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.

Vogel made some lectures pretty entertaining, 8.5/10 experience

Vogel is the worst professor I've had at UCLA. As the quarter went on, I really realized how much he simply doesn't care about his students. I never knew what people meant by that until now. He doesn't provide any homeworks or problem sets--he just posts his pasts exams and says to do them. His lectures are not helpful for the tests at all. We do not go over any practice problems in class that even remotely mirror what we are tested on, and the way he teaches does not resonate in any logical way. Concepts were vastly overinflated and made much more difficult than they needed to be. Discussion sections are the most helpful, but this completely depends on your TA. Also, only about 30% of the topics we covered in lecture were discussed in section. There were several topics that he just wrote 10 slides about and never provided practice for, but they'd appear on the tests. He is entirely uncommunicative. On the first midterm, he included a 15 point question that was purposefully included as a curve ball, as he never once mentioned the topic in class. Apparently he discussed it in office hours to select students.

The big kicker was his change the DAY before the final from free response to MCQ with no explanation or warning whatsoever. Almost every one of his past tests were free response, as well as both midterms. Free response for a class like this is absolutely vital. There are so many mathematical steps involved for each concept and the true measurement of learning is if you can set up the problem right, which they had provided very helpful partial credit for in midterm 1 and 2. So, for the final, I ended up getting a grade that did not reflect my knowledge whatsoever due to algebraic errors and unfriendly numbers (he also doesn't let you have a calculator but you'll end up with an answer like (346^1/2)/244, which is just a huge waste of time). To me, this reflects laziness and a general "go fuck yourself" to students who had been working very hard to understand things conceptually.

I have done very well in my past classes at UCLA and like to think I'm a relatively smart person. I don't like to blame my failures on other people, but fuck Vogel.

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.

Professor Vogel is a gem of the econ department. His lectures stand out among the department like a shining star amidst the drab, light-polluted sky that is notorious for curving down. He is both passionate and clear—both in terms of how he lectures content, and how he communicates expectations and procedures of the class. Meaning, he is always prepared with real life examples to contextualize course concepts in a tangible way. He loves a tangent which is great for lecture both because they can be fun to listen to and also because it gives you a break from having to listen intently to the whole lecture and you can tune out for a few minutes. He also is occasionally known for interactive demonstrations which seem to be only vaguely related to course concepts but he really seems to have fun with them nonetheless, so who am I to question it. Vogel seems to have a strong understanding of his audience, and can generally tell when to slow things down for confusing concepts, and just generally knows what college students want—like to know specifically what is going to be on each exam. Speaking of his exams, they are incredibly fair. He posts numerous past exams to study from, including rubrics which show that he's generous with partial credit. There are no problem sets for this class, so the workload is essentially 0 every week, fantastic. But the week leading up to midterm 1, 2, and the final—maybe clear your schedule and move to Powell.

A minor note about the way Vogel structures class is that discussion section is weird. Pretty highly dependent on your TA in terms of what they cover and how they do it, and discussion can often feel like taking a completely different class than what we're doing in lecture. Ultimately, I didn't feel like this was a super consequential factor in the grand scheme of the class, but was a little disorienting in the first few weeks.

Simply put, Vogel is an inviting professor that is passionate about the subject and his students' success. He genuinely seems excited to be at each lecture, and has a lighthearted and engaging lecture style without being patronizing. This mundane major class turned out to be one of my favorite classes I've taken at UCLA to date.

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.

Idk why ppl say he's bad. He's literally one of the best professors. If you want to actually understand what is happening in class instead of just memorizing slides, he is the professor to take.
Yes, his tests are tough but honestly, the challenge is fun because he gives you the impression that he knows his shit and when you are done with this class, so will you.
Take him to experience how fun and interesting Econ can be.