who liked Macroeconomics ??? vol...college elective

That class was boring as @#@$

Passed w/ a B though
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Craftsy21 wrote:
intro econ classes should be simple, macro and micro.


I agree completely and would add that it is unproductive to include any more just a little math in an intro class. Economic ideas are, initially counterintuitive and advanced algebra and calculus, advanced or otherwise, is a distraction and not helpful at that point.

My extraordinary intro to micro professor, who is the reason why even people, who disagree with me often times respect my economic reasoning, even told me,when I was in his price theory class, that he did not want to much math or very much abstract theory or anything about game theory or ideas from industrialorganization. He said it was disservice to the econ major who need a solid foundation and can learn the advanced stuff later and it was an even biggerdisservice to the business and social science students, who only take the intro classes.

He choose quality over quantity, we covered about ten different things like demand, supply, elasticity, average and marginal costs, marginal revenues and firmsin competitive markets and firms in market that are less competitive and more monopolistic. What he did he made us understand thoroughly because you will notgo far in more advanced courses if you are still tripping over quantity demanded versus demand and making other rudimentary mistakes. He also was wise todedicate the entire first lesson to helping tell us what economics was not (it is not business administration or a magical way to predict the stock market) andhe showed us slides and pictures such as color wheel to talk to use about how we must think at the margin and a road map to tell us that economics is aboutabstraction, simplifications of reality that serve us better, for certain purposes, then detailed portraits. Just like a squire learns about chivalry beforeusing a sword, we have to learn the correct philosophy before seeing a single model, chart or graph.

To all of the CSUN students who need micro econ or price theory or managerial econ, this professor's name is Richard Tontz, take him if at all possible.
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Damn Rex. After reading and reflecting on your posts, I kinda want to take micro now (I was intending on taking macro now, then micro).

I've heard some GODAWFUL things about the micro teachers at my school and some contrasting opinions about macro profs. I found it a lil' ironic thatyou emphasized the need of a good instructor.

Worst case scenario, let's say that I do take macro now, will I really be at a disadvantage? I'd say I have a decent knowledge of economics, but am nowhere as learned as some here (I've learned a lot from your posts), so I don't believe that I'll be lost or anything.

Also, what books would you recommend I check out? I'd like to squeeze some reading in before school starts.
 
psh rex reads mind thats how he passed
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but Ive been thinking of having economics as a minor for college but Im not to sure. Too many people I know want to major in that or business.
 
Got 6 classes left before I earn my degree and I got both macro & micro economics this semester. Sounds like I'm not going to have any fun
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Im an Econ major at UCSD, intro courses arent too bad. Once you get into the upper divison they start picking up a lot
 
HA, F Macro and Micro. Got C's in both classes @ CSUN. Hate anything and everything that has to do w/ Econ.
 
Macro was easy...I got the book still with some stuff highlighted and everything...check your PM.

Easy class for me.
 
I'm taking both Micro and Macro at the same time because they are my last classes. Is this going to be tough?
 
I actually found Macro to be easier than Micro - and i enjoyed macro a lot more than micro, so maybe that's part of it... but i have to say if i hadstopped taking economics after those two intro courses, i would've assumed economics sucked
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luckily i kept going and really came to love most of it.

Game theory is incredibly interesting, and i really even enjoyed the math parts of it. One of my favorite topics (though the prof was boring as sin) was aboutstudying the differences in why some countries have succeeded and others have failed - some fascinating stuff in that field, check out gapminder.com sometimeto play with the graphs they have, they really paint a good picture of what's going on in the world and give you good clues as to why some places are richand others are not.
 
Originally Posted by BCF06

I'm taking both Micro and Macro at the same time because they are my last classes. Is this going to be tough?
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You'll be fine. They're intro classes - it'd be no harder than taking History 100, it'll take some studying if you're foreignto the ideas but there's no complex thinking involved in 100 level econ classes, as there shouldn't be.

I would say it's all very straight-forward in econ until you get up to 400 level and beyond - depending on your school's curriculum of course. Butuntil you get into econometrics and monetary theory, the rest should make pretty good sense to the average college student.
 
LittlePeteWrigley wrote:
Damn Rex. After reading and reflecting on your posts, I kinda want to take micro now (I was intending on taking macro now, then micro).

I've heard some GODAWFUL things about the micro teachers at my school and some contrasting opinions about macro profs. I found it a lil' ironic that you emphasized the need of a good instructor.

Worst case scenario, let's say that I do take macro now, will I really be at a disadvantage? I'd say I have a decent knowledge of economics, but am no where as learned as some here (I've learned a lot from your posts), so I don't believe that I'll be lost or anything.

Also, what books would you recommend I check out? I'd like to squeeze some reading in before school starts.
Get Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics. It is like 280 or so although some of it is macro so in order to get a good micro foundation youprobably would only need to read about 200 pages of it and it is a pretty easy 200 pages because it is full of inetresting empirical examples and is written byone of best peopel ever to have written about economics or any subject, the book also has no math or charts or graphs.

Read that and you will have taught yourself a good foundation, which will make macro very easy. In some intro macro classes, you memorize various formulae andjust do math problem and/or you just take things as articles of faith, if A happens then B happens type of stuff. A lot of peopel pass macro through rotememorization and end up having wasted lots of time memorizing meaningless ideas.

If you read Sowell's book, you will have that base established (and while a great teacher of micro is ideal, reading Sowell's book is better than a badmicro teacher) and you will not need to rely on rote memorization and the you will not have to study very much for macro, you will understand why an answer isthe righ tanswer and you can reason your way through a problem because you understand it at its core.

If you read Sowell's book, you will end up saving lots of time during the semester because you will not have to study nearly as much as most of yourclassmates so that will give you more time to study for other classes and/or more free time to enjoy. and you also can get something out of your macro classand being able to understand and appreciate it will help you with further study of econ, business or any other social science.

One more reason I suggest you read basic economics is while it truly is flattering to know that some o my posts have been educational for yo uand you soundlike some who has probably picked up a lot of knowledge from various sources like political and business news, you really still reall ywant a very cohensive,coherant and unifed economic mindset and Thomas Sowell's book provides exactly that in a very lucid and enjoyable manner.


psh rex reads mind thats how he passed
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Why the
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? Why not give me a
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because in addition to reading minds, I can see the future and like Jedi Knight, canmake my most trusted weapon, my TI83 fly back into my hand through telekinesis and if all else fails I was able to convince my professor to give me A'swith a wave of my hand. Like the Internet, Economics is serious business.
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Thanks a million, Rex. Truly appreciate the help.

I looked up the book just now and (unfortunately) it's not 280 pages. In fact, it's 600+ pages.

Either way, I'll get my hands on it ASAP. Thanks again.
 
I enjoyed it. Professor wasn't all that enjoyable, but the info absorbed was interesting new know how.
 
I forgot it was that lengthy, for the purposes of becoming sharp with basic micro, you will not need to read all 600 pages, probably the first few chapters,about 200 pages will suffice. Later on he has a few chapters about macro, about government policy, a bit about financial markets and labor economics andexternalities, if I recall correctly. You can read that whenever you want as needed.

If I am ever teaching an intro to micro class, I will assign that book as my text book and I will use the class room lectures to discuss the book and since thebook has no graphs, I would be the one to draw and thoroughly explain the graphs that are important.
 
I actually liked macro, I got an A. Alot of it has to do with basic graphs, formulas, and terms. If you remember for test/ exams, you'll pass.
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