Those with a strong understanding of statistical analysis and mathematical proofs would find this class relatively easy. Those whose main experience with statistics and math comes ONLY from the prerequisite courses STAT 2120 (Intro Stat) and MATH 1310 (Calc 1) are going to have a much harder time, at least in my experience. I can attest because I was part of the latter.

Professor Farmer is a very knowledgeable individual, but I felt that his explanations at times extended past the scope of the course and even more past the baseline understanding that most students came into the course with. The second midterm was horrendous in terms of average scores (a score above a 76 was in the A-range), with myself receiving a score even lower than the lowest score to get a C from that midterm alone. This was because everything I studied was NOT on the actual midterm. Although he posts practice midterms with solutions, I found that the concepts that were NOT present on the practice midterms were the ones that were present on the actual midterms. I wish I had that realization after the first midterm.

The grading has stayed the same as mentioned previously by other reviewers, except we do in fact use Stata on problem sets and on the midterms, though on midterms it’s just the Stata output we analyze, not us actually coding. Also, we only get one note sheet per exam; we cannot use previous note sheets for future exams. I suppose that the curve changes in magnitude per semester, but do not rely on the curve to save your grade; Farmer does not curve as generously as some reviews claim.

I highly, HIGHLY recommend going to office hours with your TA and/or Farmer, actually going to lecture and diligently taking notes (Farmer will tell you what will be on the exam in lecture, NOT in a Canvas announcement), and especially dedicating extra study time towards those concepts NOT heavily emphasized on the practice midterm because they WILL come up on the actual midterm, whether that be as a multiple choice question or in the short answer/free response questions.

To supplement my last point, I highly recommend using any AI tool to recreate practice problems and mock short answer questions in the style of Farmer’s own questions. Studying with this absolutely saved my last midterm grade and landed me a passing grade in the class.

As a final “warning,” please take this class seriously if you want to do well. There’s a reason why it’s 4 credits; it’s tough and a lot of content to digest in only 15 weeks. I thought my baseline knowledge of statistics would allow me to scoot by, but that mindset quickly bit me in the back as I ended up with a C in this class.

This class was fair and much more manageable than I thought it would be. I originally wanted to take this class with Rudiger since everyone recommends to do so, but I really like the way Farmer structured this class. We had 8 problem sets total, of which the first one was the hardest and took me the longest. All the other problem sets took me less than an hour and were graded for more for effort than correctness and the lowest score is dropped so it is very reasonable to get 100% on the problem sets. You are also encouraged to do them with other people and my TA was very helpful when I had questions. There are 3 total exams and no final which I loved because I was completely done with this class by the LDOCs. While the exams are very challenging and can be a time crunch, we were given practice exams for every exam, and I found that if I did the practice exam several times I was able to do well on the actual exams. You also get a page of notes for every exam and can use your precious pages, so one page of notes for the first exam, two for he second, and three for the last exam. And while the scores on exams were low, the curve was very generous so as long as you studied all the problem sets for that exam and practiced the practice exam multiple times, you could usually do well. I think this class isn't as scary as people make it out to be and Farmer is a good professor to take it with because he makes it really straight forward and manageable.

I was nervous to take econometrics, but I think Professor Farmer is the best professor to have taken the course with. His lectures are very digestable and easy to understand. He frequently skips the algebraic proofs and mathematical details and only asks you to understand big concepts. The only time proofs are relevant are in the beginning of the course, when deriving statistical concepts like unbiasedness and consistency. The first midterm is the hardest of the semester. It had a really low mean in the 60s, but the other two midterms are significantly easier. The curve isn't as generous as I had hoped; I was in the A-range for each of the midterms and got 3/3 on each of the problem sets but still ended up with an A-minus. Getting an A-minus or a B-plus is without a doubt achievable, but getting an A might be harder. Regardless of the grade I received, I really enjoyed this course and got a lot out of it. Professor Farmer was super kind and approachable in office hours and was patient with my never-ending questions. You can't go wrong with Professor Farmer! #tCFfall22

Leland Farmer's econometrics course is one of the best Economics courses I have taken at UVA. In terms of grading, the distribution was 25% for homework assignments (which are graded pretty leniently; this portion of the grade is the grade-booster) as well as 25% for each of the three midterms (the third midterm replaces a final and is not cumulative). The midterms are all challenging relative to those administered by other econometrics professors (the averages typically ranged from low 60s to mid 70s). However, Farmer curves the class distribution accordingly, as very few students would have achieved an A without a curve. As long as you study the material well, an A is by no means unachievable.

In terms of the lecture style, Farmer is an engaging lecturer and knows the subject very well; ask him any question in class and he will provide an in-depth and clear explanation. Moreover, the structure of the course emphasizes developing a deeper understanding of important concepts in statistics and econometrics – rather than memorizing Stata outputs or commands. Overall, I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in statistics, probability, or econometrics. Farmer is an amazing professor, and you will learn a lot throughout the semester!

This class seems especially daunting at first, especially when hearing from friends about how difficult/time intensive it is. That being said, I found this class to be relatively easy and ended up doing very well in it despite its reputation. Looking back, doing well in this class is more a product of class management than actually learning the material. I rarely went to class after the first exam, as he posts the slides online. The problems sets are not difficult if you understand basic regression, and for exams, you get a cheat sheet. Farmer was super big on notation, and so putting most of his slides onto the formula sheet was really important for success, especially if you aren't a great memorizer. That being said, he definitely gives you all of the tools you need, its just around exam time, you need to write out your cheat sheet and do a few practice problems. A very generous curve as well.

Terrible. No matter how hard you work in this class, it's set up for you to fail, and you don't really learn econometrics. Everyone did terribly this semester because the final was insane and he barely curved. Just take it with Michener, at least you'll learn something.

Nice guy, ineffective lecturer. Farmer strolls through each lecture giving incredibly difficult math/stat concepts while offering pretty much zero explanation on each slide. Unlike Michener, we do not even get to learn STATA, which would actually be a useful skill to learn. His first test he ended up being so difficult, he had to apologize to the class halfway through it and give us hints on how to solve it. In my opinion, that's a sign of failure of a test and a he should have thrown it out and offered us a new test or a Dutch Knockout. Overall, I can not recommend Farmer to anyone taking econometrics and would actually say you should definitely take Michener instead.