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/16/2023

This is one of the easiest classes I’ve taken - as long as you pay attention in lecture and do the practice exams, you’ll be set. The homework takes about 4 hours a week but it’s pretty helpful when it comes to exams. Professor Finkle explains the concepts very clearly and doesn’t put hard questions on exams.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/13/2023

I think the most difficult part of this class is the course load. You will have an online Homework and Quiz weekly (that sometimes take hours), on top of a Worksheet, completing the readings, and showing up to class. However, I truly believe that if you put in this work you can succeed in the class. Professor Finkle makes his exams very similar to the practice exams you are given. As long as you understand how to do the math, and you understand the concepts that he had gone over, then you should be able to apply them to the exams and do well. I believe the class was graded fairly.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/11/2023

The course is a lot of work considering its required for all business majors. It feels like a lot of busy work because the homework is very long. Also, he does not do partial credit on his exams but they are also very similar to his practice exams. He have a nervous energy when he teaches but seems knowledgeable.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/08/2023

Dude honestly makes the class 100x harder than it needs to be...if you can teach yourself the material, you'll be much better off. On the exam topics and questions document, he often has typos which just confuse students even more. He barely has basic business knowledge to the point where I think he is confusing himself. I honestly felt bad for him at some points in the semester and thought he kept drawing graphs so he could confuse students so he didn't look like he was the idiot.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a B
Anonymous
09/25/2023

Literally so much busy work I would spend 10 hours a week just doing HW, quizzes and worksheets. You have to be tight with the TA's to do well or else you will lose easy points on assignments. The exams are hard. partial credit did not exist and each question was worth so much. He goes so fast in lecture and really uses his ipad, so if you do not have one, good luck! 3 times a week is brutal also.

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting a C
Anonymous
08/23/2023

Im giving him a five stars because I quite literally failed my first exam 6/25. Then got a decent score on final. He is pretty aware of students failing and tries not to do it, and I think out of kindness he did not fail me and curved me up.

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/22/2023

Agree with all the previous reviews. This is probably a really good professor if you are smart since he really does not care about making the exams challenging. The exams were open note 24 hours and problem sets were graded very leniently. Im talking like if you got a few questions wrong it would still be 10/10 on the problem sets. The curve was very generous. Will agree with other students and say he is oftentimes confused at the material but to be honest, the pearson slides are trash and you do not need to buy the textbook nor look at the slides to succeed in this class with a high score. 100% take him over Aaron Finkle who has a horrible GPA avg.

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/22/2023

For his first time teaching, it was sometimes confusing in lecture, but that really doesn't matter because the problem sets + exams he gives you are his "version" of what he thinks is good material in intermediate economics. This is great because you can refer to the practice problems in canvas files which are identical to what he tests you on. CONS: Absolutely horrific at replying to emails. He probably sees them but since he gets so many, he is too lazy to even respond to a single one probably unless it is super important.

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/22/2023

He gives you all the resources for you to do well. The exams are 24 hours and yes some questions may be challenging, but if you refer to the slides or practice problems he gives in class, you will notice they are the same thing. Would 100% recommend since the other teacher has a pretty bad grade distribution.

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
08/20/2023

Great professor. This was his first time teaching the class which is something you should always consider signing up for when it comes to first year professors. Yes, the previous reviews said he had no clue sometimes (which is understandable he is a first year professor) which is part of the reason which made this class super easy for me. I ended the class with a very high raw score but to my knowledge the cutoff for an A was around a low B raw score. The exams were identical to the practice problems he gave in class and each exam was open note and 24 hours open. The exam questions can be found through practice problems and just Ctrl+F the slides for the information about it. Very relaxed professor and pretty fair, just kinda new to teaching so I will excuse him on this part. Anyone who complains about this professor 100% guaranteed skipped lecture, didn't use their resources, or lacked common sense because this was the freest A compared to the other professor and GPA average for this class.

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting a B
Anonymous
08/19/2023

Preaty good teacher. You just have to review your notes. He definitely gives you the tools to succeed.

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/19/2023

His tests are pretty much identical to the practice problems he writes up and shows in class. It seems like he is pretty fair in his exams, although the averages are like 50% for each one. This is due to students not utilizing their resources as the exams are literally free. Problem sets are also graded very easy and at least 25% of the class gets an A with the curve.

