ECON 3010

Easy course, he explains questions well. As long as you do all the practice exams, you will do super well. His class is way easier than other professors, and the TA is also really helpful. Make sure you go to TA discussions.

Gaurab is really an interesting guy. I loved his personality and his enthusiasm about the coursework. I can absolutely understand why students struggled, especially because SOME of the homework problems were difficult. He requires your time and attention. You do not to read a book to do well. In truth, we covered a decent amount of material but were tested on a very limited amount of it. I received an A without a textbook, but I spent hours working on the homeworks and reviewing for his exams. If you'd like a semi-tough class with an interesting guy and a contained range of material, take this class with Gaurab.

Unless you plan on being an econ major, you probably shouldn't take this class. That being said, I did feel I learned a lot from the class. The class focuses more on algebra and low level calculus than conceptual information. His lecturers weren't the greatest, but they were good enough that I could go off my notes for homework and exams. The homework was very difficult, in my opinion. The questions were challenging and it seemed that he didn't try to do them himself before giving it to us. I found the tests to be significantly easier than the homeworks. As long as you know how to do each kind of problem, you can easily get an A on the test. We basically had 3 midterms (each 25%) and 5 homeworks (each 5%). The class was curved overall.

If you're really good at algebra and calc (like I was/am), this is probably one of the easiest classes you'll take at UVa if you take it with Aryal. If not, then you'd be best off with taking it with someone different.

I want to make amends with Gaurab on the topic of grades since the grades just came out this morning. Gaurab had essentially told us in an email that we needed to be about average in the class in order to obtain a C+, which econ majors know as the ultimate dividing line in ECON 3010. Putting the average or even median as a C+ is pretty harsh in most classes, particuarly one that matters so much for the most popular major in the College (for good reason). I went into the final basically at a C, seemingly digging myself out of a hole and at best hoping for a C+, but I ended up getting a B+. I think Gaurab truly wanted us to strive to do our best by thinking we weren't going to get a major curve when in reality his plan all along was to bell curve the class at the end with the average being around a low B/high B-. That being said, this class put a lot of stress and agony on people. I put dozens upon dozens of hours into his problem sets and studying for his tests. Looking back, it was probably good for us to experience this since the grades were appropriately curved. But, at the time, it was literal hell.

I'll let the other reviews speak for themselves about the quality of our dear professor because in many cases they are 100% true. Very unclear in lecture, very unhelpful outside lecture. Our TA did the best he could, but he could never seem to pick up on Gaurab's nonsense half the time. No one in the class ever knew where their grade actually stood after tests. Dozens of hours of studying were essentially deemed worthless, although looking back the material wasn't overly difficult. Cournot/Stackelberg Duopolies, Hicksian Demand, double marginalization, and labor supply are deemed graduate level topics in some cases by other universities (like Ohio State), but the basics are not hard once you've studied them long enough and seen the process enough times online or in practice problems. What makes this class difficult is not the material, it's the professor and his teaching methods. I would not, by any means, ever recommend taking ECON 3010 with Gaurab Aryal unless you absolutely have to. And if you do, you better find yourself a solid study group early on. Figure out all the processes to the problems, write them down on notecards, and do practice problems for days. Do them until you can literally do the process in your head without looking at a problem. Maybe then will you be able to avoid the over-the-top stress, indignation, and anger that we felt towards the class and towards the professor. For those that find themselves working their way back up after the first test, don't get discouraged. There will be a curve after the final and as long as you are hanging at a C- or above going into the final and study hard and crush it you'll be 100% ok.

You're better off teaching yourself ECON 3010 then taking this professor. Horrible professor to say the very least. Teaches at a very fast pace and goes at the pace of the smartest kids in class. Expects you to know everything and belittles you if you ask a question. Teaches difficult material that is found no where in the textbook or power-points. Gives examples of the most simple concepts and problems in class, but gives problems sets as homework that is very complex . The TA doesn't even understand the homework either and is as confused as the students are. Says he offers help and office hours for students, but really disregards them and says he's busy. Extremely lazy in all aspects of teaching. Especially when it comes to giving out solution to problem sets for the homework and exam. Doesn't give a step by step way to actually solve the problems but only the solution itself. Gives practice problems to help for the exams only to find out it's full of mistakes and a waste of time. Honestly felt like a graduate course with the complex homework and exams. Do not take this professor if you want to declare the major for economics.

