This class ruined my GPA. The professor is a nice and genuine guy but the way he structured the class was very messed up. As someone who had a relatively easy time taking Econ 11, Econ 101 recked my self-esteem. Regardless of how much studying, I would've ended with the same score mainly because of how his midterms were different from the lecture and practice sets. Stay away from this professor. The only thing fair was the final.

I want to preface this review by saying that the professor really is a nice guy, and I found the class content much more interesting than Econ 11. That being said, I did not enjoy my experience with this class. The first midterm had about a 58% average, the second about a 40%. I'd say I genuinely guessed, as in had no idea what the question meant and picked a random answer, about half the time during his exams, especially on midterm 2. I didn't really understand how to study and be prepared for these exams, and I'm assuming most people felt the same way, as a 40% average meant nobody knew how to do the exam. After midterm 2 I genuinely considered dropping the class and just retaking it a different quarter, but I ended up seeing it through and got a B (I didn't want to drop after dealing with it for 8 weeks already if I didn't have to). However, if I'd known the class was going to be like this, I would have waited to take it a different quarter. The final was much more fair, and I think if the whole class was structured like the final exam was, it would've been a better experience (still difficult, but better). But for some reason, he gave us these questions that I think would've been difficult for econ PhD students, let alone sophomore/junior undergrads.

We also didn't have a lot of material to prepare for the exams. The lecture slides were alright, and we had weekly problem sets, but I don't feel like the practice exams were an accurate representation of the real exam. One out of two practice exams he posted before the final didn't have answer explanations, which made studying from it useless because you couldn't learn how to get the right answer from a question. This made the exams even more frustrating, and made studying feel extremely futile at times.

What also frustrated me about this class was his attitude towards the difficulty level. It seemed like he really didn't care or didn't understand how bad the class was. After midterm 2, he emailed us saying it didn't really matter how bad we all did, because he'd just curve the grades anyway. I don't think he understood how awful it feels to study all week for an exam, just to have to guess on over half the questions anyway. He followed up with an email saying he thinks a 55% is a good average for an exam, and that he can't give a lot of students As because he has to "preserve the reputation of UCLA's econ department." Additionally this class was graded on a ranked curve system, so you were just competing against everyone else in the class for a good grade, which is fairly typical of UCLA econ classes but I feel is also unfortunate.

Overall, I think he has the potential to be a really good professor, but the class this quarter was insane. If I knew it would be like this, I would've taken 101 another time.

Very, very difficult class. Slides, problem sets, and practice tests felt useless when trying to study for both midterms. Quite hard to gain motivation to study for the final when it felt all luck based. I am not a huge fan of microeconomics to begin with, but this class probably killed any sort of passion I had left for it. Professor is extremely nice and I feel bad writing this review because of that, but I do not think I would take a class again with him unless his expectations of undergraduate students is lessened.

He’s a good guy but this class is just not it. Your grade is basically based off how good you can guess on exams because you will never study enough to be ready for his tests. I only got an A because I had luck with guessing. This class is no better than Econ 11, except for that I was able to guess easier on the exams. The best you can do is hope that you score at/above the mean. He literally told us that he makes his exams so hard so that he can find the exceptional students and write them letters of recommendation.

This was one of the worst classes I have ever taken. The professor's slides and lectures were incredibly hard to understand and the problem set and exam answers often had mistakes. Furthermore, the exams were so fucking hard for no reason - as I'm sure you've read already, most students guessed on the majority of the questions as the difficulty level far exceeded anything we ever saw in class or for homework -- I believe the average for the second midterm was a 44%. Then, to justify the ridiculous difficulty, he claimed to be the arbiter of excellence for the UCLA Econ department, saying that its reputation would suffer if he gave easier test, which in and of itself makes zero sense. Due to what I believe were an inordinate amount of complaints, the final was slightly easier than the two midterms but the average was still around a 60%.

Take someone else pls

the worst professor i have ever had

Love him. King. Pro-Daniel movement rise up

Professor Haanwinckel made the class, which I already expected to be difficult, way harder than it needed to be. The problem sets and practice exams he'd give us before the midterms and final were significantly easier than the actual exam so when you'd take the exam, you'd be completely loss; There are 2 midterms and 1 final. The average score of the second midterm was a 44% and the class consisted of over 400 students (how did 200 students score below a 44% despite studying over a week or two weeks in advanced)? Most of the students in the groupme said they guessed on most of the exam too. There were also several mistakes on the exams, one of which he forgot to put the correct answer in the multiple choice options so half the class wasted several minutes working on the problem only find out they had the correct answer in the first place. Then, they ran out of time for the rest of the exam. There were errors in the slides which was confusing and I know that he could've gotten a fairly accurate idea of our understanding of the material by not giving us ridiculously hard test questions. He was nice though!

This class was the actual bane of my existence winter quarter. I was so confident on all the homeworks and honestly did super well on every one of them, but then the exams were COMPLETELY out of nowhere. I actually did surprisingly well on all three exams (no thanks to Haanwinckel) but it is honestly just because I am good at intuitively guessing. He made this class harder on purpose because he wants to single out the stellar students and weed out the non exceptional ones which is ridiculous honestly. Avoid him at all costs.

The grading format was 10% HW and then either 30% Midterm 1, 30% Midterm 2, 30% Final, or 40% Highest Midterm 50% final, whichever was higher. The course is curved, so only your ranking in the class matters. At least taking this class online, the tests were all multiple choice and the lectures were pre-recorded. There was no textbook for the class. The professor would hold "Q&A Sessions" during class time, which most students never attended.

In Spring 2021, the exams were definitely challenging, especially compared to the homework problem sets. Problem sets, especially at the beginning of the course, were more computationally focused while exam questions tended to be more abstract. There are really only 4-5 different types of problems, and making sure that you are intimately familiar with them is the best preparation for the exams.

For the first two midterms, we were given the exams from Winter 2021, and they were definitely much easier than the exams given. However, when the practice final specifically created for this class was much closer in difficulty and format to the final exam.

After each exam, he added ~10-20 points to every student's score. I'm not sure why this was done since the class is graded purely on a curve.

I found the course more insightful than Econ 11, but it definitely is not an easy course.