Professor Bau was extremely unhelpful in this course, and so was my TA. She made the work unnecessarily hard for absolutely no reason, she admitted this too. If you have to take this class, please take it over the summer as it is more manageable than during the academic year. I was in TWO tutoring courses when I took this class, went to office hours and still struggled in the course. I had to self teach after week 2 because she rushes through the information and doesn't make sure that we REALLY understand the material. Whoever said that we don't "try hard enough" is really underestimating other student's hard work, and precisely you don't know what other students have done to be successful in this course. I would avoid at all costs unless it is absolutely mandatory.

I had never taken an economics class before and did fine in this class--however, I think I got lucky due to the open-note exams because of the pandemic. I couldn't imagine having to do the midterm and final closed book. The midterm was 1 hour and 15 minutes long and although I got an A on it, it felt very rushed and I know a lot of others were unable to finish. The final was three hours long and not as rushed as the midterm although it was cumulative for the whole quarter and more difficult. The problem sets were not bad at all as long as you start ahead of time (about a week or so) and you're allowed to work with up to two other people and use notes, plus the TAs help a lot and confirm answers so it really isn't too hard. Professor Bau's lectures are not very engaging though because I felt like I was able to learn the material better watching 7-minute YouTube videos and studying on my own than watching the lectures. Since the class is required for Public Affairs, there are some connections to public policy, such as environmental regulation or rent control, that I enjoyed and learning about those connections was my favorite part of the class.

Prof Bau reminds me of high school Econ.... Her slides and her lectures are so well-made to be honest, and she will go over the practice questions as if we were in high school. I got 29.5/30 for my midterm so I knew I was on the track to get an A, but an A+ was unexpected. The exams were indeed a little tough (especially the final), but she gave us 3 hours to finish the final, and I only took 2 hours to finish it. She will also curve the scores, so as long as you get a 85 ish you will be fine. Overall, this class is not easy at all, but Prof Bau is a decent prof that you can consider.

I think this class is definitively one of the hardest Pub AFF classes, it requires taking actual notes during class and not skipping. The textbook was helpful but I did not use it much. One of the best aspects of this class is the problem set system she has, youre allowed to have a group of 3 members to work on the weekly problem sets which allows you to get closer to your classmates and makes the problem set a lot easier. Overall, this class is hard if you do not go to lecture or take notes, its easy if you find a good group of people to work with and go to class/ go to tutoring.

going to bau's office hours for the problem sets is extremely helpful because she essentially gives you the answers and explains how to work through the problems. my TA was extremely unhelpful and didn't really know what she was talking about and often made mistakes in section when explaining problems. overall, the class wasn't horrible but I did have some econ knowledge (AP macro and micro) so that definitely helped. i think if it's your first time with any form of econ the class is definitely not easy so go to office hours!

I really like her as a person but not as a professor. She went WAY too fast in class and I ended up self-studying after about week 3- which served me a lot better because her powerpoint slides are VERY helpful. The best thing about this class was the tutor, BLESS HER SOUL. She was SO helpful with explaining difficult concepts. Also I bought the textbook but stopped using it after week 1. I don't think it's a necessity if you took AP Econ in high school, but if you did not take AP Econ in high school it might be a good idea for you to get. The text helped some people a lot but not so much for me.

Professor Bau moves really quickly through a lot of material. There's quite a bit of work involved, we did 5 graded problem sets which could be pretty time consuming but overall if you pay attention instead of complaining you can do a really good job. The class also gets curved at the end which helps a lot. It's definitely harder than the class should be but at the end of the day if you put in the effort you will be fine. Definitely use problem sets to study for the midterm and final and TRUST ME the midterm and final will both be much simpler than the problem sets, which are mostly meant to challenge you.

I took this class when it was the first time it was being offered. I think the professor tries to cover A LOT of material in just one lecture. Yes, she did often ask if we had questions but she would speed through answering them making it hard to understand the material coming afterwards in her lecture. Her problem sets are very time consuming and you basically have to teach yourself how to do them because they make no sense when first looking at them even if you pay attention in lecture. They are much more difficult than the midterm and final. She claims to make it so that if we master the problem sets we will do well on the exams but overall its a big headache. The TAs, however, are very helpful in answering all the questions which made this class a little more tolerable! In order to do well in this class I would recommend going to office hours frequently!

This class will require a lot of time and energy. There are multiple problem sets due throughout the quarter, and many of us felt like they were difficult to do without camping out at office hours for all of the TAs. The tests were hard too, but the problem sets were harder than the tests, so use them to study!

DISCLAIMER: This is the first time this class has ever been taught. This is a brand new class as part of a brand new major so expect things to not be 100% smooth. Take these bad reviews sparingly and pray that things get better in the future for y'all future Pub Aff majors!
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The professor did try. No one can say she didn't. She often paused and asked the class if we had questions and took the time to explain. After the class average on the midterm was a 70, she pushed for subsidized tutoring for people who did bad on the midterm so they could do better on the final. She also posted review slides and answered questions diligently in office hours and responded to her email very fast.
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My qualms with this class was the logistics of everything. The problem sets (of which there were 4) took many hours to do even working in groups. The problem sets themselves also had several errors on them that the professor had to notify us on via email. These errors made doing the problem sets an inconvenience.
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The class also goes over a lot. I have taken Econ 1 in the past and I would say most, if not, all the material of Econ 1 is covered within half the time in this class. So, taking Econ 1 doesn't really even help you prepare for the class all that well. There's just so much to go over we often had to carry lectures over onto future dates which had us feeling very rushed.
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The curve was very generous so I imagine without the curve people did pretty terrible. However, the curve was more generous than a regular curve in economics as said by the professor so that's kind of a plus.
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Overall, the class wasn't terrible but I would say only take this class if you need to for the major. If you're not a math person, don't take this class and in fact, you should reconsider being in the major. The major is equally as quantitative as it is theoretical so I assume that's why PA40 was difficult.
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To get an A, do all the problem sets diligently, memorize every important vocabulary word on the slides, and memorize and know how to manipulate every type of graph (demand, supply, monopoly, monopolistic, marginal curves, average total cost curves etc...)***

***There are a lot of graphs lol.
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Good luck and hopefully by the time PA40 is offered with Dr. Bau again, things will be smoothed out.