<p>Well, seeing as how math becomes the foundation of the major and economic theory in general ...</p>
<p>Not that I had an AP Econ teacher, I just had a regular one, but I was kind of peeved that he kept on wanting to avoid the really interesting things like why the ATC curve is nonlinear even when most of the other curves had constant slope and what would happen if the derivative of marginal cost as a function of units produced were say, not a constant. Come the AP microecons exam, I nearly thought I failed because it was like, "Huh?? I can't tell one curve from another" and I blanked out at the last free response question.</p>
<p>I registered for Mirman, but I've heard a lot of bad things about his class. I'm planning on majoring in Econ (or Comm), got a 5 on AP Macro, so should I take 202 this semester and then try to get Elzinga next semester?</p>
<p>if ECON 201 and 202 are like ap macro and micro, then you learned the necessary math skills by 6th grade. All of it is adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing.</p>
<p>Well there is a lot of implicit use of functions (though not necessarily use of implicit functions). Also, my econ teacher was so slow (though he didn't teach an AP course), that we never even got to cover why the ATC curve was an actual curve when other "curves" like MC for example tended to be straight lines.</p>
<p>Of course, you never really use calculus explicitly, since you aren't given any formulas to work with, but there are a lot of principles involved -- but I was never taught how to apply them to econs. So if Mirman focuses a bit on math, then that is well-deserved, since IIRC things became fairly math-heavy as you progress in econs anyway, and it is good to have preparation.</p>
<p>I mean, the whole idea of the law of diminishing returns is almost begging for some math.</p>
<p>elzinga's and coppock's discussions certainly entertain elementary computations, but the reason their sections are vastly more popular than any of the others is because they present introductory micro and macro in fun yet rational terms without cluttering you with derivations and all the annoying material that you get to deal with in the 300s. the smaller 201/202 sections jump right in</p>