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
08/18/2023

Not the greatest. He oftentimes is confused on the lecture material and always throws a really confusing hard question on the exams everytime. If you are super smart sure I guess this class is good for you but even with 24 hours on the exam, its pretty difficult

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/18/2023

Pros: His tests are 24 hour online and you can use notes and search the web. Problem sets are graded very liniently, free 100% if you ask him about it in office hours Cons: Does not check email, sometimes confused in lecture, and the calss is only problemsets and exams. There is no defined grade distribution so your grade depends on how smart or dumb your classmates are

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
08/10/2023

Not the best teacher. Was often confused about the lecture slides and took time to get himself together. Was a new professor but clearly is unprepared and unwilling to communicate with students. It seemed like he did not even want to teach the class at times.

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
08/10/2023

Harsh grader, exam averages were 12/25 each test.

William Le Roy
ECON306

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
08/08/2023

Course has no grade distribution. Grade depends on how well the class does. The class is pretty free if you are a math major. It is general math such as slope, derivatives, and algebraic expressions and the exams were exactly the same as his examples in class. Furthermore, the answers could be found by just Ctrl+F the topic from the question. The summer session was easy af. He let us have 24+ hours for each exam.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/19/2023

Overall this class wasn't that bad. Professor Finkle would go through the notes in a way that was generally easy to grasp and the homework, while annoying, matched what was covered in class. The weekly worksheets were also extremely helpful because we got to ask the TA's questions and the questions were worded similarly to the exams. The classes are short (50 mins) so he occasionally had to send supplemental videos which were annoying but it was overall doable. I also appreciated that he recorded the lectures.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a D
Anonymous
05/16/2023

Literally rushes through practice examples in class. TA's are the ones you're mostly gonna be reaching out to for help. You'll spend so much time doing the homework and quizzes. Practice exams are literally nothing like the actual exams. I would attend class, rewatch lectures if I needed to and study 1 week prior to exams and still got horrible test grades. I wouldn't bother if I were you. Should've dropped when I had the chance.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
05/08/2023

Dr. Finkle is very kind and approachable but his explanations of the material were not all that helpful. I found the homeworks and quizzes to be unnecessarily difficult and not closely related to the exams. The exams were difficult only because they had questions where the numbers built off each other and no opportunities for partial credit. This is certainly a good class to take if you need the upper level econ requirement, but I would not say its enjoyable.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/15/2022

I don't understand why Professor Finkle is receiving such bad ratings, especially this semester. He is a kind and interesting professor, gives ample time to ask questions regarding material, and the homework is nowhere near 10 hours a week, 4 hours at most. The practice exams are fair and give you an idea of what concepts will be on the exams, but like most teachers, it is not enough to simply do the practice exams and expect to do well on exams. 306 is overall not a hard class, go to lectures, do the work on time, and study for exams and you should be more than fine.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a D-
Anonymous
12/12/2022

So bad I literally had to drop the class

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
12/12/2022

Teaching style is not the best, and the practice exams do not really help in comparison to the real exams. He's a great professor to some, and a not so great professor to others. I happened to fall in the bunch that cannot learn effectively with his teaching style. Homework assignments are weighted equally to the first three exams, and the final exam is optional. You generally do not have to do extremely well on the exams to pass the class, but again, do not go in expecting the exams to be easy just because the practice exams were.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/11/2022

Finkle isn't the best professor in the world, but he's also not the worst. Econ is already a hard subject and he does an okay job of trying to explain concepts. He spends a lot of time drawing graphs and jumping around, but what you really need to pay attention to are the examples he goes over and the weekly worksheets. There is a good amount of hw in this class that is very unnecessary but is normal for an econ class. I would make sure to come to class on Fridays so you can get help/concepts explained to you by the TAs or Finkle himself. My advice is to try and understand concepts before exams so you're not trying to learn everything last minute. His exams are somewhat similar to past exams and worksheets, so make sure you understand them.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
11/02/2022

Terrible teaching style and his practice exams are all so easy, wait til u get the real exam.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/29/2022

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. With three weeks left in the semester, Finkle realized that our grades were not weighted correctly in ELMS and changed all of them shifting my grade by 7%. I dropped from a 93% to an 86%. Ridiculous and irresponsible. He’s a good professor who knows how to teach but this oversight was so bad and costed me so much.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/13/2021

Economics is a HARD subject. With that in mind, Professor Finkle was probably the best professor I could have gotten to teach it. His exams are very similar to what he covers in class. Attendance and reading the textbook is optional, but it will be very hard to do well without doing both. Grading is also fair and offers curves if necessary. It is very clear that Prof. Finkle understands what he is teaching, and conveys the material well with lots of examples to try and make it easier for those who don't understand.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/15/2021

Only parts of the syllabus were published at a time so the exam schedule was unknown. The class was difficult online but there were a lot of assignments, three midterm exams, and an optional final exam so one grade did not make or break anything. Also, the TAs were unhelpful.

