One of my least favorite econ classes to date. As someone who has never taken a finance class before this, I found the material pretty interesting but difficult to grasp. Nevertheless, the only reason I was able to understand anything was through reading the textbook (which I found out I had to do anyways after the midterm). Professor Williams isn't that great of a lecturer (they tend to be pretty confusing and irrelevant imo), and the material he goes over isn't even necessarily tested. He goes over some topics from the book and then introduces new ones not in it. Literally, don't go to lecture. The midterm and final are tested straight from the book, and since he doesn't even go over all the material from the book during lecture, they're completely useless. There's also a 10 page research paper you're required to do, which should be an easy A if you just put the time and effort into it.

I won't go into too much detail, but the proctoring for his midterm was an absolute shit show and one of the main reasons I disliked this class (outside having to learn the material on my own). We were supposed to have 95 questions and extra time to finish it, but there was an issue with printing or something so we were given the first half with no explanation followed by the other half over midway through and no time after lecture was over. This really through me off and I know a lot of other students were also p.o. with him. Professor William's response was that there was nothing he could really do about it, so I guess that's that.

Anyways, take this class if you don't attend lectures anyway and can get away with reading 5+ chapters the night before the exams.

extremely helpful if reading textbook thoroughly

sell PDF version of textbook at $5

text ********** if interested.

Prof Williams is clearly a working professional, not well acquainted with actual academics. He spends lectures talking about random stuff, sometimes referring to book chapters (but omits important, and testable, information). I definitely didn't mind talking about the news! Good to keep updated. One he said that Banks balance sheets are Assets = Liabilities for an entire lecture, only to realize at the end he forgot about Bank Capital (Equity). Quite similar accounting formula. If you are Ok just reading the chapters, do that. He does NOT write his own tests, they are straight from a professors source through the book, thus all the material is learn-able by reading lectures. I ended with a 90% in the course (I apparently didn't have enough numbers in a qualitative based paper smh), was given a B, but when I reached out he bumped me up to a B+. Basically need to ace the class to get an A. Definitely doable, but the fact that he down curves his grades that much says something about his tests/class.

Anyways, I started off thinking he was quirky and just sort of out of it, but lost respect for how he handled the final in terms of the quarantine/COVID-19 outbreak. He should have listened to the university and looked at grades before finals week (I had a 97%), but didn't mention anything of the sort. Expected people not to cheat (when they clearly would bc quizlet had all the answers), and didn't stop the grades from down-curving severely when most people googled the questions.

DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASS! He's grade composes of a midterm, a final, and a final paper. The exams have nothing to do with his lectures. You can expect NONE of the exam multiple choices are covered in class. His class is indeed with a lot of real life examples. But all these examples come with a price that he DOES NOT cover what he supposed to cover. For the exams, hope for the best, because there's literally NO PRACTICAL WAY to review for it. His questions are come from nowhere.