ECON 3720

I think it's sad that Econometrics is so poorly taught at this school. I'm fairly certain the class isn't as impossible as it is made out to be here, but the teachers and the discussion section is just so worthless. You're almost 100% better off quitting economics all together, learning stats through the stats department or research methods in psychology department. You will not learn much in the class. Even if you manage to memorize everything relevant, and somehow guess what'll be on the tests, you won't have absorbed it.

Not sure if the class is intentionally dense, but it is, in fact, absolutely worthless.

I don't think this class is quite as hard as it's made out to be. While his lecture notes are very similar to what he does in class, he does explain things in class that aren't immediately apparent in the lecture notes. I would recommend going to class as it makes understanding his lecture notes a lot easier. Textbook is necessary for homework and for material on some of the chapters. Group homework was never too bad and didn't take that much time to do. Study all the lecture notes a few days before the tests and definitely do the released practice exams. Reshef does the best he can to make lectures interesting but there is a lot of material to get through and much of it was very dry. I felt I learned quite a bit from this class and would recommend to anyone that doesn't already have a tough schedule.

This course is not "impossible" like some people will lead you to believe. If you work hard, you'll be fine. That being said, it is challenging, and Reshef was not a great professor. I was hoping econometrics would be "applying statistics to economics" but it ended up being "watch Reshef write useless proofs on the board for an hour every class." We barely touched stata, and I had trouble paying attention. Reshef is boring. I recommend taking this class with someone else.