ECON 2010

Basically, no textbook required, no group work required, no writing required, and no homework grading!
It might sounds really ideal, but you have to attend ALL the lectures to not get lost in the materials. The materials are highly based on graph, so if you are comfortable with it, this should be a fine course. The tests are based on the practice problems a lot. I shall not say this is an inspiring course for econ, but it gives a lot of understanding about it.

This class was so hard. The exams and practice problems seemed easy until you got your grade back and failed it. Averages were around 60-70. Lectures were heavily graph-based and generally difficult to understand or take notes on. He does upload most of his graphs to collab but if you don't go to lecture you won't understand them. TA's are usually helpful.

This was a very frustrating course for me and other students. It might have been poor mostly due to my TA (avoid Ramiro at all costs) who spoke little English, was unable to teach the material, or answer simple questions, but also due to Marc's teaching style. During class he would go through things in a basic manner that was relatively easy to understand, yet when one was assigned practice problems (make sure you do these), homework, or test, it seemed to have little to do with what he talked about in class. It is obviously an application of what we learned in class, but also a big jump. He has a lot of office hours but because many students go to office hours, he gives you about five minutes to talk to him and I felt rushed the multiple times I went to talk with him. I think Marc is below average for teaching/being a professor, but with a competent and smart TA it likely wouldn't be the worst. Do not recommend taking him though, especially if math is not your strong suit (Elzinga/Doyle are much more theory based/vocab).

I thought Santugini was great. He was very approachable and helpful during office hours. The only issue is that you have to motivate yourself to get there. His TAs are pretty bad. I don't know why. Discussion was pretty pointless each week, but getting the answers to the practice problems is very important because the exams are heavily based off of the practice problems. This class is significantly more math-based than with other Econ professors at UVA. This has its ups and downs. Yes, it can be very hard for students who do not do well in math, but also exams are graded much less subjectively than other professors' exams are. People complain about Elzinga's exams because they aren't graded fairly. With Santugini, it's pretty much all math and graphs, so there's nothing to argue about. Marc is a really nice guy too. I think the course will get much better as he gets more experience with the students at UVA and with UVA in general. Overall, I did not think the class was bad at all.

Santugini is one of the best professors I've had at UVA. He cares about his students so much, and you can tell he loves to lecture about Economics. Super passionate about the material, and even more passionate about his students' success. Textbook optional, lecture MANDATORY. Gives tons of practice problems that really help you understand the material. Tests are very fair. Definitely not an easy A, but attainable if you do all the work and study a lot! Great professor and a standup guy!

Do not take micro with this professor. He teaches the class completely differently than any other professor at UVA making it hard to learn through any sort of online help. The lecture itself is not the worst but he moves very quickly and is unorganized making it hard to get great notes. My TA was less than helpful. He had a hard time doing the homework problem sets and regularly did the problems wrong in discussion. He also barely spoke English and was very hard to understand. By far my least favorite class I have taken at UVA

The tests are fairly hard, and he has a take home portion and an in-class portion. His lectures are organized differently and he uses an old-school projector, so it can be a little difficult to get used to. He is very open and friendly, and makes it easy to get the amount of clicker questions you need to get full participation. You need to go to lecture to do well, because the textbook is not used at all in this class.

I know this review is a year late, but I'm very happy I chose to take ECON 2010 with Professor Santugini.

It was through this class that I started strongly considering majoring in Econ, although I had already taken ECON 2020 the previous semester. From what I've heard, Elzinga's style of teaching Econ is pretty theoretical. During last year's fall semester though, I noticed Santugini's approach is more mathematical through his use of linear equations and graphs to outline examples for supply and demand. Being that math has been my favorite subject for quite a while, I definitely liked his approach more. He also gave us examples for practice due by the end of each week that would be reviewed during our discussions. It'd be a stretch to say this class is completely easy, as the first midterm was definitely tougher than the second and there are always nuances in drawing your supply-and-demand graphs based off factors such as taxes. Plus though, you always have the option for Dutch knockout in the end to boost your grade. All in all, it was pretty useful and manageable and emerged as my favorite class for the semester.

Professor Santugini himself is very approachable and clearly wants you to succeed in his class. Go to his office hours as he will answer any questions that may not be covered deeply in lectures. From his examples, he can describe anything difficult in the clearest terms possible to make it easier to answer. And if you're considering studying in Econ, I recommend you enroll in his ECON 3010 class as a major requirement.

While Professor Santiguini is a nice guy, I do not recommend that you take his class. He lectures at a pace that is too quick to follow (most students in my discussion learned the material from the TA) and the only test that he gave that was truly fair was the final; the two midterms included problems that were above most students' ability level.

You can tell Santugini is really passionate about econ, but about half way through the semester it becomes really hard keep up with his pace during lecture. Also, for some reason he seems to get bad TAs so I didnt rely on mine at all for help. I ended up just going back through his slides after class to teach myself a lot of the information just because I couldnt keep up in class. For the midterm exams, there is a take-home part which is really difficult bc there are a lot of questions that can't be answered with just knowledge from the lectures, but the in class part is very similar to practice sets and pretty fair so it balances out the take-home. The final isn't a piece of cake, but if you study the slides, practice problems, and clicker questions an A is manageable.