ECON 2020

Best class I have taken at UVA! Coppock is funny, interesting, and a great teacher! Definitely take this class.

Professor Coppock is one of my favorite lecturers at UVa. I was nervous about taking the course because I didn't have a great HS economics teacher, however I ended up doing really well in the class and learned a lot. Coppock knows how to articulate concepts well, and he's also funny, which makes it easy to pay attention during lecture.

My only complaint about the class is how ridiculous the grading was. I ended up getting an A in the course, however, I know a lot of people got screwed over by the grading on the exams. The TAs (under Coppock's direction) are extremely nitpicky about wording, and even if you understand the concepts, if your wording is even the slightest bit unclear / different from what Coppock had written on the lecture slides, be prepared to lose points. On that note, I was frustrated to have done poorly on my first midterm b/c I lost points due to tedious grading, however, after providing justifications for my answers to my TA, I was able to boost my grade back.

Coppock is a very interesting and engaging lecturer--if you take this class with him and pay attention to every lecture, you'll definitely come out with a good understanding of macroeconomics. Also, there is very minimal work you have to spend outside of class. That being said, the way he writes and grades the first two midterms is rather ridiculous. As previous reviews said, his tests are almost pure memorization and his grading system is very pedantic and precise (Like that 13 point question on a topic he talked about for like 5 minutes in one lecture?). Almost no partial credit is ever given either, so if even one word is wrong you can lose all the points on a single question. His final was a lot more fair in that you actually had to understand macroeconomics to do well in it; however, there was essentially no curve on the final this semester which was a bit upsetting--definitely don't rely on Dutch Knockout; the overall curve is usually *slightly* more generous.
tl;dr I definitely enjoyed his lectures. His tests and grading methods can be quite annoying though.

Great class. Coppock has been doing this for so long that he's pretty much perfected the art of lecturing. The lectures are highly engaging and informative. The material for this class is relatively straightforward, too. Since Coppock wrote the book himself, the chapters are essentially expanded and more detailed versions of his lectures. Make sure to read or at least skim, though, because there's content in the book that isn't touched on in lecture. There are also a lot of random real-world examples, from both the reading and lectures, that sometimes show up on tests. So I'd recommend going back through the chapters and lecture slides so that you're absolutely certain there's nothing he can ask you about that you won't know. Although the actual economic principles you learn aren't difficult, the grading is extremely nitpick-y, so be careful. Clicker questions are easy and so are the TA quizzes, provided you're keeping up with the material. For the midterms, just study the book and slides. For the final, however, I strongly recommend working through the 2009 final that's posted on Collab. Otherwise you aren't going to have any practice with the kind of MC questions the final is made up of (the first two midterms are all free response). Overall the class is interesting and not too demanding, but grading is surprisingly tough, so just do the work and prepare.

Coppock is great lecturer and very charismatic, but I hated this class. I don't think that the tests are a fair test of actual information retention and applicability to real-life economic issues. The tests emphasize memorization and trickery, which I was not a fan of. If you can memorize, you'll do great. Don't take this class if you want to learn applicability.

Coppock is a great lecturer and I feel that he teaches the material in an engaging way! He covers the concepts in the textbook really well and you will learn a lot in this class. HOWEVER, I would not say that this an easy intro class! His exams are definitely way harder than they should be and the grading is very strict. So overall, I would say that the class itself is enjoyable, but can be pretty challenging!

One of my favorite classes at UVA! I'd greatly recommend this to everyone at UVA, not just econ majors. Insanely informative about what you see in the news all the time about the economy. If you took micro with Elzinga, the class is structured very very similarly, and there is a Dutch knockout with this class as well.

Professor Coppock is a great professor and is able to engage 500 students at once during his lectures. The way he explains economics is very simple and straightforward and he always has interesting stories to help us understand the material. I will say that you MUST read his book and his lecture slides. Sometimes his test questions come from a random slide on his PowerPoint and that can lower the test scores. On the first test I primarily studied the big concepts and didn't focus on the smaller details, so I got an lower score than I wanted. However, for the next test I learned from the first one and made sure to study all the small examples and stories from class and did much better. He gives plenty of clicker questions so you should be able to get a 100 on those. My TA was really sweet, but her quizzes were a little hard. I studied really hard for them and did well, but for those who didn't they did poorly. However, the quizzes are only a small portion of your grade. I found the final exam very difficult and didn't do well on it, but because of my grades from the semester I managed to pull of an A-. I personally didn't rely on Dutch Knockout but I know kids who did poorly the entire class and got an A on the final. My piece of advice would be to try hard on every assignment and study the lecture slides for the final in order to do well. I know some people were saying they got curved down, and although that didn't happen to me, I will say it is possible for your grade to go down. This is why you have to make sure to do well the entire semester. Overall, it's a good class to take!

Lee Coppock is a great lecturer. He is awesome at keeping you engaged and uses a lot of unique devices and phrases to make sure you remember important stuff. He also tells pretty decent jokes and throws some Cage the Elephant songs in before lectures for good measure. Don't rely on the dutch knockout tho, bc his exam is actually pretty difficult even though it is multiple choice. Definitely take this class with him if you take it. He wrote the textbook and getting the information from him through two different mediums is huge at helping you understand and figure out what's important about macroeconomics.

Not an easy class, but definitely doable if you're willing to study for the tests. Study the lecture slides diligently and you'll do well in the tests.