One of my biggest issues with this professor and class is that the material in the lectures and homework does not adequately prepare you for the material that will be on the exams. The professor posts his past exams a week before each exam, and I guarantee you that you will not get a good grade on an exam if you do not use rigorously study with the past exams to familiarize yourself with the types of questions he typically uses. The lectures themselves are outrageously boring, and the homework assignments are outrageously easy. I suppose they balance each other out. I would say Mazzocco is overall a pretty average professor.

Grading scheme:
10% homework assignments and one of the two following schemes:
If your final grade is higher than each of your midterms, 50% final and 40% highest midterm;
Otherwise, each exam counts for 30% of your grade.

I heard before taking this course that Econ 11 would be a weeder course and it was notoriously hard from a few of my friends. However, with Mazzocco, it was a lot easier than I anticipated. He starts the quarter saying that you can learn this entire course from the textbook and if you're really good at self-learning, you don't necessarily show up to lecture. There is some truth to that. However, Mazzocco is relatively clear and has a pretty good sense of humour. I went to his office hours once and I found it helpful. Also, I think having a solid TA is integral as well. I often learned most of the course through my TA discussions. Further, TAs hold review sessions for the midterms which really help clarify concepts that will be assessed. In terms of tests, I thought they were extremely fair and relatively easy. Every exam is 100% multiple-choice so depending on who you are that could be good or bad. Additionally, the past exams are very similar to the actual exams given. I often found that doing every practice exam made me more than prepared for the midterms and finals. Mazzocco doesn't curve his tests or provide extra credit, but I believe that he scales the entire course afterwards. If you're not the strongest in calculus I would definitely recommend reviewing derivatives beforehand. There is a lot of chain rules and log rule usage in the course and being familiar with it will make Econ 11 a lot easier.

Exam Averages
Midterm 1: 90% Median // 87% Mean
Midterm 2: 80% Median // 78% Mean
Final: 92% Median // 87% Mean
Needless to say, the exam difficulty is not very challenging but a large portion of the class also does well.

His grade scheme is as follows:
10% Homework
30% Midterm 1
30% Midterm 2
30% Final
(Worst Homework Score Dropped)

OR

10% Homework
40% Higher Scoring Midterm
50% Final
(Worst Homework Score Dropped)

Okay so I usually don't write reviews but I'm seeing way too much Mazzocco slander that's undeserved. Professor Mazzocco is probably the best math-based professor I've ever had, and definitely the best econ professor I've had in my prerequisite courses. Honestly, this class cemented for me that I want to be an econ major. I'm definitely not a math person whatsoever, and I kind of learn concepts and apply them because I know I should, but this is the first time that I actually understand what's going on, and like holy crap it's a whole new world.

I took this class in the online format, and it definitely sucks just because it takes up twice as much time as usual because you watch the video lectures, and then the regular lecture time is used as a Q&A. The lectures are also longer than they're supposed to be, like some weeks he might post a two-hour long lecture for whats supposed to be an hour and fifteen-minute class, but I put the lectures on 2x speed anyway so I can't really complain about that. You also definitely don't have to go to the Q&A, because Mazzocco posts all the previous years' midterm and final exams and their solutions, and as long as you run through at least three to four of those, you're pretty set for the exams. I reaaaally recommend doing them because there are some questions that appear there that you don't see anywhere else. The Q&A's are still good though because he runs through different problems and it's just exposure y'know. I'm just not a morning person and couldn't even wake up at 9:30 am at home.

It'd be stupid to call this an easy class, and it's definitely the class I had to put the most effort into, but I actually felt like I learned in this class and that's pretty cool. The averages of the midterms and the finals were pretty low, like around 65 and 73, but Professor Mazzocco curves really well for the econ department and I think if you score around average you get a B. Also if you score better on your final than one of your midterms, your lowest midterm gets dropped and the final gets weighted more.

Overall, Mazzocco is a nice guy, explains things well, and is kinda funny sometimes. I recommend him!!

