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.

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.

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!

worst professor i've ever taken at ucla

Professor Haanwinckel made the material for this course very simple and easy to understand. In my opinion, this course was slightly easier than the material in ECON 11 and 41; the only material that carries over from these classes are simple expected value calculations and profit maximization. There were plenty of prior exams that were very helpful to study off of, and classes are recorded with slides posted on Bruinlearn as well.
The course is structured with two non-cumulative midterms, and a cumulative final (emphasizing the last third of the course). If your grade on the final exam is lower than the two midterms, the exams are weighted 30/30/30, but if you score higher on the final, it is a 50/40 weight, with your lowest midterm being dropped. The last 10% comes from problem sets, which are not too difficult and also serve as pretty good study materials for exams.
One slightly tricky part of the course was the amount of purely conceptual questions on both the midterm and final, which had the tendency to be phrased very vaguely. However, if you go over the prior exams and in-class examples, they should be easy enough to figure out. Overall, I agree with other recent reviews in that Haanwinckel has made a successful effort in making this course light and engaging for students. Would definitely recommend.

All you need to do is dedicate 10 hours a week to the class by doing the discussion problems and problem sets on your own. Don’t review exams from before or on 2022 because they were ridiculously challenging, as that was when the professor was very tough. Take your time when studying—don’t rush things, rewatch the lectures, and take good notes. On average, it took me 2 hours and 15 minutes to take good notes for each of his video lectures. After that, I would do the discussion problems for that week, then work on the problem set problems. I got an A+, so if you follow that formula, you should do well.

PLEASE take this class with Haanwinckel he is a good and engaging lecturer. I probably put in less than 1/3 of the time/effort studying for this class compared to Econ 11 w Surro and still ended up doing better in this class (this was the first Econ class I got an A in). His tests are pretty predictable and straightforward, all multiple choice with a lot of t/f questions (he posts all his previous exams for you to review but I only did the 2024 & 2023 ones bc the older ones are way too hard). The averages for each exam were pretty high (around a B) and we did end up getting our final grades down curved so that you would’ve needed a 84 for a B-, 92 to get an A-, and 20% of the class got an A. For both midterms you get 3 pages of cheat sheets (6 sides) and for the final you get 6 pages (12 sides) which is more than enough, I always ended up using less. Lectures are recorded but the audio is crunchy. Problem sets are multiple choice, graded on accuracy but not timed. Only complaint is that he sometimes would word things weirdly when explaining concepts, like he would try to use simpler words to explain something but it ended up making it more confusing. It wasn’t a big deal since none of the concepts are that complex and I still thought he taught at a really good pace. Overall this class was genuinely a breath of fresh air coming out of Econ 11 and made me like econ again so thank you Haanwinckel

I struggled a bit in the class because it is more conceptual and theoretical than ECON 11 and ECON 41. ECON 101 is harder than both 41 and 11 combined just because I tend to do better with mathematical calculations than theoretical real-world implications. Professor Haanwinckel is a great lecturer and he cares about students' learning. He would go slower on topics that students struggle with and his lecturers are engaging. Even though he did downcurve our grade (92 is a cut-off for A-), he offers two different grading schemes (one of them allows you to drop your lowest midterm). In terms of the exams' difficulty, they are definitely easier than the previous quarters (hence the downcurve). To succeed in this class - pay attention to lectures (you can join on Zoom or watch the recording), do a lot of practice, and ensure that you actually understand the theoretical concepts.

Material is not as difficult compared to Econ 11 and Econ 41. Only work is doing a problem set every week. He's a good lecturer and he also publishes/records his slides/lectures. However, he does DOWNCURVE if the class scores above average so be aware.

He definitely changed his style of teaching in recent quarters. Material was super light and he provided a lot of content that were helpful for studying like all of his annotated lecture notes/videos and exams (though the older versions were definitely a lot more different and harder than the newer ones so I don't really recommend that you bother with those). Was an engaging lecturer, and he only made you do like a 10 question problem set every week. As long as you knew how to do those and did a bit of review of the old exams, this class should be an easy A. Do note that the final was a bit harder than the two midterms though, so be a bit prepared for that.