Satyendra Verma
ECON306

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/12/2020

I am taking this class online Fall 2020 semester. His class is very difficult to follow. His lectures seem very rambling and his handwriting is difficult to decipher. Often, he has technology problems. The reason for my high rating and expected course grade is because he curves and listens to students recommendations. His teaching style is not preferable. However, the class is passable with a decent grade.

Satyendra Verma
ECON306

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/23/2019

This man is a horrible teacher. I took Neri for ECON201 and Verma makes me miss him. He goes too fast because he handwrites his notes instead of using Powerpoints and there are no whiteboards in the front. Additionally, his handwriting sucks. If you have to take him, make sure you go to class. Even though it will feel like a waste of time, he says things he does not include in the handouts he uploads to ELMS. I think I failed two out of the four exams we took in this class. The only reason why I am passing is because of all the extra points and curves he has given.

Aaron Finkle
ECON306

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/20/2019

I really suggest Aaron Finkle for anyone who needs an UL Econ class. Econ isn't an easy subject, so I still wouldn't say he's an easy A but he's probably the best shot you have at getting one. You can tell he really knows what he's talking about and he communicates it well. Class does get boring but every huge lecture does (and you don't even need to go to every class). Most topics are manageable to teach yourself, between the Learnsmarts, his posted notes, the text and the homework you have plenty of resources.

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/16/2018

Boring but you'll know the material. Tempting to skip, but go to class

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
07/24/2016

Professor Coughlin has to be the most considerate professor I've had besides from Verma (ECON230). He structures the first half of the course going over key micro principles. The latter half, he skips around in the book covering topics in a more logical order. Trust me, if you study in the order he teaches them, the information flows better. He'll also set aside time to cover larger topics such as public choice, game theory etc. This actually help you gage what's interesting/clicking in your head and you can go on to register for those specific respective classes at the 400 level. He has 2 midterms, 1 final, and weekly Aplia hw - no discussion/clicker/attendance stuff. The material he covers in class is directly from the book just in detail with lengthy run-through explanations. The exams and hw are TRICKY but DOABLE. Make sure you know the concepts well and HOW TO APPLY THEM! I think he drops one hw but they are freebie points anyways since the answers are often available online. Before each exam, he has TAs set up review sessions to go over concepts and last minute questions we all have. The TAs are all very knowledgable. Svetlana is the best at explaining concepts, Prateik is best for the game theory chapter, Hao will give you the most straight forward answers to the math application problems. When the grades come out for each class, he likes to run stat models on them and use a regression model to make the class average around 80. This means you could potentially get a 60% and be bumped up to 75% depending on the respective curve. It really helps those that are towards the bottom but not so much so those that do well to begin with. IN THE END: Go to class, ask questions, put in a decent effort and it's not hard to walk away with a B!

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/16/2016

This is my second time having Coughlin and he has been a horrible lecturer each time. He always seems nervous and is undeservedly rude to his TAs. Lectures are dry and the material covered in them is easy theory and straight from the book. Definitely buy the book. The homework questions and exams are difficult - much more in-depth and complicated than any of the lectures. Don't worry about going to class. Just read the chapters and do all of the homework questions yourself - even though you can find the answers to basically all of them on CourseHero.

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
06/02/2014

Dr. Coughlin is a nice person, but he really doesn't teach the material well for this class. The hw doesn't really relate to what we learn in class. I didn't miss a single class and still did badly on the exams, except for the first one. I had him for 200, and I think he was better at teaching that material than this one. I wouldn't recommend this class, Dr. Coughlin really did not teach the material well. And it's kind of annoying how he uses the projector and the computer at the same time. The notes just kind of become very disorganized.

