<p>OK here's my rant. I've taken quite a few econ classes at UM now and I thought once I get to the 400 level classes, the teaching quality would get better. But I was wrong. The four hundred level classes are taught in big lecture halls with hundreds of students. The teaching quality is dreadful. Lectures are useless and discussion sessions don't help much (unless you have a good GSI). Exams are ridiculously hard. To learn the material you basically have to teach yourself. Dozens of students show up to office hours and its difficult to get more individual attention. Most professors aren't concerned if you're doing poorly. Also, there are no interesting econ electives after the four hundred level classes. I'm backpacking my classes now and there's not a single interesting class that's offered next semester. Rant over. I'm just really frustrated at the quality of the program (and its not just me either)!! It's not what I expected at all. :-(</p>
<p>That's exactly my point MightyNick. You share my pain. I can't seem to find any 400-level econ classes with 30 or fewer students like Alexandre said. I'm currently taking 435 and 431 and both classes have well over 50 students.</p>
<p>^Exactly. I feel helpless - I feel like I'm not learning anything despite putting in hours and hours of studying just to barely get a B-. There's nothing I can do about it either as I'm using all the resources provided (GSI's, office hours, extra course readings, homeworks, practice problems, etc) but nothing helps at all. I know the material is difficult and I never expected it to be easy, but to expect students to answer exam questions based on what we discuss in lecture/recitation is unreasonable (I'm in 402 right now). My biggest complaint is that the department doesn't do anything to improve teaching quality or to make Econ interesting. This is why the averages on exams are mostly around 60-65%. It really is pathetic...and that is an understatement. If I were just doing an Economics major as an OOS student, I'd think it was the biggest waste of my money.</p>
<p>Haha a little disheartening for a potential economics major...I was planning to double in econ and poli sci in the Residential College. Any idea if the RC Econ cllasses are different? Or if I take honors perhaps would the teaching be of better quality?</p>
<p>60-65% average is pretty much the norm in the sciences here as well. That's pretty standard at all top schools.</p>
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Haha a little disheartening for a potential economics major...I was planning to double in econ and poli sci in the Residential College. Any idea if the RC Econ cllasses are different? Or if I take honors perhaps would the teaching be of better quality?
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<p>For your major you'll need to take Econ 401 and 402, which I think you'll be taking with 300 students that are in the honors college, LSA regular, Business school, engineering, etc. You're all going to have the same crappy professor, a large lecture hall and completely and utterly boring and useless lectures. I can think of so many Econ classes right now that are just so damn hard just because the material isn't taught properly and the teacher sucks - Econ 310 (money and banking), econ 398, econ 401, 402, 435, etc. The teachers change every year too (especially 401 and 402) so you never know if the new professor is any good or not. Urgh.</p>
<p>Well, there's a mass of people majoring in economics, so it shouldn't be surprising that the classes are overpopulated. Most people in upper-level economics are students who couldn't get into Ross.</p>
<p>I took 398 and 401 without ever going to lecture and they weren't hard, especially with the huge curve. Obviously I can't comment on teaching quality but the book, lecture slides, etc covered everything pretty well. If you are putting forth a serious effort to teach yourself the material (not blowing it off because you don't think you should have to) and still can't get above B-, you need to look at the way you study and make some adjustments.</p>
<p>Also, you can't really expect small and personal lectures in the most popular major at a huge school. But obviously it's pretty lame if you haven't had one decent teacher yet.</p>
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If you are putting forth a serious effort to teach yourself the material (not blowing it off because you don't think you should have to) and still can't get above B-, you need to look at the way you study and make some adjustments.
