Vogel has really clear lectures (all of them were prerecorded, so it was nice being able to replay any confusing parts at any time). He doesn't give any problem sets, but he has a good amount of practice problems that he gives from old exams to discussion/review questions. I still think having more practice questions would be nice, but I spent a decent amount of time going through examples from lecture and the practice he provided, and I was able to do well in the class by understanding that information. His grading scheme was 20% lower score of 2 midterms, 30% higher score of midterms, and 50% final, which was a bit intimidating at first, but he gave a pretty generous curve for the final grade.

Professor Vogel's test is by far the most ridiculous test I've taken in UCLA, and I had Ronchetti just for comparison's sake. I have never seen a professor who just determines a student's entire grade based on 8 questions. PLUS, the points he assigns to each of the 8 questions are TOTALLY ABSURD, for example one question may be worth 50 points while the other one is worth only 10 and the latter requires WAY MORE CALCULATION. ALSO, he does NOT give partial credit. I got THIRTY points taken off just because I did not write boundary solution, which is literally two lines. He also brags about how he has tenure so he can't be fired no matter what happens. Seriously, UCLA needs to be careful of who it's offering tenures to. In conclusion, just like one of the previous comments, HE DESERVES TO BE BALD.

Taking this class all my friends already took during the summer they all said it was alright. But then I took it, and studied hard for every exam, however, as the midterms and finals roll around they are completely different than what you learn. He teaches you the easy concepts and test you on the hard concepts. Its horrible, especially being online, you cant ask him to clearify what he says. The way they grade is beyond harsh as well. I could tell that the professor taught this class many times, that he forgot how difficult it is to understand the concepts for the first time. Lastly, your grade depends on your midterms and finals. So just know if you not use to remebering to write all the B.S. wordy answers you will fail. Doing the math is not enough. And getting the concepts right also is not enough. I just wish you luck.

I really enjoyed Prof. Vogel's lectures. He is very thorough in his explanations. You need to take the time to watch them attentively. The class material in itself was really. interesting - I loved the introduction to game theory.
I got an A by taking written notes during the lectures, reviewing them and consolidating them into study guides, and completing the provided preparation questions. The only way to get an A in this class is complete understanding - don't take this if you just want to memorize.
I hope to have Vogel again in the future.

Econ 101 is not an easy class but I think Vogel's approach to the class is not the worst but not the best. His lectures are helpful if you take your time to watch it and watch it again. He did hold office hours to answer your questions and didn't record it so I'd recommend attending those sections. He doesn't give a lot of practice so you need to truly understand the materials through working on these problems over and over again. TAs are big help, shout out to my man Augusto!!! His grading scheme is actually not strict, you only lose 1 point for math mistakes. The curve is also very generous, so I'm thankful for it. The only catch is you need to read the exam questions VERY CAREFULLY, all the important info are in the LITTLE DETAILS. If I had read them more carefully, A would be totally doable, but I did not so don't be like me. If you are hard working and curious, I'd recommend taking this class for sure. This guy is a bit eccentric which makes the lectures kind of interesting from time to time, and he does try to make Game Theory more interesting.

*Online Version*

The class did not have homework and the final grade was totally based on midterm and final grades (I don't remember is there a 10% participation or not).

Since there was no homework, I haven't watched any lecture videos before the midterms, which is not recommended. The midterm was hard because the time is limited.

The final is also hard, but easier than the final since the time duration is longer for the final.

I don't know why people are so sour about this class. I thought Professor Vogel made it much easier to learn Economics 101. It was definitely much easier to grasp than Economics 11 was. He takes you through the course, and he tells you what you need to know or if you've already covered things in some form or other. I thought he was very helpful. The course is self-contained, and he didn't require any outside materials. All the information you need comes from the lecture slides or from discussion. It certainly isn't the EASIEST class you can take, by any means, but the work was certainly trimmed with Vogel's help. I thought he made game theory--a most challenging concept to teach--very easy and very manageable; he made the math so easy; and, he assigned very easy homework that you can basically pull from the lectures. Now... if you did pull from the lectures to do the homework without giving any thought to it, and you didn't do well on the midterms, I think that's on you. I got good scores on the midterms, so they obviously weren't impossible.

Granted, he isn't the most personable professor, but I thought he was a great professor overall. People just expect professors to be nice all the time, and Vogel isn't nice all the time. He'll get annoyed, like all of us, and he'll be curt when he's annoyed. He cracks jokes occasionally, which are actually quite funny if you understand the references; his analogies can be unrelatable, especially if you didn't grow up with the culture he is referencing.

Overall, a great professor, and I highly recommend taking this class.

Professor Vogel is rude and often times condescending to students who have questions regarding class materials. In addition, he managed to give a midterm after Thanksgiving during Week 9, which is totally unnecessary. Not to mention, he cancelled class Tuesday of Week 8, when he could have given us the midterm. Furthermore, his tests are only 2 questions. That's right, if you don't understand what a question is asking, you can easily get a 50%. I would give him a 3/10 as a professor.

If I'm being honest, I hated ECON 101 with Professor Vogel. It's not so much that his class was difficult as it was his attitude. Vogel came from teaching at Columbia, which he mentioned a few times, comparing our program with theirs in a condescending manner. Sure, their program is likely much better, but there's no need to be rude about it. He did not like to help students, in fact I remember following one exam, he told the entire class not to email him at all with any questions. I distinctly remember the TAs not liking him either, criticizing his teaching methods. Oh, and perhaps to explain this attitude, he did brag to the class once that he had tenure and would never have to worry about unemployment.

Now onto content: the class was not impossibly difficult, but it was difficult. While the midterms were quite different from the practice exams he gave, the final was much more similar to what he provided as study materials. After the exams, I did end up finding some questions identical to those of the midterm questions in the slides, but ironically, I had notes on my own slides next to those specific questions: "He did not go through this example. Try it at home on your own." So that was annoying. Also, there was one question on the first midterm that involved using inequalities. In class, he said that the inequalities wouldn't matter in terms of whether or not you used less than or less than/equal to. He ended up marking down significantly on the exam.

To sum it up, I wouldn't take another class with Vogel. His attitude stinks and he's a bit rude.

i think he probably grades easier now after looking at past reviews. the key to this class is to simply sit down and do every single past exam question, discussion question, and lecture question. his exams are pretty identical to those. he did generously curve, which i think maybe he didn't in the past. he knows people don't like him and i don't think he cares. i think he's a snob who doesn't care about his students and can be very condescending. so that made the class very unenjoyable for me but it may not to others. it's nice to not have homework but it pretty much makes everyone cram and learn at the end (all exams are week 7 onwards). grading is 25% MT1 week 7, 25% MT2 week 10, and 50% final. having MT2 during week 10 is ass but you get over it. it's basically another final but just on game theory. the material itself isn't hard, but just try to understand the steps of everything and you should be fine. his recorded lectures and practice problems is really all you need to do/can do. discussions were pointless for me i just sat there and did the worksheet myself since my TA was really slow. live lectures were just office hours and those were helpful a couple times if i needed to ask something. mostly it was going over exam questions. TLDR: if there's someone better take that, but you'll be fine in this class otherwise. no workload just exams.