Charles Hulten
ECON306

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/19/2013

Really depends what youre looking for in an econ class. Attendance not required (its used if you're between grades. 3 exams are all that determine your grade. Exams are 85% from the problem sets he posts online. Powerpoints posted online. So if you want to go to a class 3 times a semester and still get an A, this is for you. On the other hand if you want a real teacher this guy is hands down the worst. Dyslexic (really annoying when his test questions need editing), mumbles, makes class really tough to pay attention in. No class interaction just powerpoints and mumbling. For a business student that doesn't care about economics this was a perfect class for me.

Charles Hulten
ECON306

Expecting an A
aoiara
04/29/2013

I rarely ever review professors. But this guy is special. I wanted to wait until the CourseEval came up so I could give him a scathing report. Hulten is the worst professor I've ever had in my entire life. It baffles me that people are giving him higher star ratings. I'll tell you now: I rate professors not based on how easy the class is, but based on how good the professor is. If the professor sucks, but I still get an A, the professor will get a low report. If the professor is amazing, but I get a B, the professor will get a fantastic report. That being said, Hulten is horrendous. Here's why: 1) His class is extremely boring. There's a reason why no one goes to his class. When you go, he spends the hour muttering off, and there's absolutely no way to hear him. You can sit right next to him and he'd still sound like one of those grumpy old men. 2) He is not interested in helping his students. His office hours are extremely inaccessible, especially if you have schedule conflicts. He does not agree to meet you anywhere outside of his walk in hours. He says he's "too busy." If you ask him a question regarding the class material, he will tell you to ask the TA. The only time he would talk to you is if you had a question regarding the class itself, not the material. Such as what the grade curve is. 3) I don't know why, but he didn't give any homework or quizzes or anything. The three grades you have are the three exams. You have nothing to boost your grades. 4) He doesn't post the grades online. He takes 5 to 7 days to post up freaking exam answers, which can easily be posted up an hour after the exam like most professors do. He then just leaves ELMS completely empty. There's not a single grade in there, and it's already May. I don't know the class curve, and I am not 100% sure of my own grade. What if I changed an answer or accidentally filled something wrong? I'd never know. He apparently curves the class based on the class's performance. Too bad we never know the class's performance. 5) The powerpoints are useless. He literally changes letters/symbols for the same variable. For example, when he says "change in X," he sometimes writes it as dX (which, by the way, is normally the symbol for the derivative of X), and then sometimes he writes it as lower case delta X. Why not just triangle delta X? Baffles me really. 6) He puts in completely random abbreviations and terms. You will NOT know what they mean. He puts everything in equation form. For a class like econ, that's not beneficial. For example, he randomly put on the letters "VRTS" in one of his powerpoints. No other mention of it anywhere else. Just VRTS. What the hell is VRTS? I made a guess, but I'm still not absolutely sure. Googling it? I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean Virtus Investment Partners. 6) There are literally three practice set problems available for us for the midterm. You would not be able to understand how to do these practice problems by looking at the powerpoint. I had to google how to do these questions. I had to youtube search some random microeconomic teachers in order to understand some concepts. Yeah that's right, I actually had to find teachers outside of Hulten in order to learn the material that Hulten should teach himself. 7) He is absolutely inept. Usually, even if a professor is bad (such as Pfieffer), I still admit that they are very smart or passionate individuals who understand the material completely. But Hulten simply does not care. You ask him why German markets are so inept, he answers "because they have strange work hours." The hell does that have to do with this course? I would accept this class a lot more if there were just homeworks, quizzes, or some kind of practice material that isn't the practice sets. The practice sets do help in the exams, and doing the practice sets will guarantee you to get most of the questions correct. However, the exams are 40 questions. The practice set might help with 30. If you are content with getting a C in every exam, that's all you have to do. I wanted an A in every exam, meaning I could only get 2 questions wrong per exam. Two. There are at least 5 to 10 questions on the exam that come out of absolutely nowhere. Oh, and DO NOT BUY THE BOOK. He teaches maybe 1/3 of every chapter. All the book does is slightly clarify the points. You can easily get the same clarification using google. I don't know why he skipped over so much material. 1 star is too much. 0 stars need to be made available.

Satyendra Verma
ECON306

Expecting a C
Anonymous
12/16/2012

Verma is by far the worst professor I have ever had at the University of Maryland. For our ECON306 course, he did not use slides and only wrote on the chalkboard (with illegible handwriting) for the entire lecture. Also, the only thing he will post on blackboard to study off of is handwritten notes that do not make any sense and require detailed explanation. His tests are absurd as well. Avoid taking this class with this professor at all costs.

