ECON 3720

World's worst class. Professor is extremely boring and gives no heads up what-so-ever about what will be on the exams. Don't take it unless you need it to declare an econ major.

This class isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Michener isn't a very engaging professor but he generally covers all the material that he expects you to know. Homework is 30%, midterm is 30%, and the final is 40%. Read the book if you want to do well in this class and work on the group homework assignments. The book will help you with the underlying theoretical principles and the homework assignments will help you apply those principles and understand them more clearly. Most of the questions on his exams are based on theory.

Michener is mostly made of metal. He is very qualified and actually an extremely competent teacher. His lectures can be obscenely boring (make sure you drink coffee before his class), but he describes everything accurately. He likes to tell tangential stories about econ history (ignore). His online handouts are incredibly good (lots of pictures and graphs) and should be read closely. The book is also really comprehensible, if pedestrian. The tests are just like the hw. YOUR GRADE IS A REFLECTION OF HOW MUCH EFFORT YOU PUT IN THE READING THE BOOK/HANDOUT.

Michener is a decent professor. He is kind but boring. The course is poorly structured.

It's best not to take this class unless you are seriously thinking of declaring an Econ major. Also, you may change you mind about Economics in general, after taking this class. Prof. Michener knows what he is talking about. However, his lectures are extremely boring and you will often find students dozing off. He gives no hints whatsoever on what is fair game for the mid-term/final. He puts up readings on Collab which take a long time to read. In all, it was very clear that this was another one of the 'weed-out' classes for the Econ dept...The avg. on the mid-term was a 68%. Outside class, the prof. is not too helpful. He is clearly overworked. All in all, the econ dept at UVa is pretty bad. The recent budget cuts mean that it is only going to get worse. Would not recommend this class, even to an enemy.

Michener knows what he's talking about; he's a very smart guy. However, he is also a very dry and boring lecturer, so his attendance rates aren't high, and those that do show up struggle to pay attention 100% of the time. However, the book he uses is extremely useful in explaining all concepts in understandable words, and Michener's lecture is a great supplement to the book (it's so watered down that some things may seem unclear/vague), so grab some coffee/Red Bull before class and pay attention because it will pay off. His online handouts are also really helpful and oftentimes contain the answers to the weekly group labs. Make sure you read the book and his handouts while/before doing the lab, understand how to do the labs using STATA program, and you will be set for the midterm and final

Michener's lectures are extremely boring - I attended almost every one but could never pay attention to him. What's important is reading the Collab handouts (and maybe the textbook), and working on the group labs. They're not too long, and the Midterm and Final exams come straight from them. Charlie (TA) is very approachable and helpful.

As a transfer student, my first interaction with Michener (also the undergrad director) was incredibly off-putting. I thought he was rude and pessimistic and it was an all-around insulting experience. I took his 3720 class anyway - perhaps to get a good grade and rub it in his face - and I quickly realized that he isn't a bad guy at all.
Michener is actually a pretty cool dude; he's just INCREDIBLY passionate about statistics. He knows that there is a statistically significant relationship between being a transfer student and failing to obtain a degree in Economics, so he was just being statistically accurate in our first interaction. He has a positive attitude in class and has provides plenty of anecdotes in his lectures... unfortunately, his personality and anecdotes are tied to (what is generally seen as) an incredibly boring subject. He isn't to blame for his class being boring - it's just the nature of statistics, especially higher level statistics.

There are weekly group problem sets that run real statistics through Stata - I HIGHLY recommend that you participate in these problem sets in order to practice using Stata and analyzing the results. The real application makes it considerably easier to grasp the subject

Michener does a fairly good job with a rather difficult/dry topic. He brings in interesting examples and the passion he occasionally shows for regressions can be a bit funny. All in all I would say if you have to take this class Michener is probably the way to go. Also I learned the stata final is not something you should blow off and barely study for.

Michner does the best job of teaching this class out of all those who teach it. He's a dry lecturer, but exceptionally organized. All of his lectures are carefully outlined in exceptional detail in PDF documents he has created himself. If you know those like the back of your hand you'll be golden in this class.