ECON 3720

For this the professor's first time teaching the class, I think she did an amazing and fair job in the class. I heard that the class would be one of the more difficult econ classes you would take. It was challenging but doable. I ended up getting an A-.

Your grade consists of your HW, the final paper and intermediate work for it, and the exams. The HW is through Mindtap and consists of problems that test knowledge of chapter content as well as coding knowledge on STATA. It is very easy to get a 100% in HW as you can try the problem 3x and go to office hours for help. She does also offer extra credit multiple times throughout the semester so take advantage of those.

For her class, there were 3 exams, each non-cumulative. If you sat for the first two exams, you did not have to sit for the third exam which was the final. If you sat for all three, the worst exam score is 10% of the grade, while the other two are 20% of the grade. I liked this option because I ended up sitting out for the last exam to focus more on the paper. For her exams, she gives us a study guide that highlights the things we should know for the exams, and how we would be tested for them. These were very helpful and I recommend that you try to do them without looking at the answer sheet and work out examples from the class lectures.

The biggest part of the class for me was the paper. Throughout the semester, we completed intermediate work (a proposal, lit review, results and discussion, etc.) that was graded by her and the TAs. It provided guidance on what specifically she was looking for and what we should tweak for the final paper based on the feedback. The intermediate work is based on completion so as long as you turn it in, you will get a 100%. I think that Professor Kriplani was very helpful in the paper as she was there to provided any more clarification on her feedback and help through some ideas we may write. As well as this, she helped with concerns over regression results and more. I do feel that with her you gain more feedback and help during the process of the paper that may relieve stress.

Overall, I found the class really interesting and provided a little bit of background for things you may work on in the future. If you have the chance to take a class with Kriplani, do it because she cares about her students, and the grading, in my opinion, allows you to get a higher grade.