My professor has one of the worst ratings on myprofessorperformance.com and I know that makes a huge difference. I think with online course work i may be less pressured to succeed and might even perform better as the class isn’t at 8 in the morning. The class is macroeconomics. Do you think I should go to class or take the tests online where I think I can perform better because it’s probably a lot of multiple choice questions. The only downside is I’m paying tons of money for something I could get for free on coursera. Not that I’d exactly miss some infuriating lecture from a bad professor at 8 in the morning.
Is this for a lower-division principles of macroeconomics or an upper-division intermediate macroeconomics? I assume it is the lower-division principles course since upper-division intermediate courses aren’t usually offered as online. Have you taken principles of microeconomics? If that is the case, if you’re a motivated student, then you should be able to get by with the online version of the course. Most principles courses are very introductory (hence, principles) and students can typically pick it up through a combination of any principles textbook, online/youtube lectures and videos, and the actual course supplements and materials. I agree it’s much of introductory information that you can pick up for free not just on Coursera, but in any recent principles text from a library. It’s not the material I would be too worried about, but the motivation to actually stick with and follow through on an online course, but that’s the subjective part that only you can answer.
There’s no other options as far as professors go for principles of macroeconomics? Sometimes, the passion and intrigue that principles professors invoke in a student is what prompts a student to take higher level economics (or any subject really), and that can only usually be translated in the classroom through interaction with the professor and other students.
Thanks turtlerock, that’s very helpful. It’s such a waste of money not to go to the lectures if I have them available in person, but on the other hand I feel like I’d really do better taking the tests online and get a better grade. I guess the question is whether I’ll have the willpower to do my coursework and I just realized there might be a lot more work to do if it’s an online course to verify I’m doing the reading. Such as quizzes with each weekly class or required paragraphs of discussion. With that factored in, you could argue the in-class lectures require less effort but will I really perform better if I’m not engaged through the additional required material? I guess what I’m asking is which option sets me up for the better grade: doing it online or going to class?
I have found online classes are much easier and require a lot less effort. Especially if the alternative is an 8am class which I, personally, would skip more than half the time. It does require that you engage more with the textbook than you perhaps would in a regular class but I would do that regardless. Overall I feel it requires much less effort and you can choose when you want to complete homework or an assignment for that class as opposed to having deadlines every couple of days at specific times, which really add a lot of stress.
@ChesterCheetah In true economist fashion, my person answer to your question is: it depends. As @phantzm12 suggests, I suspect you’d have a much closer relationship with your textbook if you took the online section as this has been my own personal experience with online course sections. I found myself reading the text much closer and taking outline notes of each chapter in lieu of in-person lectures.
As for which option may net you a higher grade - the ends for which you are pursuing - can be fairly subjective. Only you know your learning style the best, and thus can determine which teaching style best corresponds to your learning style, which is presumed to be reflected in your grade (i.e. the objective measure of how much you’ve “learned”).
If you suspect that there may actually be more work involved in an online course to compensate for the lack of in-class time, then you’ve got to answer for yourself if you’ve the motivation, and willpower as you’ve stated, to get that all done. Then again, if you chose the in-class option, would you have the motivation and willpower to go to the lectures during a morning time anyway? Personally, I would reason that by taking the in-class option I wouldn’t go to a lot of the lectures anyway because of the opportunity cost to my time, then I would lean more toward the online section since at least that way it’s expected from the professor that I only have the online tools and materials to accomplish assignments and take exams. When the in-class lecture component is available, it’s usually expected that some lecture material you can be tested on. But if there is no traditional lecture (i.e. with an online course), then you can’t “miss” testable material by missing the lectures that would have otherwise existed in the in-class section. With online lectures via video or blog-style posts, you’re guaranteed no to “miss” anything unless the professor takes those materials down from the online course. Buuuuut, as mentioned before, there may actually be more assignments or online interaction to keep the student “engaged” in lieu of the in-class lectures. Trade-offs.
Hope this helps you reconcile your subjective preferences.
I took macroeconomics this semester and granted it was a community college but this professor has done this same class in other colleges like Hunter and Pace. I personally found it to be a great class and found the one and a half hour lecture to be fun. I also found my four hour English class to be more exciting than my hour and a half Spanish class. It always depends on the teacher teaching it imo. On rate my professor my macroeconomics teacher was rated very high along with my English teacher. My Spanish one was rated pretty low. I got an A- in my macroeconomics class and I feel in the most part because it was the teacher being so good and made the lectures exciting enough to learn.