ECON 3720

All the exam and research paper are graded by TA. The grading is so ridiculous. How much score you got is totally depended on their moods.
Moreover, there are so many requirements you need to follow for the research paper. You can easily get point loss.
The midterm 3 is only two days before the final exam. I even couldn't get the score for it. I don't know what is the point of midterm 3?
But anyway, this is required course, so try to enjoy it :)

Ruediger is a great professor who genuinely wants to see students succeed. You can tell he puts a lot of pressure on himself to be an excellent teacher above all else. He lectures well, takes time to explain concepts in office hours, and incorporates feedback into everything he does.

The final paper is a grind, and you don't have to write one in other classes, such as Farmer's. However, even though economics is my secondary major, I thought the paper was worthwhile and extremely satisfying upon completion. You probably get more out of econometrics when you have to write a rigorous econometric paper than one where you don't, all else equal.

Finally, the exams are challenging, but are never meant to trick you. If you study well, practice communicating your thoughts on econometric models in writing, and pay attention to time, you will do just fine. An A being a 95 is criminal, but still managed it, just takes extensive prep.

I think Ruediger teaches the class in a way that helps you see the value of econometrics pretty well. The material is definitely not trivial, but he does a good job in presenting it, and providing opportunities for learning. He cares about his students, and it shows. The exams are fair, you just have to be able to relate what you extend the concepts to STATA output. The one gripe I had
about the class is the paper that you have to write. It is a bit annoying if your don't have a great group. Otherwise, take Econometrics with Ruediger for a good experience in the class.

Ruediger is the man. Great professor, incredibly caring, communicates pretty difficult concepts in a way that makes them very easy to understand. There are weekly coding assignments (writing command files for Stata) that are essentially graded for completion, but they're impossible to do without going to discussion sections. There are also 6 or 7 homework assignments that are multiple choice/fill-in-the-blank; depending on how much you want to learn the material (ie do you read the textbook), these can take anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours. The paper is split up into various chunks throughout the semester, but even so the work hits you hard right at the end. GO TO OFFICE HOURS WITH RUEDIGER to talk about the paper - he is incredibly helpful in walking through whatever problems your group is having. A lot of groups change their topic/paper throughout the course of the semester as they get more feedback, and Ruediger is very open to this. The TAs are also super helpful and usually available for help on the paper. 3 exams and a final, each 20% of your grade, you get to drop one (study hard for the first two because the third midterm is harder, final's a bit easier). You'll probably run out of time on everything but the final. The curve isn't particularly generous (somewhere between 3-6.5 points for each of the exams) and you'll have to work hard for the A, but I agree with what other reviews have said about exam prep - just practice applying what you learn in class and you should be fine.

This class was fine. Exams were fine, the project was stressful but at times really fun, office hours were helpful....I just found lecture pretty boring. I don't even know if I could do a better job to be fair, but most of class was him lecturing about an equation that I already read in the textbook. I guess I was just expecting more economic applications, but the class is all statistics pretty much. Again, not his fault, just not what I was expecting so know this is really a stats class before anything else.

I will say the project was super rewarding (I did have a great group). Ruediger gave great feedback throughout the semester and offered to help whenever if I emailed him.

Exams were always pressed for time, but they weren't bad at all. Got a 90+ on all of them, and that's all you need for an A really.

The goat. While Ruediger may seem abrasive at first, he really does care about his students and seeing them succeed. One test is dropped, which means if you do well enough, you can skip the final. (Pro tip: Don't skip the final, it's the easiest exam by far). The project is definitely time consuming, and make sure to pick your group carefully. You have to meet up with them about every ~1-2 weeks once the semester gets going. It is helpful if you know how to code, as most of the project is through Stata. I'd recommend getting help with a good project idea. You start it early during the semester, before you really know what you're supposed to be doing. It is super important to find a project that has lots of data on it, or you might be screwed. As someone who didn't have any stats background, it took me a bit to get used to the material. GO TO OFFICE HOURS. Ruediger is super understanding, and he likes to give points back on exams. There is no reason why you shouldn't utilize them. If you understand the homework, and know how to operate Stata, you should be fine. The textbook was not super helpful for me, and honestly a waste of time, but others thought it was useful. Studying the slides is the most important thing. Ruediger is very fair and very clear to what he expects you to know. There are plenty of Youtubers who also cover the material almost verbatim, and that helped me understand some of the more difficult concepts. His lectures are insightful, and he is flexible about you attending any time section. Discussion was not useful to me, but it really is TA dependent. There are short assignments due during the "labs", but the TAs are pretty flexible, as long as you tried. Overall, if you have the chance to take it with Ruediger, you should. He makes the content interesting, and he wants to see his students succeed.

Before taking this class, people always told me it was easier than what you would think. While this was true to an extent, it certainly was not a walk in the park.

