ECON 2010

One of the best classes you can take as a first year. Everyone should take this course and learn how the economy actually works. Elzinga is a beast

Great class I took it as a Second Year (Comm major) and did way better than in Macro during First Year (A- vs B) since I appreciated the topics/class more and knew how to prep for Econ exams. Elzinga can be boring at times, but he is an amazing man and teacher and I personally always enjoyed lectures. For exams, read the book and make review sheets. Focus on knowing how graphs shift in certain situations and general concepts. My TA was Braedon Kehoe and he was a boss. Very helpful in discussion and pushed us in order to really be prepared for exams. Great class and you will learn a ton!! Oh, and the final is tough but the curve is awesome so you'll be fine.

I was super scared to take Elzinga’s class because everyone complained about him, but I found his class to be enjoyable. If you read the textbook and pay attention in lecture, you can def get an A-. I had Kevin Miner as my TA, who was simply the best and made all the difference. Our group’s exam averages were always significantly higher than the rest of the class, and Kevin made sure to emphasize important information and convey it in a way you could understand. Also just a super chill dude. One thing I didn’t like was Elzinga constantly bringing the Bible into his lectures, but other than that I thought it was a great course. Made me want to further my studies in Econ.

Most overrated professor at UVA by far. For a supposed legend, Elzinga's class is not it, take Micro with someone else. His exams are really dumb in the sense that they grade for specific wording so if you don't say the answer exactly how they want it, you won't get credit. Elzinga mentions about 100 times how he taught some of our parents. His lectures are very useless as he'll maybe touch the very basic details about certain topics but will leave it up to you to learn the details. Reading the textbook is your best friend for exams and then making sure you pay attention to his econ minutes because he'll include random details on the exams. #tCF2020

First off, I want to say that I like Professor Elzinga and truly feel that I learned a lot in this class. Unfortunately, that did not reflect in my grade. I think the one of most important things in this class is having a good TA who can help you interpret the dull lectures and textbook concepts. My TA wasn't the best...at all. The midterms are both short answer, however I found myself more confused by the questions at times than the actual class content. Some questions were real life situations that asked to be related to economics, but gave little to no context about which concept it was supposed to be applied to. It did not help that the answer key was very strict and left little room for interpretation. The final exam was multiple choice, and despite studying for hours, taking the practice final, and watching multiple YouTube videos to prepare, I still got a D...which turned into a C- thanks to the curve (thank god) because the questions were purposely worded in a confusing way. If you're trying to decide between courses, do not pick this one simply because Elzinga teaches it and he's a "legend."

I have zero interest in economics, so I didn't enjoy this class much. I think Professor Elzinga is a great lecturer, though. Do not skimp on reading the textbook - if you want to do well on the exams, it's crucial! Discussion section was just a review of the week's lectures. The TA provided us with a few homework assignments that were much more difficult than the exams, which I found helpful. That being said, the exams are tricky and will require you to apply your understanding of the material from the lectures and textbook at a higher level. #tCF2020

Elzinga's lectures are sometimes interesting, but his tests are more geared to tricking you than testing your knowledge. His ego gets in the way of him explaining important concepts in class, which is frustrating because he spends time telling stories about dumb things. This is an iconic class at UVA, but I wouldn't say that it was anywhere close to one of my favorites.

It wasn't too bad of a course. Although, the grading of the exams was definitely a bit harsh. They don't really give out partial credit on questions, so you essentially have to be perfect to get credit. The final was completely multiple choice but still managed to be one of the rougher MC exams I've ever had the displeasure of taking. Luckily I have prior experience in econ so I still found the class to be relatively easy, but it can definitely be annoying at times if it's your first econ class. Don't be scared of the class though because the curve is INSANELY forgiving. Elzinga is a great lecturer and his econ minutes were great (rip Ollie). Just be sure to go to your discussion section so you can get full credit points for that, and although the lecture quizzes are kind of annoying, they shouldn't be too difficult.

This course was online async with a discussion component for Fall 2020. I spent probably 3-6 hours a week on this class with lectures and studying combined. To be honest, I didn't find this course to be as hard as everyone says. The thing is you have to keep up with the course work and you can't cram right before the tests. The two midterms are very memorization based in my opinion, and the best thing to do is memorize all the vocabulary words. The final was a little easier because it's multiple choice, but you should really study everything well and have no gaps in your knowledge. IMO, as long as you put in the work, this should be an A. Oh, and also, read the corresponding textbook chapters BEFORE the lectures. It makes things so much easier to understand.

ECON 2010 was an interesting class to take online during COVID-19. Overall, it was very bland and its delivery was very poor. I had high expectations for this course and Prof. Elzinga but ultimately those fell flat. Regarding workload, the only real assignments were post-lecture quizzes, discussion attendance and quizzes, the midterms, and the final. The exams in this class are not easy and take weeks of preparation. The grading on these is not flexible and one or two slip ups can seriously tank your grade. It also doesn't help that the exams are all short answer. In order to excel in this class you need to almost perfect all of your post lecture quizzes and perform at a high level on the exams. Prof. Elzing gives you the dutch knockout option but I would not bank on it. Even though this class was a disappointment and I ended up opting into the CR/NC policy, Dan was an excellent TA and really displayed a great deal of care for all of his students. Highly recommend him.