Honestly the worst instructor I've had in my entire life. Restates the book in lecture but somehow makes the book seem even more unclear. Does not teach how to do any of the problems that will appear on the midterms. If TA Sarah was not in charge of the problem sets I would have failed the class along with many more students who I'm sure agree. Sad

All in all this class is pretty easy to do good in. The whole class revolves around different applications of Cobb Douglas, quasi-linear, perfect substitute, and perfect complement utility functions. The teacher does not teach the material enough, but it's to be expected, this is the econ gatekeeper class, youtube is your best friend here.

Hartman, 10A, the gatekeeper of ECON major. This is a weeder class, what are you expecting. Prof Hartman is very accessible and you can find him easily in his office hours, but the lecture is just really boring (both recorded and live). I also did not find the live lecture useful. Syllabus is quite generous (lowest drop). If you try you can make it

It's the well-known gatekeeper 10A so be prepared. It is a hard class but with Prof Hartman's grading system, as long as you are not a transfer, it should not be too hard to be admitted into the major. Pay attention to all lectures and go to TA sections (tbh sections are very helpful) and you will be able to get enough grade for the major.

Terrible professor. In my four years at UCSB, he is by far the worst professor I have ever taken. You learn absolutely nothing from his lectures. The tests and lectures feel like completely different material. You need to teach yourself or learn from Sarah, the best TA there is.

If the TA Sarah becomes the instructor of 10A, the average score will at least go up by 10%.

Prof basically reads off the slides and doesn't elaborate. But the TAs are amazing. Don't buy the textbook, there's a pdf online and it's not helpful anyways.

had not had one bad experience with a single professor until i took his class, he does not make any effort to help students or explain any material and a week before vaccines were available to the public he sent out an email warning students that sickness from the vaccine was not an excuse for an extention/to do poorly

You will have to teach yourself the test material, because you certainly will not learn it from him.

Hartman is pretty much the definition of mediocre. He gives you the very basics of the topics in his lectures (does not elaborate) and it's up to you to go read the book and watch the TA's do problem sets in order to really understand.

As a class, 10A isn't too bad (as long as you aren't a transfer). If you do a ton of practice tests (and you understand what you're doing) you should be fine. As for Hartman, he's super unenthusiastic in lectures and a lot of the things he says are vague/ unnecessary. I found myself relying much more on the TAs than I did Hartman for help.

I cant even get myself to watch his lectures, he speaks so monotone and just reads off the slides not explaining anything in depth! Its super frustrating and makes me not want to learn the material . Ive gone to his office hours for questions on old exams and he just rambles on about test taking strategies and doesn't answer the actual question

The worst professor I have ever had. I hope the econ department removes this man because he has no clue how to teach a class. He teaches you nothing, you need to teach yourself virtually everything in this class.

Harsh man who cared little about fairness and his students. The course was even worse than before: raise curve for A from 87% (before pandemic) to 93%; set sequential navigation in tests (must finish one question before proceeding to next one); increased toughness of tests, making doing past papers futile. BTW he's not even a professor yet.

Not great at explaining and just breezes through so the class is a self study course basically

You're going to have to teach yourself all the material, however they did change the class set up for COVID and it was a bit easier to obtain a B however the test's are very hard. They do give you old midterms to use to study, but do not rely on the teachers to actually teach you the material. Good luck.

One of the worst professors Ive ever had this past semester. The way he has gone about Corona has been to pre-record everything, hold only ONE 30 minute lecture per week to ask questions. Only about 50% of his teaching is on the tests so try to ace everything else and be prepared to fail those. Class averages for the last 3 tests were Fs.

Gave boring lectures that provided surface level knowledge of concepts. Did not teach much beyond that. Best way to pass this class is do all the practice exams and problem sets. Maybe he would have been better in person, but he was a dull professor online.

Terrible. Definitely worst lecturer I met in UCSB. And he's not willing to help cause he don't care about the students.

Unhelpful. DON'T take his class!!!

WIth an online class, the grading policy was reasonable since they had a drop for every category. I didn't read any of the textbook and only watched the lectures from which you could get As. The material is tough but there is enough practice to score well. Hartman could answer questions better and he is quite annoying but it is a doable class.

He gives terrible lectures. He just read the PPT quickly and lack of clear explanations. He just assume students know everything and he does not answer academic question through email outside the class. The course content is relative easy but how can we pay for a professor who offers such limited help.

His lectures just go over the slides and talks about the general theories of micro-economics. However, every question on the tests require you to apply those concepts to solve problems with numbers. The math isn't hard at all but its knowing what to do for each problem which he doesn't cover. MT1: 100% MT2: 100% Final: 96%

The class is hard, there is a lot of material but the underlying concepts are really the same. A 72% in the class is a B which is what transfers need to pass. Even then you can take the final twice in order to get in. Frankly, most people don't get in because they aren't studying enough or weak math skill. Practice exams are the name of the game.