The exams feel like a slap in the face, with a short multiple choice section and two Stata interpretation questions with ten or so parts each. The average was usually about mid to high 80s, including a small curve of a couple points. While they're difficult, they certainly aren't unfair, and its possible to do very well if you start studying a few days in advance. Memorize the big concepts, study the slides that he goes over on review days, think about what he might ask you, get some rest the night before, and you'll be just fine.

Honestly I think my biggest problem with this class was the project. It takes up an almost absurd amount of time (the data processing section probably took about 15-20 hours), so make sure you plan accordingly. The TAs graded each section in an extremely nit-picky way, and what's worse, we weren't given the rubric for each section before we turned it in, so we were essentially held to some standards that we didn't know existed. However, the checkpoints make up a miniscule part of your grade, and the final paper itself seems to be graded much more leniently as long as you take their suggestions (our checkpoint average was about an 85%, but we got an 100% on the paper itself). Most importantly, get yourself a group that you can trust. Mine was fantastic, but I've heard horror stories of groups basically leaving all of their work for one person (which I cannot even fathom given the amount of effort put in by each person in my functional group).

Ruediger himself is awesome. I personally have negative interest in the topic of econometrics (a viewpoint that he acknowledges is common), but he certainly did his best to make the class quite bearable. He also pays attention to the will of students more than any professor I've ever encountered, and spends about 5-10 minutes at the beginning of every class addressing feedback and clarifying topics that students expressed that they're having trouble with.

A few other miscellaneous notes: Unless there's a concept from class that you need more clarification on, don't bother with the textbook. Everything you need to know for exams is included in the lecture slides (honestly, really just the review day slides). I stopped reading it about halfway through and my grades didn't really change. Also, the homework usually isn't too bad as you have three tries to do each question.

Overall, definitely take this class with Ruediger. While there's a ton of work (project + exams + discussion section exercises + homework + readings if you choose to do them), Ruediger really cares about his students, and as the grade distribution shows you, it's actually not insanely hard to do well.

I feel like I don't need to be the one to tell you to take this class; its obvious Ruediger is the way to go. This is the first Econ class I took at UVA where I felt as though the grade I received was the grade I earned. Everything about this class was incredibly fair. The content is difficult and if you want an A-/A you have to work for it, but it is defiantly possible. Personally, I wish I had prioritized this class over some of my others as I ended econometrics with an 89, but it was still well earned. Every exam was incredibly fair and curved a respectable amount, the paper was doable, and homeworks/TA sessions were graded easily. My main suggestions would be to try and take this class with at least 2 or 3 friends as that will make your paper much easier. Similarly, take the time to really study hard for exams and read the textbook or go to office hours. I wish I had spent more time and energy on that cause I'm confident it would've made the difference.

#tCFS24

Ruediger does a decent job teaching the concepts in the class. He cares about the students and goes out of his way to make a potentially boring class engaging. Most of the work for the class is for the final paper. Having a good group is critical, luckily my group was great so the workload was very manageable.

While Professor Ruediger is known for having higher average exam scores than other instructors, I found the course frustrating and ultimately disappointing.

His teaching style was difficult to engage with - he often responded dismissively to student questions, at times calling them “stupid,” and showed little patience when students struggled to grasp material as quickly as he did. The course also suffered from a lack of structure and organization, which made it challenging to follow expectations and prepare effectively.

There was a notable disconnect between Professor Ruediger and the TAs. Each TA covered different material in discussion sections, and their guidance often contradicted what was presented in lecture. This inconsistency made discussions feel disjointed and unproductive. Nonetheless, attendance was mandatory, as points were tied to participation and follow-up assignments.

The exams were particularly difficult - not just in terms of content, but in how poorly aligned they were with the lectures. While class time focused mostly on definitions, the exams demanded deep analytical thinking and application, which we were not adequately prepared for. To illustrate: on one short-answer question, we were expected to define a concept and explain it within a scenario. I followed what we had covered in lecture, yet lost points both for the definition and explanation. The grader claimed the explanation merely regurgitated the definition - despite them being distinct responses. The exam questions were often overly broad (with sub-parts labeled A through I for just two short answers), yet the grading rubric was extremely rigid and specific, creating an unfair mismatch between question scope and expectations.

The regrade process was also a major issue. Our first exam took place in early February, but I didn’t receive a regrade response until mid-April, despite repeated follow-ups in class and over email. For a course so dependent on exam performance, this delay was unacceptable.

In the end, I did not find this course particularly educational or valuable. It may have some merit for students preparing for graduate-level work in economics, but for the average student, the course felt inaccessible, disorganized, and poorly delivered.
While some students consider Professor Ruediger to be the best option available, I personally cannot recommend his class due to its lack of effective instruction and classroom support.