ECON 3010

The professor means really well, but he isn't a good teacher. He spent a few lectures talking about his sheep farm in vermont. Class is useless don't go. The tests were pretty tough. Just based on the textbook's study guide, which you can buy separately. This class sucks no matter who you take it with because there is a required quote of C's that have to be given out as you can see from the grade distribution. Good luck!

I see the points people are making about lectures, and I somewhat agree. However, Professor Phillips is one of the nicest professors in the Econ department. He genuinely cares about his students and will make an effort to get you extra help and assist you if you reach out. The homework is very helpful and is indicative of what is on the tests so make sure you know it/get a good group. 3010 is kind of an awful class but Professor Phillips made it manageable for me.

Mr. Phillips is not the best lecturer, but he is easily the most genuinely kind and caring instructor I've had at UVa. He really, really cares about his students, so he is more than happy to offer extra help, which I found to be incredibly useful. For that reason, I would really highly recommend Phillips if you have to take this class (which you shouldn't, unless you're an econ major).

The biggest advice I can offer in regards to this course is finding a good homework group. The assignments are not easy, pretty time intensive, and worth 20% of your grade, so find people that are dedicated and that you like spending time with. My group was a lifesaver in this course.

Overall, this really is a very difficult class--the material is dense and the exams seemed nearly impossible at times. However, I was pretty happy with how the grading scale turned out. Put in the extra time and effort, and in all likelihood you'll be rewarded.

Spencer Phillips is an awesome guy, but not a great lecturer. He often just repeated what the book said while making math mistakes that often confused the class further. If you are not an econ major/minor, do NOT take this class. If you put a lot of work into this class, then you will be able to get an okay grade with the curve, but you spend a lot of time in limbo not knowing where your grade is going to lie in the end. He's very understanding and approachable, loves it when students come to office hours, but overall, not the best teacher in the econ department.

Phillips is a nice guy, but as a lecturer he's a joke. You can tell that this isn't his strong point in economics. He's an adjunct professor, so he doesn't even teach full time. He frequently did problems incorrectly in front of the class and had to send out emails correcting what he taught us during lecture. His exams were not a fair representation of what we were supposed to know. Because this is a "weed out" class for prospective econ majors, it would be nice if we at least had a professor who could teach us. I basically taught myself the class by using the textbook.

Phillips has been easily the worst lecturer I have had at UVA. He was frequently unprepared for class, did not appear knowledgeable about the material, and stumbled through example problems in lecture. He was a nice guy, but completely failed as a teacher.

In terms of the course material, I honestly did not learn anything from this course. Most of it is just review from earlier Econ courses with an emphasis on the math behind it. The difficulty of the course is highly overrated, but be warned that Phillips uses a grading scale where the cutoff for an A is not a 93, but a 95. He did not mention this until the last email to the class after he had already sent the grades and stated in lecture previously that he was using the "normal scale."

Phillips needs to improve on being better at explaining concepts. His lectures are next to pointless to attend, and for some reason attendance is still mandatory for them. You are better off by taking the time to read the chapter in the book than by going to class. Class is pointless. Midterms are decently hard. Final is hard. Doing well on the homeworks (equivalent to one mid-term) will help. Almost everyone will get a 60% participation score, which is BS and unfair to everyone but thats the way it is. (only 5% of your score).

Phillips often times messes up in lecture on matematical problems and then tries to correct himself and just ends up confusing himself even more.

Professor Phillips wasn't the best lecturer, but overall I feel as though I learned more than other sections of the class, and he is an extremely fair grader. If anyone decided to take this class, the best option would definitely be him.

Professor Phillips is a good guy, but he isn't a great lecturer. He had to email out corrections to his notes at multiple times throughout the semester. Tests and homework are hard and group work is required.