Daniel did acknowledge the exams in the past were extremely difficult and he tried to improve by making exams more similar to problem sets and slides. However, his exams were still extremely difficult and not worded well at all as if it’s purposely trying to trick or confuse you. He claimed that he won’t try to “trick us” on exams, but I personally felt otherwise. I personally felt extremely prepared walking into exams but then ended up guessing on more than half of it.

Teaching wise, he had really helpful and detailed slides, but the way he explained some of the concepts made them harder than it should’ve been to understand. Even though I was familiar with some of the concepts beforehand, I was still confused by it after hearing him explain it.

Overall, Daniel is extremely knowledgeable in his field of Economics and great person to talk to, but unfortunately that didn’t reflect onto his teaching in my opinion. All the reviews in the past still stands with the exception that exams were “easier” (still very difficult) and I wouldn’t recommend taking him if you want a class that truly tests you on what you know rather than it be a guessing game on every exam.

I took this in Winter 2023, and the professor seems to have learned from his past mistakes of making exams too hard. He's a wonderful professor as he seems to genuinely care about the students, and I love his lectures. He assigns weekly multiple-choice problem sets as homework. There are 2 midterms and 1 final.

I found the exams difficult, and it was due to the nature of multiple-choice questions, e.g. a question gives you several statements and asks which is true, and a choice might be "more than one". As a math student inclined towards calculations, I found these types of problems incredibly difficult even with practice.

I think the material is interesting and helps me understand strategies and games better, so I don't regret taking the class. However, if you're a math-inclined person like me and want to get good grade without struggling too much, I'd recommend taking a math class instead. I'd also say that Prof. Haanwinckel made this course more enjoyable, and it's my favorite econ class at UCLA.

worst professor i've ever taken at ucla

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.

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.

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!

I took this class during covid and it was also his first quarter teaching so things might be very different in later quarters. The grade was 10% based off of hw and the rest was the two midterms and the final. If you scored lower on one of the midterms than the other midterm and the final then that test grade was dropped which thankfully took some pressure off.

The two midterms were both extremely hard. The prof tended to ask more conceptual questions that were much harder than the hw and the practice exams he gave us. During both exams I felt like I had no idea what was going on and ended up getting a raw score of about 50 both times. He curved both tests, though I'm not sure how. I and many others in the class thought that the midterms were unfair in how hard they were and felt that we were not adequately prepared for them. The prof must have received this feedback and taken into account because for the final he gave us a practice exam that was much closer to the real test. He also curved the final and the final grades (although again, I'm not sure exactly how).

Bottom line is I would recommend taking this class with this prof. Through his emails and his willingness to accept feedback for the final he showed that he cared about his students. He was very encouraging, I never went to office hours but I heard he was helpful. The time commitment for hw is very minimal--weekly problem sets that can be done if you set aside a solid chunk of time. His lectures were pretty engaging and I appreciated how he connected the topics to real-world examples and broader social science concepts. I think the fact that he was such a new professor really made him more in touch with students unlike older professors who just care about their research.