Charles Hulten
ECON306

Expecting an A
ledz713
05/15/2012

There's not much to really say here. The dude can't teach. At all. I haven't gone to class since the second week, have a 90 average, and might very well get a B only because I was way too lazy to hand in the homeworks. Point is, take the class, but don't expect to learn, and do expect to spend about an hour every two weeks doing the homeworks. Oh, and studying a little bit. A few hours most.

Charles Hulten
ECON306

Anonymous
04/09/2012

He lecture is boring, but he is knowledgable. He doesn't take attendance. There are 6 homework, two midterm, and a final.

Charles Hulten
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/20/2011

While Hulten's teaching style is not super helpful, the class is not too bad. ECON 306 is definitely a class where teaching yourself will really help. If econ comes somewhat naturally to you, to do well in the class all you have to do is memorize/understand his PPT slides and then look up anything you don't understand in the book. If econ does not come naturally to you, read the chapters and look through the PPTs. For tests, Hulten gives the best advice: look at each slide and think about the purpose of the slide and the questions that he could ask you about it. Though the most important thing for this class is making sure you UNDERSTAND the material and it MAKES SENSE to you. If you just memorize it with no rationalization, the tests will be harder than they need to be.

Charles Hulten
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/16/2011

Definitely not great. He is very dry, and while he definitely knows his subject, he is not great at keeping class interesting and lecture attendance drops to 15% by week 7. He tells you the first day that you don't have to come. The material isn't that much different than ECON200 and while they show you some calculus, you don't need it. 6 online quizzes, lowest gets dropped. they start out easy and get pretty tough at the end. He provides problem sets before the quizzes which are very similar, so make sure you pay attention to those. 2 midterms and a final. They are very similar to old exams and problem sets, so not that tough. Scales the class against your peers, so if you beat the curve, you'll be fine.

Charles Hulten
ECON306

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/11/2011

I understand that ECON is a tough class to teach and that students will never be very interested in it, but you have to do SOMETHING to try to get them involved. He drones on monotonously for an hour and 15 minutes to the point where you can't listen to him. My suggestion is to learn from the textbook and use the quizzes to practice.

Charles Hulten
ECON306

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/09/2011

If I somehow was not accepted into the Smith School, my last choice would have been majoring in Economics, and this class solidified this. I have never experienced such an inefficient, ineffective, and generally incompetent teaching style as ECON306 with Professor Hulten. To myself and most students I have spoken to, I have gathered that he is highly disliked for several reasons: First, his lectures are incredibly boring. Over the course of the semester, you would have thought the class came down with a case of SARS, only to miraculously return to the class when an exam was scheduled. Second, the TA’s were very ineffective when he was out with a sickness. When several students asked for practice problems, the answer was simply, “We don’t have enough time.” Are you kidding me? What kind of teacher/TA deliberately doesn’t want their students to learn the material by practicing? None of the lectures included problems that we would see during exams, which made studying very difficult. This leads me to my third reason; the slides presented in class were very different from the ones put on ELMS. On many occasions, slides were missing or completely different from the ones online. This made it extremely difficult to study for quizzes and tests, since the material simply wasn’t there. When quiz answers were posted, they were simply answers. No work was shown, god forbid you get a question wrong and not know how to figure it out when it comes time for a test. I understand that economics is a part of business...if a professor who actually could relay the information to the students in the class taught it. Professor Charles Hulten, in my opinion, has been the worst teacher in my 4 semesters here at the University of Maryland. Not just because he teaches a class that is incredibly boring and monotonous, but his overall demeanor during class. His voice was only audible if you sat within 11 inches from him or had incredible, supernatural hearing, and even then you could not hear his mumbling even with the aid of a microphone. Yes, I understand that he was out for a good month due to illness, but before his illness and after his illness, it seemed as though he was only teaching for the sake of teaching. Obviously, he has a great understanding of the subject, otherwise he wouldn't be teaching here. However, on one occasion, I emailed him twice and received no response. The matter at hand was a question on a problem set that is ungraded. After not returning my emails, I went to his office hours and explained the problem and asked for some help on the solution and to get a better understanding of the material. His response was simply, "Go ask the TAs." What type of “distinguished” professor denies a student the right to come to office hours to receive assistance and just turns him/her away without a valid reason? This is simply absurd. I have attended every single class and have learned absolutely nothing. Many students I have talked to in the class feel the same way and this is terrible. As a student, I feel as though you should learn at least ONE piece of information that you can use in the future, and this class nullified that theory with ease. To be honest, it really pisses me off that the University of Maryland would continue to employ such incompetent people to teach such an important course. Failure to give practice problems (seriously, how hard is it to put together 10-12 problems for each chapter) and blaming it on “not enough time” was the worst excuse I’ve ever heard in my entire life. How can you try to teach a class if there are no examples to base studying off of? If you don’t want to give practice to your students, then go teach at a community college where students don’t care at all, because here I know for a fact students want the best education and actually learn topics discussed in class.

