ECON 3720

I took this class online Fall 2020. Professor Michener was utterly unprepared for class. He was unable to answer questions because he refused to pull up the homework/test in reference. He attempted to answer these highly specific mathematical questions based on vague memory; rarely were the answers helpful or relevant. He would not provide visual examples in class, nor would he show you how to correct your mistakes. Until students begged for it halfway through the semester, no marks were included on labs to show which answers were right and which were wrong. Lectures were recordings from a previous semester with extremely poor audio. For such a vital and challenging subject matter, I expected more from the Econ department. The quality of this course was embarrassing. Praise the TAs; they were true heroes.

Michener is misguided: Michener does not understand basic microeconomic theory; Michener does not understand rational expectations or how to make it operational; Michener does not understand my model of monetary performance; Michener does not understand how colonial New Jersey redeemed its paper money; and Michener does not know how to evaluate quotation evidence.

This is by far the worst class I have ever taken at UVA. Michener is an awful professor. I took the class while UVA was online (2021), and he used recycled lectures from 2016. There was a lot of background noise and it was hard to understand what he was saying half the time. He was very rude and condescending whenever he answered our emails. The homeworks could get confusing and lengthy, but overall they weren't too bad. However the exams were absolutely terrible. The averages for the two midterms were both around 45%. His grading system seems aimed to make us have a bad grade. He doesn't answer any questions about how he is curving the course, so most of us were genuinely concerned about passing the class for the entire semester. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to take Econometrics with another professor. AVOID MICHENER AT ALL COSTS

Easily the worst instructor I've ever had, with some of the worst course design as well. Where do I even begin with this garbage fire of a class? To start off the semester, the syllabus says that all homework assignments (which are quite tedious) aren't actually graded, but instead they simply pick out a subset of the problems, grade those, and calculate the geometric mean of the score you got on those points and the *portion of the assignment that appears complete.* Essentially, the overwhelming majority of work that you do for any lab is there to just spend your time because the graders can't be bothered to look at it. In fairness, this isn't actually as bad as it sounds, because a lot of the tedious work is easy once you learn the Stata commands, but it still just feels like a waste of time. However, it sets the tone for the entirety of the class, which is dismal.
This probably won't be as much of an issue post-Covid, but during online classes, Michener never bothered to lecture at all; instead he pointed us to lecture recordings from 2016 with awful audio quality (you can hear people coughing louder than his voice, which is borderline inaudible). Instead, lecture times got turned into quasi-office hours, which I never went to, but they were the only source of feedback you could get on the homework, because not only do the graders only look at a small subset of the problems, they don't even provide feedback on the questions they do grade! In fairness, I was able to learn all the course content by reading the textbook and his handouts, which are reasonably comprehensive, but it is underwhelming to attend university just to read online PDFs.
More broadly, Michener's entire attitude and approach to teaching is incredibly unreasonable. His exams have shockingly low averages (means of 49.48/42.81 and standard deviations of 19.11/21.04 on the first/second midterms, to be specific), which is an indicator of how poor the instruction is. Michener's philosophy is that "the idea of a test is to figure out what you know and don't know," which also translates into distributing prior exams and then refusing to provide any help when asked. This is not entirely indefensible, but this simply does not apply to how poorly Michener's exams are designed. They are typically a mix of conceptual questions and computation questions, with the key point being that NO PARTIAL CREDIT IS OFFERED ON ANY QUESTION. For the computation questions, there is also no way to illustrate your procedure or thinking - simply dump in a number and it's either right or wrong. This is particularly egregious on the Stata portion of the final (which gets geometric meaned with your overall lab grade, so if you do poorly on this all your effort on the labs basically goes to waste), where questions will directly require commands used in previous questions. This means that if you made a prior mistake, even if this step is done correctly, the fact that you can only submit a single number means that the grading's distinction between partially-correct and complete gibberish is nil.
Anyways, as for difficulty, besides the shitty exam design the class itself isn't too bad content-wise. The curve hasn't come out yet, but apparently it's probably super generous (probably because it has to be since everyone's exam scores are so trash). The labs are easy as long as you read the relevant textbook chapter/handout - the textbook will do a better job explaining the concepts, but the handouts will literally walk you through how to do all the commands necessary for each lab so if you're only interested in getting through the assignments they're probably more helpful. I had 100s on most of the labs by only using those resources, so that's probably all you need to pass at least. For full disclosure, I couldn't be bothered to study for the final so I decided to P/F, so I probably won't find out what my final grade was, but I scored a 75 and 70 on the first/second midterms respectively, which probably translates to a low A or A-. Regardless, fuck this class.
#tCFspring2021