While his in class lectures are super general, the homework problems are extremely difficult and time consuming and the exams even more so. He also does not like people to ask questions, rendering him near useless. Avoid.

Terrible Professor. His lectures were poorly organized and half the time he would make multiple mistakes while poorly explaining the problem he had on the board. You would probably do better by skipping class to read the book. Do not take this class unless you can self study extremely well.

informative class, yet difficult.

This was very hard. You need to teach yourself a lot of the material. Make sure you do well on the homework because the exams are very difficult!!!!

Worst professor I've ever had in my life. He never actually goes through the math for any of the examples he goes over in class and then is numbers are wrong. Now that his numbers are wrong, assumptions made off of those numbers are wrong, and the entire process you just learned is wrong. It's too bad you don't have time to do the math yourself in class so you won't know until you try to work through the notes on your own later. He doesn't really answer questions during office hours, but instead will switch between "try harder, connect the dots" "you're smart I'm sure you'll do well on the next test. Just keep on doing what you're doing" and "I would upload the answer key before the test so you can study but I have to worry about my phD students."

I don't think the class is supposed to be that hard but he doesn't teach you everything you need to know. His class examples don't cover things you need to know for the problem sets and often his charts and examples done is class are just plain wrong. Careless mistakes everywhere. If you have him be prepared to teach yourself microecon. You'll need to pay a tutor $80 an hour for god knows how many hours to have a chance of passing.

AVOID.

Prof. Aryal does care about whether you understand his materials. Ask him questions if you feel stuck. He focuses more on calculas and calculation part of Econ than theory, which makes midterms quite difficult. Overall he is not a bad professor.

I don't understand all the hate Professor Aryal is getting. He is actually a good lecturer and he tries his best in class to respond to your questions. I also think he has a great mix of Powerpoint and chalkboard. He is also very helpful is office hours. Homework is easy and the exams, while not easy per se, are very fair. Grading is also very fair.

I would definitely recommend taking Econ courses with Gaurab and enjoyed my time in this class.

Don't ask questions, fam. He will roast you

I get the feeling that Aryal is trying his best to really give us a higher level understanding of the material, but he does a poor job of conveying ideas. Lectures are just frantic note-taking sessions without a lot of understanding. He doesn't seem to like the book, which is too bad since his course is in dire need of some structure and organization. Overall, don't take Intermediate Micro with Aryal if you can avoid it.

Following this professor is both difficult and nearly useless. His lectures could not be less clear and in general he is all over the place. He just scribbles a million different formulas and equations on the board and never bothers to explain whether he is just proving a certain example or giving you a formula. Dude is useless

UPDATE POST FALL 2016 SEMESTER:
Here's the thing - this class shouldn't have been hard. The algebra and calculus involved are not incredibly difficult. But Aryal is clearly a very very smart man who shouldn't be teaching undergrads the principles of economics. Aryal is the last guy in the world who you want to teach you a concept for the first time. He taught the class as though we were graduate students who already understood the concepts he went over before he taught them. His examples really stretched the economic principles as far as they would go and he's the type of professor who is going to use the hardest numbers he can think of (Fraction exponents, etc.) in all of his examples.

Aryal's class made me a tougher human. It was a lot like being water boarded for an entire semester only to realize I didn't drown by the time final grades came out. I really do appreciate how hard Aryal made us think and the challenges that he gave us. However, being a junior double major, I didn't need Aryal to take it upon himself to assign problem sets and practice problems that I would need to spend 5 hours with a tutor just to understand the basics of. Like I said, if I was a graduate student in Economics, I really would have appreciated this class. But I'm not, I was a junior undergrad student taking 5 extremely hard courses and constantly feeling inadequate because of how lost I was in his course.