I was one of the unfortunate souls, who took Snider's Economics 101 and had to repeat the class. Since I was very nervous that I could get kicked out of the economics major, I studied a lot for this class. Luckily for me, it was a very easy, straightforward and enjoyable class. The professor is kind, fair and considerate. When he made an exam question which he did not cover during his lectures, he just told us to throw it out. Even though I did not have his old midterms, I followed a very easy recipe to get the highest economics grade in my UCLA experience: 1) I solved every practice question (sometimes twice or three times to understand it completely). Since his questions usually repeat in a problem set, once you do it once or twice over again, you are set for the exam. 2) I went to two different TAs and they were like my personal tutors (Andraz Kavalar is amazing! He has done so much to help his students! He had extra office hours, typed up class notes for us and also explained every problem in a great detail (and then posted it on his website). Try to get him! If not him, then Shi Wei) 3) I did not read the book (I am a book person) and I went to the lectures, but they did not help as much as solving the practice questions a couple of times before the exam and understanding EVERY type of question. Professor Buddin replies to every email and his curve is too generous :) If you need to fix your GPA after Mcdevitt, definitely take him!

Surrender yourself to the truth that only less than 5 professors in the econ department can teach (Mozzoco, Ackerberg and McDevitt just to name a few), and you will appreciate Buddin. Although Buddin is not one of the 5, he is an excellent example of how to get the job done if you lack talent. Lets face it, being an awesome lecturer requires talent, but getting the students prepared for the course doesn't. What Buddin lacks in talent, he makes up for it with hardwork and organization. His voice may make you go to sleep, but go home and look at his notes and homework problems, they are GOLD. His homework provides so many different applications of examples in great detail and if you are self motivated enough to study through them, you will enjoy this course. There's no real surprises in the mid terms (same as homework!!!), but the final really tests your knowledge on the whole course. Best advice is to score full marks for both mid terms (totally do-able) and take it easy for the finals. Plus he is really lenient with his grading and the class curve!!!

Buddin tried, he really did, but it was impossible to not fall asleep in his lectures. He seemed like a really nice guy, like the type of guy you wouldn't mind being your uncle or something, but he wasn't that effective as a lecturer. He made a lot of resources available to his students. He posted all the lectures, gave us review problems in the book, and even gave us a HUGE packet of review problems for both midterms and finals. The only problem was that he spent a long time explaining theory, but then he'd fly through the examples [that were done on powerpoint]. I find theory more interesting, so it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but we were never tested on theory. All the questions on the tests were actual problems, all pertaining to mathematically find the solution [that he'd never fully explain in lecture]. So make sure you get a good TA or go to office hours every week, or else you're screwed. All said and done, I'm not exactly sure what I learned since I had to teach myself everything.
BREAKDOWN:
2 midterms, 25% of your grade each
1 final, 50% of your grade
He made a deal with us: if you score much higher on your final than your 2 midterms, he'll make the grade breakdown 20% each for the midterms and 60% for the final.

Positives (+)
+gave us a lot of resources to utilize
+was nice and approachable
+sort of funny... he tried I guess
+I got an A- in the class, despite the fact I taught myself everything

Negatives (-)
-lecture gets out 20 to 30 minutes early everyday... Cool the first 4 times, but when you get a C- on the midterm, you want him to actually use all the time we pay a lot of money for
-doesn't explain how to answer problems very well
-talks in a really monotone voice...not good for a 3pm class where you just want to sleep

just took his final. i think i owned it even though it was pretty tricky. buddin made the problems on the final SLIGHTLY different from the review problems so you had to really know what you were doing with the numbers. i went to 1 lecture and then i took the advice of everyone else who has had buddin--just practice the review problems. instead of lecture, i usually went to 2 ta sessions per week...one with Wei and one with Ji-Yeon... so that i didn't have to learn much on my own. the tests, especially the midterms, are time-pressured so be aware!!!!!!!!! now onto 102 with mcdevitt in the fall. teehee

I don't know why everyone's hating on this guy, he was so nice! He graded his tests very fairly (even though they were pretty hard tests) And overall he was just a really nice guy and there to help. His lectures were less about the math and more about the concepts, but the homework and tests were all computations. He made it pretty apparent that Economics is about thinking about the math you're doing and interpreting it. Overall, he was a really happy professor and made the vibe of the room very cozy (it was pretty hard to stay awake sometimes, but I blame Dodd 147 for that). More professors should be like him

retarded teacher..everyone in the class just takes it cuase they know hes retarded..u dont learn anything

Boring class, never went to class, just study the practice questions before the midterms, and he has a nice curve at the end of class.

he graded his final really loose. i walked out of the final thought i straight failed, turned out i got 105/160, the class average was 83/160. maybe he is nice because it's his last quarter at UCLA. regardless of how bad he is, you probably won't take him again. really nice guy though. therefore this is probably the last review about buddin. na na na na na na na na hey hey hey goooodbyeeeee.

worse class I have ever taken! it is extremely boring. Only about 1/4 of the students attempt to go to the lecture after the midterm because he cant teach. I say attempt because people start leaving once he start talking. true story.
Run if you hate teaching yourself calculus.
Rejoice if you are a calculus genius. This is going to be an easy A. There's zilch econ involved in this class.

He sucks. Nuff said