YES YES YES! Professor Goncalves is everything you want out of an Econ 11 professor. Spring 2020 was is first quarter at UCLA (I believe he did some post-doc work in NY after graduating from Princeton) and he blew all my expectations out of the water. Especially during all the chaos with the pandemic/BLM protests, he was super understanding and tried to make the best out of the situation. His lectures are very clear, and he goes through a ton of examples to really solidify the content (side note: he REALLY listens to student feedback; he adjusted the difficulty of the 2nd midterm/final after looking over the results of the 1st midterm, for example). He sometimes holds review sessions before exams, and a TON of extra office hours during midterm and final season (use them)! The material of econ 11 is obviously very challenging--the class is a weeder for a reason--but Prof. Goncalves is an absolute gem of the econ department. The grade distribution for Spring 2020 is inflated because tests were open note due to corona, but even if this class was in-person, I'd take this class again in a heartbeat. If I had one complaint about this class, it's the "flipped classroom" structure where you learn the content by watching pre-recorded lectures and lecture is a Q&A session, but this is really more a complaint about the constraints of COVID.

Man's the GOAT. Super clear and good lecturer. I personally didn't like the reversed classroom style of teaching, but also that was probably just in place because classes were online due to the Coronavirus pandemic. But, in general, he explains concepts very well and was as accommodating as the ECON department allowed him to be given the situation.

Professor Goncalves did a good job teaching Econ 11. He offered practice exams which were quite useful.

HOWEVER, this class really is NOT easy, and make sure you understand the material and the lectures.

(Personally, I didn’t find the textbook helpful, but it depends on each person.)

Being honest, this class was hard at the beginning but that's the foundation for the entire class. If you can understand the early material, the later material will come easier to learn as you make connections and lines to the different theorems. The trickiest part of this class for me were the concepts like the stuff you had to memorize like properties and how to apply theorems to different parts of the problem to find the right solution. This class was math heavy, so a strong foundation in calculus would be nice, but not needed. The midterms in my opinion were fair and true to the practice tests he gave, but he did throw 1 or 2 curveballs on the frq portion and the mc. What really helped me get through this class was a man who took this class already who was willing to help and a strong group study of friends. Approaching this class, I don't recommend reading the textbook but rather rely on the slides to understand the concepts, the TA notes to understand the math behind it, and YouTube for anything else you're having trouble understanding. Goncalves is a good professor in general, but the way he explained some stuff was confusing when there was a simpler way to understand it but I had to connect the dots myself and find relationships after doing the problems like 100 times. He does goof up on his math a little, but overall not bad. Pay attention to the lectures because the small things he say will be tested.

Professor Goncalves was great!!! He gave so many opportunities for us to ask questions and really nail in the material. He gives so many resources like practice tests to test your knowledge before the exam, so there really is no way to under prepare for his exams. The exams were fair, and never beyond what he lectured. Take this class with Goncalves!!! The material will be naturally difficult at first but I can't think of any other better professor to take it with. Also, I highly recommend Goncalves' honor seminar on crime and policing. Such cool stuff and very relevant to today.

Goncalves is truly the BEST professor I have ever had at UCLA. His lectures are engaging and straightforward; he doesn't waste time explaining concepts you don't need to know. His problem sets can be a bit tedious in the beginning, but you get a long time to work on them and they're insanely helpful for the exams. His exams are super fair and align exactly with what he teaches; most people say Econ 11 is a pain but this was by far my favorite class I've ever taken in the major. I would 100% take any other class with Goncalves given the opportunity; he really cares about his students learning and office hours were super helpful as well.

Absolutely love Prof. Goncalves! I took his class online, and he was excellent at clearly explaining all the concepts. He provides a crazy amount of practice material for the exams, so there's not really anything they can throw at you that'll surprise you. In addition, he was extremely helpful in office hours. Having a good TA helps as well, I had Barone, she's great! There's weekly homework assignments that account for 20%, 2 midterms (each 20%), and a final (40%). He was also fairly lenient in terms of changing up the grading structure to give you the best possible grade. Overall, Goncalves is a great option for Econ 11, especially because a lot of students find the subject matter challenging.

Professor Goncalves was the best professor I've had at UCLA! I was scared to take this class because I had heard it was difficult, but Professor Goncalves explained everything very clearly and prepared us for the tests very well. I took this class while it was online because of COVID-19, so the lectures were pre-recorded videos, while the actual lecture time was used to do practice problems and give us time to ask questions. We had weekly homework assignments, which were super helpful and reflected what we had been learning in class. He gave us multiple practice exams before each midterm and the final, which were extremely similar to the real tests. Professor Goncalves was extremely kind and helpful during office hours and during Q&A sessions. I would highly recommend this professor!

Professor Goncalves is really helpful, accommodating, and cares a lot about students' learning. He really devoted a huge amount of time and efforts into teaching this class with pre-recorded lectures, two Q&A sessions each week at the scheduled lecture time, and lots of office hours. His lectures and Q&A sessions effectively introduce key concepts and examples and have clear focus on what will be tested on the exams. In a difficult quarter when it's hard to fully focus on classwork, he accommodated a lot by providing multiple grading schemes and making the exams straightforward. In future regular quarters, I would expect his exams to be harder but still manageable, as he gives tons of practice exams and goes over tons of example problems that really consolidate almost everything learned in this course. Regarding this class itself, I would say it's easier than I thought before taking it. I would say this class focuses more on applying quantitative tools and linking economic concepts with quantitative interpretations. I didn't take Econ 1 and 2 here at UCLA, but I feel this class did not add that much to the theoretical background I learned from my high school Econ 1 and 2 equivalent. Although Math 32A is not a pre-requisite for this class, I would recommend taking it before or together with Econ 11. Still, Professor Goncalves explains knowledge related to Math 32A well so there's no worries. Overall, I would highly recommend taking Econ11 with Professor Goncalves.

Since this was my first econ class at UCLA (I got credit for Econ 1 and 2 from high school) and it was a difficult class I felt that I struggled a bit more than if I had taken Econ 1 and 2 before this. I knew it was a weeder class going in and the difficulty was expected but I felt that my TAs (I attended Victoria's sessions and Akina was my original TA - I changed due to timezone issues) were both incredibly responsive and helpful. Additionally, Professor Goncalves was helpful and hosted Q&A sessions but due to timezone issues and the timings of my other classes, I could only attend one. I think that Professor Gonclaves could've potentially just had live classes and then posted the recordings of those instead of posting lectures and separately hosting Q&As during class time, but of course, this is more applicable due to COVID. I found that he was a good professor and he definitely took feedback well (midterm 2 was easier than midterm 1 and I felt the final was also a good level of difficulty - especially for an open-notes test). However, sometimes I felt that it took me a while to understand the content because he explained it in a very roundabout way. Other than that, I'd say this class was reasonable given the known difficulty of econ 11.