ECON454 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Daniel Reck ECON454 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/29/2023	Professor Reck's problem sets are lengthy and take time to complete. Make sure to start the problem set early so that you can submit on time. There are 6 problem sets, and he took the average on 5 problem sets for grade calculation. However, it's important to go to class to understand the material. Practice exams are fair and give an idea about the concepts of the exams. Grading system in the class is lenient and he gave generous curve for each exam. It's extremely easy to pass the course because of the generous curve. However, you have to put effort to get A in the course. Moreover, the empirical papers are interesting and class discussion on empirical paper help you to think and connect the empirical paper with the course concept. It is a useful course because you will be able to learn about tax, health insurance, pension through the implications of empirical papers.
Daniel Reck ECON454 Anonymous 12/03/2023	Problem sets are too lengthy and it's hard to finish the problem set. It's hard to finish the test on time due to time constraint.
Daniel Reck ECON454 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/30/2023	None of the hate here should be taken with credibility. This man is extremely kind and genuinely cares that his students understand the foundations of the material. He puts in effort to explain and walk through his thought process via demonstrations on the chalkboard and sheperding students towards additional resoruces to reference. If you are sturggling in his class, you either 1) aren't attending lectures or 2) not doing the problem sets. He sets you up for success and if you just show up for lecture you'll be completely fine in this class. (Looking at the previous reviews, I can tell that people aren't showing up and become overreliant on his admittingly old slides... I wouldn't recommend utilizing them for anything but additional refreshment on something as they aren't nearly as robust as his explanation in class). I would advise starting the problem sets earlier (they are quite lengthy, so aim to work on them in conjunction with the lecture). Genuinely, he is one of the best professors I've had and if you've taken any upper level Econ courses you'll reconize this class as relatively easy. For context: I literally just show up to lecture and do the problem sets and currently, I'm sitting pretty at a 99.17% in this class. I do not do additional work (occasionally I'll skim the textbook, but this is not necessary as the textbook provides more political context). You will succeed in this class if you do the work.
Daniel Reck ECON454 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/28/2023	I don't think he deserves the hate he gets from other reviews on here. Could he go a little bit more in depth for some of the concepts? Sure. But It's not a crazy amount of information to remember if you go to class and take notes. I would say this isn't far off from any other 300/400 level econ course you take. Brief explanations and head scratching problem sets are pretty par for Economics at UMD in my experience. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but Dr. Reck isn't any worse than the typical prof in the department.
Daniel Reck ECON454 Anonymous 11/01/2023	The class is extremely hard in terms of grade distribution. Exams are free response. and tons of information to remember. The slides and practice answers are brief description to understand the content. Eventually, this class gonna make a hit hard on gpa.
Daniel Reck ECON454 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/26/2022	Avoid his class as possible as you can, all problem set requires you tons of time to get it done, midterms and final are hard even though he curves the final grade. Overall, DOES NOT recommend this course AT ALL!
Daniel Reck ECON454 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/16/2022	D.Reck is okay. Class is definitely difficult, and as much as you want/like to comprehend it all, exams are pretty long (all free responses) and honestly, not many resources other than slides he made back when he was at Oxford. TAs were extremely unhelpful; you'd ask for a simple way to explain things and you'd get the same explanation from scholarly sources. FAT curve though. Maybe I'm just dumb.
Daniel Reck ECON454 Expecting a B- Anonymous 11/28/2022	AVOID him as possible as you can. All problem sets and exams are brief explanations and require you a lot of time to get them done. The lecture is hard and it requires you to remember tons of things The only thing I appreciate is he curved the exams
Daniel Reck ECON454 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/16/2022	I am an Econ, math, and finance triple major, and my GPA is 4.00, and I WOULD RECOMMEND YOU NOT TO TAKE THIS COURSE!
Charles Hulten ECON454 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/14/2013	100% of the review aoiara made for econ306 can be applied for econ454
Melissa Kearney ECON454 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/30/2012	One if, if not the, best teachers I've had at UMD. She cares a lot about the subject and is extremely knowledgeable. From what I gathered she is a pretty highly respected academic and has a bunch of papers out on various topics. Really wants her students to learn the material and to express interest in the subject. She also takes an interest in students' futures and is willing to talk and help with life in econ beyond college. On top of all that, Public Finance is a very interesting class and offers a ton of important information that every econ major should be familiar with. Extremely happy that I took this class and would recommend it to anyone.

