ECON 3020

For this semester, our grade was 70% weekly assignments that were due in the afternoon on Wednesday and 30% a cumulative final. The homeworks consisted of a few easy multiple choice questions and then some problems from the book/old exam questions. Our final was 15 T/F and 3 problems. The exam was very similar to the old exam questions on the homework. I didn't think the textbook was super helpful, but it would probably be a good resource for someone with an attention span. The discussion was helpful in that we could see how to do the problems and get a little bit of insight into the concepts. I had Yoonah Baek for my TA and I thought she did well. It did suck that the lectures were asynchronous. I thought Jae seemed cool but I think it would've been nice to actual have the lectures in real time. The grading wasn't too harsh and this was definitely a better class than intermediate micro.

Likely the easiest professor for 3020. Good professor. Helpful in office hours. Problem sets are useful in preparing for exams.

Jae was a good professor. While his lectures were a little dry, I thought that his exams were a fair and accurate reflection of the material. I would recommend taking this class, especially if you liked Intro Macro. The biggest downside of the class was the TA. I had Xintian, a TA who provided little help to the students and was oftentimes rude. Her office hours were 8-9 am on Fridays, and I doubt that anyone went to them for that reason. Instead of explaining concepts, she would pull up the professor's slides or the textbook pages and tell you to read them yourself. The other TA is magnificent, so take his section if you want to do well in the class and actually get help outside of Jae Won Lee. From what I've heard, he goes the extra mile to explain the concepts and to make sure that the students understand the material.

I'll start by saying that if you cannot get ECON 3020 with Maria Westerfield, Jae should be your next pick. ECON 3010 caused me a ton of stress and anxiety, but I did not feel that way in ECON 3020 with Jae Lee. The course material is a lot easier to understand, but one issue needs to be addressed:

Grading inconsistency. From what I could gather, the first midterm was graded SUPER leniently. There were 1-2 topics I fundamentally didn't understand but I still got the vast majority of the credit because I got the "right answer". On the second midterm and final, the tests were graded ridiculously hard and there were some topics I did understand with a small mistake and got no credit. I'm not sure what the deal was, but it's worth telling.

Other than this, I really think Jae taught a good course. 8-10 homeworks during the semester are only worth a total of 10% of the grade so if you can't figure out one of the problems the night before a problem set is due don't sweat it. It really won't make a difference in your grade, just make sure you understand how to do the problem later for the exam.

Tools for success in this class.
1. Read. the. textbook.
2. Attend. the. lectures.

Really this is straightforward. If you read the textbook and attend lectures you should do just fine in this class. Make sure you go to him in office hours to clear things up. Nothing in the course is really that difficult, and it was a cakewalk compared to 3010. Also, make sure you get the TA section with Jining Zhong. He was a great TA and infinitely better than the other TA from what I heard.

Jae Won was overall an effective lecturer. Despite not being a native English speaker, he did a good job overall communicating. My two critiques would be that sometimes he moves too slowly and also my TA was overall pretty worthless and honestly I think I knew macro better. Overall, not a terribly interesting course but as an Econ major it’s required and you’ll learn a few interesting things.

Jae Won Lee alluded to the fact that his exams used to be too easy in years passed and after using some previous exams as study guides, I envy the hell out of this guys previous classes. He's a really poor teacher as he never goes into any type of examples or applications in class but then on the exam he'll throw out questions that no one has ever seen before. The only way to do well is to do the problem sets and then go to section and listen to the incredibly dull recap of the problem sets then study the sweet christ out of those for the exams and pray to god that Jae isn't going to pull any questions that are too redicolous out of his ass.

Not a hard course, but you do have to take some time on it. I thought it was not hard at first and did not spend much time on it. Finally I got a very low grade while I did good or ok job on all other courses (including ECON3720).
Tests in the last year were quite straight forward and in this semester a little bit tricky, but still fair. (we used exams in the last year as practice)

Great guy whose lectures move at a very reasonable pace. Tests overall are fair and the assignments are very helpful for understanding the material. The textbook used was also good. I would recommend taking 3020 with Prof. Lee. -AH

Really not too hard of a class. Moves waaaay slower than intermediate micro so I never really felt overwhelmed with the content. A lot of people seemed to get impatient with Professor Lee bc he moved pretty slow and isn't the best at articulating, but I actually really liked his teaching style, he was a lot more effective when he didn't use power points. Tests were pretty manageable and pretty similar to his practice exams with a few added wrinkles. Discussions were optional with my TA and problem sets are usually super short. Overall, super chill class than can be pretty interesting, take it with Lee if you're looking for low stress.

Lectures are pretty dull. However, extraordinarily easy class. Wouldn't recommend for fun, but if you're knocking out the req for the major, this is by far the easiest way to go. It's not super exciting but very straightforward.

This class was not that hard. Weekly homework but most of the answers could be found online. Lee is kind of confusing and hard to understand because of his accent. You definitely need to read the book to understand the material. Go to lecture though because after a bit he stops reading off the slides and starts writing notes on the board. Two midterms worth 20% each and final 50%, homework 10%. 2nd test was hard but final was really easy and fair, average was almost an A on the final exam, so there was no curve. Lee is super approachable and makes a lot of sense in office hours, I'd take it with him. Overall pretty interesting class.

This class was his first time teaching at UVA. He is a very nice teacher and is approachable outside of class. He will always try and help you out if you email him or go see him in office hours (but he may not succeed in helping). He is occasionally difficult to understand and can be a confusing lecturer. He often writes formulas on the board that are hard to understand and written with little explanation. That being said, his 3020 class seemed to be easier than the other teachers and better grades all around.