Chenyu Yang | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/08/2025	Lectures aren't great, but the class itself is pretty easy. 4 exams make up the whole grade (25% each), but each exam has about 2.5% extra credit possible to be earned for the final grade. The grading scale itself is quite generous, and the exams are very fair (almost entirely from the practice problems). There really is only one difficult unit (multivariate optimization with constraints), which trips people up; the rest is very easy. The professor can be somewhat confusing at times, as the lectures are a bit disorganized. The class is fine if you intuitively get the material. Otherwise, make some friends who do. Not a bad class at all if you study in advance of the exams and do the practice problems (which are thankfully not graded).
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/22/2025	People giving low reviews are tripping. Yes the class is 100% exams (4 exams, 25% each), but Yang sends out announcements detailing exactly what topics will be on the exam and gives coordinating practice problems so you know exactly what to study. Granted, his lectures are useless but he doesn't take attendance and it's really easy to self study with his practice problems. I would just throw the problems into Chat and have Chat teach me how to do them a few days out from the exam. Also really nice and brought cookies in multiple times, and cold called like twice so I don't know what people are upset about.
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2025	Pros: - Fair tester: he provided us with many practice problems, which often showed up on exams with just some different numbers. He even told us ahead of time the exact sorts of questions we could expect on each exam, including on the cumulative final - Generous grading: no curve, but he gives lots of partial credit on exams (including a bonus question worth 10 extra points on each), and has a lenient grading scale where 95% gets an A+, 90-95% gets an A, 85-90% gets an A-, etc. - Doesn't care about attendance: he doesn't take it, and understands that a lot of people are fine just doing the practice problems without ever attending class. He did bring snacks for the class towards the end of the semester, though Cons: - Not a great lecturer: he is honestly a pretty fun person and clearly knows what he's talking about, but his explanations were often confusing since he forgets that we are not graduate students who have amazing "economic intuition" or whatever - Exam-heavy: no homework assignments or anything as padding, our entire grade was based on how well we did on the four exams. Again, they were easy to study for, but it made the pressure of failing one exam so much worse - Weird pacing: the beginning of the semester was basically just a simple review of algebra and calculus. Then, the MVC/constrained optimization unit hit everyone like a brick. Finally, the matrix and probability units at the end really ramped down the difficulty to not much more than algebra again. It was definitely a bit jarring, but at least it worked well with my other classes ramping up in difficulty towards the end of the semester TL;DR: To any prospective Econ BS majors, don't be too scared off by this class just because of Yang or the overall average GPA. I personally got a lot out of it and, while that has less to do with Yang's teaching and more to do with self-studying, I didn't think that this class was too bad as long as you came in with a decent calc background, asked questions in class, and stayed on top of studying
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/13/2025	His explanations were confusing and he made everything seem harder than it actually was. Sitting through the class was terrible if you didn't immediately understand what was going on. He would pull out a random number generator to select students from the class roster to answer a question so if you didn't immediately understand the material from the beginning of class and he calls on you you're screwed. All of the material is posted on the ELMS page so self studying really helped and the exams were usually direct copies of the practice problems.
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/12/2025	I got an A+ in this class and didn't really study for the final. In fact, I never actually understood whatever statistics concepts he attempted to teach us at the end. Let it be known that the singular statistics unit he threw at us after Thanksgiving break made up a disproportionate amount of the final. I am giving this man a one-star rating because I truly believe he is that bad of a professor. He would often harshly single students out in front of the entire class for no apparent reason and was extremely rude if you went to ask him for help. I often couldn't tell if he was being purposefully obtuse or if he was genuinely that oblivious to his own arrogance and incompetence. Anyways, this class was easy for me to do well in because I have a relatively strong calculus background and the TA's were extremely helpful. Also, his exams and quizzes are basically plagiarized from his ungraded homework problem sets. Use this to your advantage. If you can do every problem assigned to you, you are basically guaranteed an A- at the very worst. This class was so painful to sit through that it genuinely made me wish that I had banged my head against a wall for 150 minutes a week instead of going to lecture. That genuinely would have been more enjoyable. Overall, if you put in the effort (i.e. making friends to study with and going in for office hours), you will be fine. You will be fine IN SPITE of Chenyu Yang, not because of him. Let it be clear that my rating is not reflective of the difficulty of this class. It is purely reflective of the quality of this professor.
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/19/2024	Don't be too stressed about the class; the reviews are more about the professor than the actual material anyway, the professor does not really matter for this class if you can self-study. In terms of the material, I have a background in Calc 1, so I found this class pretty bearable, and I rarely went to the class. I found the TA more helpful than a professor. The only way to succeed in the class is if you practice doing the problem sets 3 times each for each exam and look at the slides. AGAIN, DO THE PROBLEM SETS. If you're anything like a procrastinator like me, here is a guide to study: Start 3 days before the exam (you will be set!). Look at the slides and understand the examples. Day 2: do all the problem sets look at the answers, and understand how they write and solve them. Then, on the last day, do the problem sets two more times! Structure : 3 quizzes(2/3 This helped my grade ideally you will do well on the first(if you study, easy) and the last one(very easy) , 3 exams(1st one (derivates and stationary points know the material and study), 2nd one(constrained optimization, if you don't understand just memorize the way to solve them, they're very similar or know the material A LOT) 3rd(matrix, easy peasy) and the final(everything combined). Have something answered, partial points are the reason I did not bad.
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2024	As long as you study his slides and problem sets over and over again, you are guaranteed to do well on the exams and quizzes. even though this class is only based on exams and quizzes and there is no curve, they give you a lot of partial credit. Many times the problems are the same or have slight variations from the problem sets or slides. I missed some lectures, but was able to catch up with his slides and still do very well.
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting a C Anonymous 11/21/2024	Professor Yang has improved a bit since the other reviews. He's good at breaking down more complex concepts and has a "no stupid questions" attitude. Pretty good class overall. The constrained optimization unit will kill you if you don't go to lectures.
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/09/2024	Terrible professor. Made lagrangian and other concepts way harder than they had to be.
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/20/2023	Nice man and not too hard of a grader. He made a lot of mistakes in the class multiple times in the semester he would explain a problem for 10-20 minutes and then realize the problem was either written wrong or he made a mistake early, and he would just be like hmm, and move on. Some days he also seemed unprepared in class. Don't avoid him but don't seek him either.
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/20/2023	Professor Yang is not a great teacher. I didn't find the class too hard and attended all the lectures, but his explanations were confusing and he would often get it wrong the first time and have to go back and correct himself, making it more confusing. In-class ungraded worksheets and homework helped me understand the material.
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/18/2023	He explains things really well. I wish there were more professors like him! The class doesn’t curve, but the grading is generous.
Chenyu Yang ECON300 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/08/2022	explains things pretty poorly... acts like you should already know the answer when you have a question. TA was never there. pretty difficult course so I recommend making some friends to study with.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
06/08/2025