This was one of the hardest classes I have taken at UVA. Frankly, it is not the content itself that makes this course so unbelievable, it’s the exams. The average on the exams was consistently in the 40s (despite being open-note), and he doesn’t curve until the very end which makes it difficult to know what your actual grade will be. However, he does curve the average to a B/B- so most people end up doing fine in the class even if after failing the exams. If you have to take this class, try not to take it with Michener. Even though I believe Michener is a good lecturer, I’ve heard other profs are more forgiving with grading which would have been much less stressful. I actually didn’t mind that Michener relied heavily on STATA in his class because it made the content seem more applicable to real life and it made sense to me. Overall, don’t take it with Michener if you don’t have to, but if you study really hard for the exams, you’ll survive. #tCFspring2021

This was by far the hardest class I have ever taken at UVA, and unnecessarily so. Michener wasn't a bad lecturer and is probably fine in person, but especially in the context of an online asynchronous course, he failed to adequately respond to questions and made the exams almost impossible to pass. Taking this class with Michener has tanked my GPA, whereas if I had taken it with another professor I'd both better understand the material and have a better overall grade. Additionally, the weekly homework assignments that were intended to be completed in groups every other semester were changed to be individual assignments (with no help) this semester. They took an overwhelming amount of time to complete, and it was completely incomparable to other semesters where students had groups to work with - but our class will still be judged by the same standards as the others in the context of graduation and jobs. This should show the poor decision making for the class. To make matters worse, the lectures were old recordings from 2016. If at all possible, do not take this course or take it with a professor who aims for better scores on assignments and exams.

The worst econ prof I ever had. avoid him if you can.

Do NOT take this course with Michener! Whatever you do, take it with any other professor. Michener's exams are very hard and routinely have averages in 40s. The curve is enough so people don't fail the class, but most people get Cs and lower. He doesn't teach Stata well despite it being integral to the course and he doesn't communicate well with TA. My TA didn't even know when our exams were or what we were learning, so discussion was pretty useless. You will basically be teaching yourself stata and econometrics using the textbook that he makes you buy. This same textbook Michener constantly roasts and talks about how it's not always helpful. The weekly assignments are tough and you aren't allowed to collaborate, unlike with other professors, so at least 50% of the class ends up going to office hours right before the due dates because no one knows anything. So yeah, don't take this.

This class is tough, although if you commit yourself to learning Stata and understanding the basics of hypothesis testing, you will be fine. Lecture can be useful if you pay attention, although he tends to ramble and isn't the best at answering questions live. READ EVERY HANDOUT IN DETAIL!!! And read Studemund. This class, at least in my experience, was equally about learning Stata as it was econometric methods.

The labs for this class are time consuming for sure. Definitely go to discussion. I learned how to do every aspect of the labs through discussion, along with the videos Michener posts on Canvas. If you put effort and actual thought into the labs, you'll be in better shape for the midterm/final. And, based off of the way the final was graded when I took this class, it basically all comes down to the final (25% of your final grade is the written final exam, and then there is also a 25% Stata portion that is weighted geometrically with the 25% lab grade. If there is a big difference between your Stata lab grade and Stata final grade, the Stata final is weighted more. However if the two are similar, demonstrating a mastery of Stata, the two will be closer to a classical average). Michener's reason for this grading style is to punish those that half-ass the labs and don't actually learn how to use Stata.

Also, if you take any econ history / econ theory classes in the future, you will most likely be reading economic papers that use econometrics regressions. If you can come away from this class with some understanding of how these regressions work, you'll put yourself in a much better position for those future classes. Even if you never plan on using Stata again, understanding the overarching process of running a regression will serve you in the future.

The worst part about the class is honestly not knowing what grade you're going to get until you log onto SIS at the end of the semester. With that being said, it is not unheard of to get an A. I personally did average on the midterm (60/100), not so well on the final (38/100 on the written part – with the average being ~50/100, and 60/100 on the Stata part – with the average being probably a 45 or 50/100), and well on the labs (probably averaged a 90% overall) and got a B in the class. All things equal, I was fine with that grade and would consider it average. A friend of mine did similarly to me throughout the entire semester, and then did better than me on the Stata final and got an A-. As long as you're doing average, you'll most likely come away with some sort of A or B, even if you think you're failing all semester.

This class was not my favorite nor was it overly enjoyable, but it is a requirement for the major. My advice would be to do as Michener wants (LEARN STATA AND READ HIS HANDOUTS!!), put your head down, and crank it out. You'll be fine and once you get through, your electives will be so much better.

Everyone knows Econometrics is a hard class but NEVER take it with Michener. Not only will you not learn anything in his class, you will also receive terrible grades. His lectures are unbearable and boring, as he just turns and blabbers at the board until 5 minutes after class ends. His lectures also provide no benefit to your learning in the class. His grading is made up of a 2 part final, a midterm and weekly homework. The weekly homeworks are the main way to learn in the class and expect them to take awhile. The homeworks are not graded fairly in my opinion as you are not told what you got wrong and homework "quizzes" make up half of your homework grade. The exams in the class are tough as the class average is around 60, Michener does curve at the end but you have no idea where you stand throughout the semester. He does round at the end of the course but he rounds the grades so that the median is a B-. Ultimately, do not take this class with Michener, it is just miserable. The TAs are the only saving grace of the class. #tCFF23