Daniel Reck
ECON454

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/29/2023

Professor Reck's problem sets are lengthy and take time to complete. Make sure to start the problem set early so that you can submit on time. There are 6 problem sets, and he took the average on 5 problem sets for grade calculation. However, it's important to go to class to understand the material. Practice exams are fair and give an idea about the concepts of the exams. Grading system in the class is lenient and he gave generous curve for each exam. It's extremely easy to pass the course because of the generous curve. However, you have to put effort to get A in the course. Moreover, the empirical papers are interesting and class discussion on empirical paper help you to think and connect the empirical paper with the course concept. It is a useful course because you will be able to learn about tax, health insurance, pension through the implications of empirical papers.

Daniel Reck
ECON454

Anonymous
12/03/2023

Problem sets are too lengthy and it's hard to finish the problem set. It's hard to finish the test on time due to time constraint.

Daniel Reck
ECON454

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/30/2023

None of the hate here should be taken with credibility. This man is extremely kind and genuinely cares that his students understand the foundations of the material. He puts in effort to explain and walk through his thought process via demonstrations on the chalkboard and sheperding students towards additional resoruces to reference. If you are sturggling in his class, you either 1) aren't attending lectures or 2) not doing the problem sets. He sets you up for success and if you just show up for lecture you'll be completely fine in this class. (Looking at the previous reviews, I can tell that people aren't showing up and become overreliant on his admittingly old slides... I wouldn't recommend utilizing them for anything but additional refreshment on something as they aren't nearly as robust as his explanation in class). I would advise starting the problem sets earlier (they are quite lengthy, so aim to work on them in conjunction with the lecture). Genuinely, he is one of the best professors I've had and if you've taken any upper level Econ courses you'll reconize this class as relatively easy. For context: I literally just show up to lecture and do the problem sets and currently, I'm sitting pretty at a 99.17% in this class. I do not do additional work (occasionally I'll skim the textbook, but this is not necessary as the textbook provides more political context). You will succeed in this class if you do the work.

Daniel Reck
ECON454

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/28/2023

I don't think he deserves the hate he gets from other reviews on here. Could he go a little bit more in depth for some of the concepts? Sure. But It's not a crazy amount of information to remember if you go to class and take notes. I would say this isn't far off from any other 300/400 level econ course you take. Brief explanations and head scratching problem sets are pretty par for Economics at UMD in my experience. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but Dr. Reck isn't any worse than the typical prof in the department.

Daniel Reck
ECON454

Anonymous
11/01/2023

The class is extremely hard in terms of grade distribution. Exams are free response. and tons of information to remember. The slides and practice answers are brief description to understand the content. Eventually, this class gonna make a hit hard on gpa.

Daniel Reck
ECON454

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/26/2022

Avoid his class as possible as you can, all problem set requires you tons of time to get it done, midterms and final are hard even though he curves the final grade. Overall, DOES NOT recommend this course AT ALL!

Daniel Reck
ECON454

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/16/2022

D.Reck is okay. Class is definitely difficult, and as much as you want/like to comprehend it all, exams are pretty long (all free responses) and honestly, not many resources other than slides he made back when he was at Oxford. TAs were extremely unhelpful; you'd ask for a simple way to explain things and you'd get the same explanation from scholarly sources. FAT curve though. Maybe I'm just dumb.

Daniel Reck
ECON454

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
11/28/2022

AVOID him as possible as you can. All problem sets and exams are brief explanations and require you a lot of time to get them done. The lecture is hard and it requires you to remember tons of things The only thing I appreciate is he curved the exams

Daniel Reck
ECON454

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/16/2022

I am an Econ, math, and finance triple major, and my GPA is 4.00, and I WOULD RECOMMEND YOU NOT TO TAKE THIS COURSE!

Charles Hulten
ECON454

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/14/2013

100% of the review aoiara made for econ306 can be applied for econ454

Melissa Kearney
ECON454

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/30/2012

One if, if not the, best teachers I've had at UMD. She cares a lot about the subject and is extremely knowledgeable. From what I gathered she is a pretty highly respected academic and has a bunch of papers out on various topics. Really wants her students to learn the material and to express interest in the subject. She also takes an interest in students' futures and is willing to talk and help with life in econ beyond college. On top of all that, Public Finance is a very interesting class and offers a ton of important information that every econ major should be familiar with. Extremely happy that I took this class and would recommend it to anyone.

Reviews for ECON454