Lectures aren't great, but the class itself is pretty easy. 4 exams make up the whole grade (25% each), but each exam has about 2.5% extra credit possible to be earned for the final grade. The grading scale itself is quite generous, and the exams are very fair (almost entirely from the practice problems). There really is only one difficult unit (multivariate optimization with constraints), which trips people up; the rest is very easy. The professor can be somewhat confusing at times, as the lectures are a bit disorganized. The class is fine if you intuitively get the material. Otherwise, make some friends who do. Not a bad class at all if you study in advance of the exams and do the practice problems (which are thankfully not graded).

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/22/2025

People giving low reviews are tripping. Yes the class is 100% exams (4 exams, 25% each), but Yang sends out announcements detailing exactly what topics will be on the exam and gives coordinating practice problems so you know exactly what to study. Granted, his lectures are useless but he doesn't take attendance and it's really easy to self study with his practice problems. I would just throw the problems into Chat and have Chat teach me how to do them a few days out from the exam. Also really nice and brought cookies in multiple times, and cold called like twice so I don't know what people are upset about.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/21/2025

Pros: - Fair tester: he provided us with many practice problems, which often showed up on exams with just some different numbers. He even told us ahead of time the exact sorts of questions we could expect on each exam, including on the cumulative final - Generous grading: no curve, but he gives lots of partial credit on exams (including a bonus question worth 10 extra points on each), and has a lenient grading scale where 95% gets an A+, 90-95% gets an A, 85-90% gets an A-, etc. - Doesn't care about attendance: he doesn't take it, and understands that a lot of people are fine just doing the practice problems without ever attending class. He did bring snacks for the class towards the end of the semester, though Cons: - Not a great lecturer: he is honestly a pretty fun person and clearly knows what he's talking about, but his explanations were often confusing since he forgets that we are not graduate students who have amazing "economic intuition" or whatever - Exam-heavy: no homework assignments or anything as padding, our entire grade was based on how well we did on the four exams. Again, they were easy to study for, but it made the pressure of failing one exam so much worse - Weird pacing: the beginning of the semester was basically just a simple review of algebra and calculus. Then, the MVC/constrained optimization unit hit everyone like a brick. Finally, the matrix and probability units at the end really ramped down the difficulty to not much more than algebra again. It was definitely a bit jarring, but at least it worked well with my other classes ramping up in difficulty towards the end of the semester TL;DR: To any prospective Econ BS majors, don't be too scared off by this class just because of Yang or the overall average GPA. I personally got a lot out of it and, while that has less to do with Yang's teaching and more to do with self-studying, I didn't think that this class was too bad as long as you came in with a decent calc background, asked questions in class, and stayed on top of studying

