ECON 3010

Although this class is incredibly challenging, I really enjoyed it. Prof. Santugini is the man. By far he handled the online learning better than any other professor I had. He encourages you to send him questions via email, teams, collab and really cares about learning. He is incredibly flexible if you want to schedule a zoom call and genuinely cares about his students. I never resented the challenge of this class, and he makes it clear that it is not supposed to be easy. That being said, you need to have good math skills and a strong understanding of calculus to take this class. I would recommend asking as many questions as you need in order to understand homework questions, lecture quizzes, midterms, etc because the TAs and Santugini are very receptive and helpful. The homeworks and exams were hard, but if you have an awesome homework group (a must!) then this class would be too bad. #tCF2020

Really really nice guy and person, definitely go to his office hours if you're struggling/ just want some advice about Econ. He really cares about his students and is great. That said, this class is definitely really challenging and I would not say this is a fun class at all.

Santugini says himself that he's the most computational professor of 3010, so if you're not the best at math like me I'd honestly recommend a different professor.

Like people have said, Marc is an extremely enthusiastic professor and overall nice guy. He is passionate about econ in a way I will never understand. Fall 2021 the grade breakdown was two midterms each worth 24%, cumulative final (35%), homework assignments (10%), lecture quizzes (2%), professional career development (5%). Lecture quizzes are graded for completion after every class. His lectures are extremely fast paced and you definitely have to do a LOT of work outside of class if you want to excel. He does provide a lot of review materials (practice problems, additional review sessions) if you do have extra time to put into this class. My advice is: try to do all the problems he assigns/doesn't assign and take this class during a semester where you don't have many other classes. #tCFfall2021

This is my favorite class I have taken at UVA so far. I LOVED Professor Santugini. He is incredibly engaging and kind. I have never had another professor who cares as much about his students as Professor Santugini. On non-exam weeks, I spent less than 1 hour on this class. I usually spent around 10-15 hours preparing for the midterms, and I earned a very high A on both. For a 4 credit class, I felt like I had way less work than expected. I procrastinated my studying to the week of the exams, but if you practiced a little each week, you wouldn't need to spend as much time studying. The class is very math-heavy, but the concepts are not very difficult. More than anything, this class requires a lot of practice. The homeworks are challenging, but the TAs are very helpful and sometimes give you the answers. The midterms and final are significantly easier than the homework assignments. The class is heavily curved at the end.

This is definitely one of the hardest classes I've taken at UVA. Prof Santugini is super sweet, but his lectures go really fast and his exams are tough. To prepare for them, I recommend redoing the lecture quizzes, solving the "challenge questions" he gives you in class, and just doing every type of problem until you are able to get it 100% right. The TA's were really hit or miss: they either helped you a lot on the hws or just gave you vague answers when you asked questions. Find study buddies in this class, practice a LOT, and take advantage of Santugini's office hours and the additional videos he provides. Only good thing about this class is that the curve is massive.

Genuinely a great guy. Decent curve at the end (I think 88 was an A and 80 was an A-), and optional dutch knockout (although with fluff grades throughout the semester for quizzes, problem sets (if you do them well), eco career participation, and a bit of extra credit you are probably better off not doing the knockout). Problem sets were hard but not graded too harshly and most TAs would give you help just about getting you to the answer if you asked enough questions - so start early enough to meet with TAs before they are due. Lecture was fast but he posted his slides (which he wrote out live time during lecture, which was really nice). There were post lecture quizzes that were graded for completion and helpful to force you to understand the lecture content. He posted video solutions of the quizzes that were great review and his extra discussion sessions were also very helpful review (sometimes the examples he used in these were pretty close to problems on the exam). Santugini did not really have set office hours but was pretty open to scheduling them any time or just answering questions on teams. (although close to exams he would sometimes get a little overwhelmed with the questions and prep and would stop answering, so try to get your questions in a little early.) I did not read the textbook. Exams: I thought I did really poorly on the first, but the grading is super lenient especially for mathematical errors. Overall, I'm glad I took this with Santugini because he is super kind, the class is very do-able, and you will get a good understanding of the material.

Alex Sheng is an awesome TA. Smart, funny, caring. He will answer all of your problem set questions. Sometimes he would go through the practice problems a little fast in class, but was very open to stopping and answering any questions (just speak up!). This had the added benefit of allowing us to get out of discussion early at times. He would also host extra office hours sometimes before exams or before problem sets were due because he is the goat.