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<p>See that's the point - why should you have to put forth a serious effort to teach yourself? What am I paying the tuition for? Why should I not expect to learn anything by going to class? It is totally unreasonable to expect students to self-teach themselves everything and then do well on the exams. I'm not doing too bad in these classes with the curve - got an A+ in 398 (but that was last year with an easy teacher, but I still wasn't satisfied with the quality of teaching) and a B in Econ 401, and am currently doing not so well in 402 - but my point is the quality of the Econ department at Michigan is mediocre at best. </p>
<p>I know you can't expect small and personal lectures, but it is reasonable to expect at least 2-3 different teachers teaching the same course per semester, which could reduce the class size to a 100 rather than 300 something. As far as my studying habits go, I put in less effort in my other classes (including Calc 2 which is considered quite hard) and ended up doing much better. There is nothing that I learn by going to lectures and this is the most frustrating part. Semester after semester my econ classes have been like this. Unless you spend a good 2-3 hours reading the textbook before coming to lecture, you won't understand a word the professor says as he/she always expects you to know the material as if you're a PhD. student.</p>
<p>but you really should really the text before you come to lecture. a lot of people do it.</p>
<p>I'm not saying that I don't - but sometimes I just don't have the 2-3 hours time to read the text before coming to class and I just have to skim through it and hopefully learn something in class. But that never happens.</p>
<p>Well, first I partially agree with you, MightyNick. But you are making yourself sound very lazy. I have trouble with the following statement:</p>
<p>"but to expect students to answer exam questions based on what we discuss in lecture/recitation is unreasonable (I'm in 402 right now)." -post #3
Then, you say that you should never have to study and learn everything for the class from the lecture alone (post #9). How can you have both at the same time? I don't get it. Everyone has to study in college. In fact, I would bet that it is the minority of students who do not study (and still manage to do well).</p>
<p>I haven't taken your courses though, so I can't really comment on your experiences. I hope you have good luck with your GSIs in the future, because mine so far have been really, really ridiculously good.</p>
<p>If the lectures are so terrible, why would you go to them? It seems as if studying would be a better use of your time, so maybe you should try that.</p>
<p>I can't NOT go to lectures though...i feel guilty as I'm paying so much tuition and I don't even end up going to class. I didn't say that you should never have to study and learn everything for the class from the lecture alone - I meant that lectures are supposed to help you understand the material, and the professors never help you do that. I don't mean to sound lazy either - I personally think I work very hard and that's the reason why I am where I am. I'm not the type of person that can study really hard for an exam 2 or 3 days before and ace it. I usually keep up with the material as we go along. I've been doing this for every econ class i've taken here, and its not helping. The problem is that I have to self-teach myself everything and accept the fact that I'm not going to get anything out of lecture and our professors office hours. Is that a good education?</p>
<p>Yeah, I know what you mean about the tuition... it's kind of annoying because college seems more about certification than learning. For example, you could easily just buy (or borrow) books from the store or library, read them, and know as much or more than someone who majored in a certain subject in college. The reason people pay so much is because formal certification is needed. So, you could look at it in that way: you aren't paying for the classes, just the certification, which is gained by results only.</p>
<p>That's very bad, obviously, if you have to teach yourself everything (or even the majority). I don't know how to give advice besides keep studying... which doesn't help. You could switch majors or transfer to UChicago (for the econ) or something.</p>
<p>Lastly, if you have a meal plan, take them to the cleaners and bring a bag to meals, taking out as much as you can carry. Once your refrigerator and extra storage fills up, you can sell the food on ebay or to the bums on the streets (thus solving the hassling problem using a kind of role reversal). Give them food under the condition that they leave you alone. Or, you will be known among bums as 'the guy with food but no booze money', and therefore left alone.</p>
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That's very bad, obviously, if you have to teach yourself everything (or even the majority). I don't know how to give advice besides keep studying... which doesn't help. You could switch majors or transfer to UChicago (for the econ) or something.</p>
<p>Lastly, if you have a meal plan, take them to the cleaners and bring a bag to meals, taking out as much as you can carry. Once your refrigerator and extra storage fills up, you can sell the food on ebay or to the bums on the streets (thus solving the hassling problem using a kind of role reversal). Give them food under the condition that they leave you alone. Or, you will be known among bums as 'the guy with food but no booze money', and therefore left alone.
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<p>Haha that's funny. </p>
<p>Thank goodness I got into Ross so I don't think I'll be transferring to UChicago. From what I've seen so far, teaching quality at Ross is better. I think I would have been really frustrated right now (not that I'm not already, but more) if I had not gotten into Ross and had to major in Economics. Still need 2 more Econ classes for my minor though. <em>Sigh</em></p>
<p>In my experience, the key to Econ here is just knowing how to do the homeworks. I'm in 401 and it is not hard at all, just a matter of knowing how to do Calc I and understanding the homework assignments. It also helps that most non-engineers are terrible at anything involving math.</p>
<p>Is econ really that bad?? i am transferring from Western Mich to UM this winter and going into Econ? Does it really suck that bad?</p>
<p>snwrider2007, it's actually not that bad, the only problem with majoring in econ is that every econ lecture in Michigan will be filled up with more than 70 students. You won't find any (lecture) that has like 20-30 students. The GSIs and the Professor lead the discussion sections (around 20 students each). For most if not all of the 3-cred classes, you won't have to deal with any GSIs since no discussion sections will be involved in those classes.</p>
<p>Most people majoring in econ are interested in going into business. Of course, i'm not saying major = career, but the general trend seems to be that most people interested in business major in econ, business, math or business related engineering (IOE). </p>
<p>That said, if you're interested in business there really isn't any substitute for Ross. I screwed up freshman year and am going as far as reapplying as a sophomore simply because I can't help but feel unsatisfied with most of the econ classes that i'm taking. </p>
<p>The "problem" with schools like michigan is that you can't help but feel a bit overshadowed by the business school. I know plenty of kids that got offers from goldman, m/b/b, etc that majored in econ but they all had stellar GPA's/work experience. Unless you truly enjoy studying "economics" and plan to get a PhD in the field, I feel there really isn't a substitute for the bschool. Plus, many firms will ask you why you didn't major in business when you had a top 3 undergrad bschool right under your nose. </p>
<p>The only people I know that turned down Ross for Econ were the people that were double majoring in financial math and/or wanted to go to grad school for econ. Not saying the bschool is all that, but i have to agree with mightynick in saying that some aspects of the econ department could use some upgrading/tweaking.</p>
<p>Where's Alexandre when the going gets tough?;)</p>