Charles Hulten
ECON306

Anonymous
04/02/2010

The business school keeps getting better and better! First Karen Gold, now this. He won't answer questions, responding that "the TAs will go over it in discussion." TAs don't give a crap and hurry through discussion trying to avoid answering questions, cus, you know, they have more important things to do. Waste of money and time. Don't go to class and teach yourself, you'll do better than if you go to class.

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

Expecting a B
toypajme
12/14/2009

Aplia is annoying as everyone said. The exams are 30 questions or so multiple choice and the average is around an 80 normally. He tries to make the class interesting but doesn't (as most of the econ department). He does test on things not completely explained which sucks. As with most UMD econ courses, some of the questions on the tests come out of left field and you have no idea how to do them. You just roll with the punches

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
06/16/2009

It sounds like this class has changed. There was no discussion, Coughlin taught everything in lecture. The Aplia homework can be annoying, but it's really not very difficult. You will see some of the homework problems on exams, so understand them. The exams were pretty fair, but a lot of the questions come from lectures, so it might be helpful to attend them. A lot of the concepts he teaches are theory, yet the exams seem to have a good bit of algebraic/numerical problems. He doesn't really go through too many of these, but they were on the exams. Overall, Coughlin isn't such a bad professor, but his exams can be tricky. It's pretty difficult to get an A, but the top 50% or so should get at least a B.

Charles Hulten
ECON306

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/07/2009

Worst teacher and TAs Ive ever had. Hulten could give a crap about any of his students. None of the students seemed to understand anything he was saying and everyone just stopped showing up. It took him and his TAs weeks to post the answer keys to the tests and the grades. Overall, dont expect to learn anything in his class.

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

Expecting a B
tulch
04/10/2009

Professor Coughlin wasn't that bad, I can't say that I enjoyed the class, but it wasn't miserable. The book is more helpful than lecture. He makes corny jokes/shows corny comics in class, but I thought it was sort of endearing. Don't make the mistake that I made and think that there won't be a lot of questions about game theory on the final, it's what dropped me to a B from a 93%.

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

Expecting an A
natashkamd
12/23/2008

I hated his class. His lectures are useless, his exams are hard, his voice quite irritating (he sounds like Gilbert Gottfried), korny econ jokes and comics. 2 exams and a cumulative final. Hard to get an A. Some questions are ambiguous including computation problems. Note that he never mentions problems during lecture nor does he explain how to do them. Aplia homeworks are mostly stupid and unrelated. The only suggestion that I can give is read the book to do well on the theory questions and understand how to do the ADDITIONAL GRADED SET problems (only these types of problems are on the exams, not the regular sets). Problems require some basic knowledge of calculus. Don’t even bother going to class. I showed up once in a while just to feel good about myself for not attending class. His lectures are truly just confusing you more. I got an A, his curve on the 2nd and final exam helped.

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

Expecting an A
Anonymous
10/14/2008

Coughlin is a good guy. His class is difficult but an A is easy if you keep up with the homeworks. Do the homework, understand it, and you'll get an A

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

Anonymous
08/22/2008

All i gotta say is DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR! he does not get the class involved..and any questions during the lecture are strictly discouraged! Discussion is taught by TA and you'd be very lucky to get a "good" TA who can actually answer your questions. Tests are very HARD and full of ambiguous questions. rest is on you..

Peter Coughlin
ECON306

ecdysis7
06/09/2008

Not a great professor but not a terrible one. Lecture was not mandatory, although you probably will want to attend your discussion section. Aplia was worth 25% of the grade. While the tests were hard, you were allowed to bring a page of notes. I'd advise taking the class with someone else, but Coughlin isn't the worst professor in the economics department.

Reviews for ECON306