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/13/2025

His explanations were confusing and he made everything seem harder than it actually was. Sitting through the class was terrible if you didn't immediately understand what was going on. He would pull out a random number generator to select students from the class roster to answer a question so if you didn't immediately understand the material from the beginning of class and he calls on you you're screwed. All of the material is posted on the ELMS page so self studying really helped and the exams were usually direct copies of the practice problems.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/12/2025

I got an A+ in this class and didn't really study for the final. In fact, I never actually understood whatever statistics concepts he attempted to teach us at the end. Let it be known that the singular statistics unit he threw at us after Thanksgiving break made up a disproportionate amount of the final. I am giving this man a one-star rating because I truly believe he is that bad of a professor. He would often harshly single students out in front of the entire class for no apparent reason and was extremely rude if you went to ask him for help. I often couldn't tell if he was being purposefully obtuse or if he was genuinely that oblivious to his own arrogance and incompetence. Anyways, this class was easy for me to do well in because I have a relatively strong calculus background and the TA's were extremely helpful. Also, his exams and quizzes are basically plagiarized from his ungraded homework problem sets. Use this to your advantage. If you can do every problem assigned to you, you are basically guaranteed an A- at the very worst. This class was so painful to sit through that it genuinely made me wish that I had banged my head against a wall for 150 minutes a week instead of going to lecture. That genuinely would have been more enjoyable. Overall, if you put in the effort (i.e. making friends to study with and going in for office hours), you will be fine. You will be fine IN SPITE of Chenyu Yang, not because of him. Let it be clear that my rating is not reflective of the difficulty of this class. It is purely reflective of the quality of this professor.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/19/2024

Don't be too stressed about the class; the reviews are more about the professor than the actual material anyway, the professor does not really matter for this class if you can self-study. In terms of the material, I have a background in Calc 1, so I found this class pretty bearable, and I rarely went to the class. I found the TA more helpful than a professor. The only way to succeed in the class is if you practice doing the problem sets 3 times each for each exam and look at the slides. AGAIN, DO THE PROBLEM SETS. If you're anything like a procrastinator like me, here is a guide to study: Start 3 days before the exam (you will be set!). Look at the slides and understand the examples. Day 2: do all the problem sets look at the answers, and understand how they write and solve them. Then, on the last day, do the problem sets two more times! Structure : 3 quizzes(2/3 This helped my grade ideally you will do well on the first(if you study, easy) and the last one(very easy) , 3 exams(1st one (derivates and stationary points know the material and study), 2nd one(constrained optimization, if you don't understand just memorize the way to solve them, they're very similar or know the material A LOT) 3rd(matrix, easy peasy) and the final(everything combined). Have something answered, partial points are the reason I did not bad.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/18/2024

As long as you study his slides and problem sets over and over again, you are guaranteed to do well on the exams and quizzes. even though this class is only based on exams and quizzes and there is no curve, they give you a lot of partial credit. Many times the problems are the same or have slight variations from the problem sets or slides. I missed some lectures, but was able to catch up with his slides and still do very well.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting a C
Anonymous
11/21/2024

Professor Yang has improved a bit since the other reviews. He's good at breaking down more complex concepts and has a "no stupid questions" attitude. Pretty good class overall. The constrained optimization unit will kill you if you don't go to lectures.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/09/2024

Terrible professor. Made lagrangian and other concepts way harder than they had to be.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/20/2023

Nice man and not too hard of a grader. He made a lot of mistakes in the class multiple times in the semester he would explain a problem for 10-20 minutes and then realize the problem was either written wrong or he made a mistake early, and he would just be like hmm, and move on. Some days he also seemed unprepared in class. Don't avoid him but don't seek him either.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/20/2023

Professor Yang is not a great teacher. I didn't find the class too hard and attended all the lectures, but his explanations were confusing and he would often get it wrong the first time and have to go back and correct himself, making it more confusing. In-class ungraded worksheets and homework helped me understand the material.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
03/18/2023

He explains things really well. I wish there were more professors like him! The class doesn’t curve, but the grading is generous.

Chenyu Yang
ECON300

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/08/2022

explains things pretty poorly... acts like you should already know the answer when you have a question. TA was never there. pretty difficult course so I recommend making some friends to study with.