I am so sad to write this review. I remember doing everything I could to enroll in this class because of all the incredible reviews that I had read over the summer for this professor. I was also anxious about getting into my major and this was the last class I needed. The lectures are quite clear and the homework material is also easy (accounts for 10%). But DANG... The exams were challenging!!!!! The first midterm average was a 65 which is incredibly low compared to the previous years. I did all the practice midterms he offered and those exercises were actually how I learned how to apply the knowledge, but for some reason, Professor made the questions more challenging, and actually, some I had never even seen in the 7 exams he offered were present during the midterm. The second midterm was better and the average was 74. The final exam's average was 73, but I would say that was the most difficult exam. Also, there were a couple of typos which added to the whole anxiousness of the experience. I thought that with Covid, the class would not necessarily be easier but not as challenging as it became. He said that because it's open notes, it had to be more difficult but in my opinion, having notes does not help you if you don't understand how to do the math. This was a math-heavy course that took lots of time to simplify and get to the answer choices. Nonetheless, Mazzocco seems like a kind man who enjoys economics and there were times where I laughed while watching the lectures. Perhaps in a non-remote learning setting, this class will go back to its normal level of difficulty and will be far more enjoyable. Good luck!

Great professor, clear lecture, challenging test during the pandemic but manageable

Mazzocco is definitely a brilliant Economist and an engaging lecturer. I thought the material was pretty dry, but he maybe it somewhat bearable. You get a lot of resources to do well including old midterms and finals, powerpoint slides, discussion problems and the problem sets. If you can get through everything, you'll do well. I personally thought the hardest part were the multiple choice questions.

Even though he curves pretty generously, you still need to pull As on at least one midterm and an A/high B on the final to get an A in the class. I got a A on a midterm, and a B on the final and didn't get an A somehow. Because he drops a midterm if your final is higher than either of them, you really have to do well. Over 30% of the class got an A on the second midterm. I think the curve really helps the people on the lower end.

Lecture/Discussion
Professor Mazzocco mainly discusses theory in the lectures (PowerPoint slides are always posted) so learning how to do problem sets and applying the theory is on your time. It's important to go to discussions, which is where the TA will teach you how to do the problems.

Exams
Professor Mazzocco drops your lowest midterm and problem set grade. There are 2 midterms, 1 final, and about 6 graded problem sets. He allows a 1-page "cheat sheet" on the exam. Midterm structure is 10 multiple choice questions and 3-4 short answer problems with multiple parts (similar to the problem sets). Multiple choice is basically mostly theory (study and memorize PowerPoint slides) and there are several calculation multiple choice questions. He posts up his previous midterms so be sure to use them to study. I advise you to do them first without looking at the answers to see how much you know and what you need to study more on.

The first midterm was pretty difficult and there was not enough time for most students. Second midterm was simpler and a lot of people did extremely well. Final was challenging and complex.

Overall
Professor Mazzocco is really nice and understanding of his students. He is pretty funny as well so the lectures are not entirely boring. We sped through the market demand/equilibrium chapter on the last class before the final but he did not put that chapter on the final. Before the curve, I calculated a B as my final grade but I ended up with an A. It's not difficult to do well in his class with his flexible grading policy. Highly recommended! I would not hesitate to take him again.

I took Econ 11 with Mazzocco in Fall 2014. Let me start of by saying Mazzocco is a nice guy. But the problem lies in his breaking down of concepts. He makes them seem extremely simple in weeks 1- 3 which does not prepare you for the midterm at all. Most people in my class got screwed over on the tests because they were so much harder than his lectures. This class destroyed my GPA in a sense as it also underprepared me for econ 101 and 102. I came into Mazzocco's class as a 2nd year with a 4.0 with As in Math 31A and 31B but my gpa was ruined by my 3rd year due to Mazzocco's class and the after effects.
I would suggest taking it with Sproul or Garcia or just waiting for a quarter as Econ 11 with mazzocco is a bloodbath.
Avoid this class especially if you are an econ/ bus econ or math econ major.

Mazzocco makes material fun and interesting. His tests are pretty hard as expected in this class and a really annoying thing is the fact that the majority of these econ classes are international students who are extremely good at math. I am not being prejudice or anything, his class is full of students who are prepared well for his class because they have already taken crazy difficult math classes in their home countries so they make the average grade higher.

Anyway, he grades really fairly, IF YOU CAN, TAKE GALLUZZI AS A TA!!! he is seriously amazing.

My advice is, do poorly on one midterm. Do well on another, because he drops the lowest one AS LONG AS IT'S LOWER THAN THE FINAL. So do poor on one midterm. The first midterm was harder than the second, but I think thats just because we didn't know the material as well.

I got a D on the first midterm, a C- on the 2nd, and ended up with a B- in the class, so he does curve very generously because he really does want everyone to do well.

I got an A on this class.
I agree with the poster below me, Alessio Galluzzi was absolutely terrific as a TA. He made a huge effort to help the students. Mazzocco was also pretty good. His lectures were decent. In my opinion, his tests are optimal for students who understand the intuition behind economic concepts.

As for the slight about international students from the poster below: whose academic inadequacies does your comment really display ?