Avoid this class if you care about your sanity & your GPA. Too many readings and papers. Expectations to succeed on lengthy research papers were unclear, lectures were unorganized (yet mandatory), grading was tougher than other Econ electives, & the amount of reading is absolutely absurd. 50% of your grade is attendance but only counts against you.

Professor Ebenstein is very disorganized and openly admits to being right-leaning in his lectures, going on tangents about things that have nothing to do with the subject matter. He makes it difficult to discern what will get you a good grade, and he stresses attendance despite his lectures detailing nothing actually relevant to the class. ew.

He assigns 70 pages of reading before each lecture and then assigns an in class quiz on the reading. I usually dont have a problem with reading but when its 70 pages for every lecture i think it starts to get out of hand. Its also a little annoying that you have no way to meet with TA who grades your papers. Besides these problems the prof is nice.

Professor Ebenstein is a charming instructor. People interested in history (and hating math) will surely find their interest in his lectures. However, the homework grading by TAs is remarkably slow. They don't give you any reasons for getting a low score. Please give this extraordinary professor more TAs.

40 pages of writing thru quarter, so f you aren't good at writing, don't take. Lectures are incoherent, rambling, tangential, and he jumps around between time periods so you're left confused ( no slides, just him talking to the camera). Also, some things he lectures aren't even historically accurate. Easy class but extremely boring.

Took 113B in person with him last quarter, it was pretty interesting and an easy-ish A. If classes are still via zoom DO NOT TAKE HIM unless you like to write. He replaced his attendance grade with a weekly paper. Not a super hard class, but not interesting at all and lots of busy work. There are much better econ classes, especially online.

Really boring class especially because his teaching style is super old school! Hes a really nice guy and is always willing to talk to you but the class is just way too boring. Its not as hard as other econ classes but if you need an econ elective I would personally take 106 with Benelli

Ebenstein presents a unique, valuable, and applicable perspective on economics while also remaining open minded to considering opposing views in class or office hours. Unfortunately, his lectures can sometimes be a bit poorly organized or repetitive.

This is the most useless class I've ever taken. He held lectures that weren't useful at all, but then forced everyone to come because he'd pass around an attendance sheet in an entire lecture hall. He would lecture on a book and get things wrong, and his "slides" were just his hand-written outline projected onto a screen.

If you are an econ major at ucsb and you see any history of econ class by ebenstein, TAKE THE CLASS. Ebenstein is a friendly, forgiving, easy grader and you learn a lot from the course too! There are random pop quizzes based on readings that have obvious answers, not meant to trick you. There is 1 midterm, 1 final (non-cum), and 1 final paper.

Attendance/Quizzes 40%, Mid-Term 15%, Paper 25%, Final 20%. Daily reading assignments (8-15 pages). 4-question true/false pop quiz once a week based on the reading. 10-page essay. In-class midterm consisted of 7 multiple-choice and 3 essay questions. Final was take-home. Overall, the material is easy, but grading is harsh.

Can't say enough bad things. Just don't take his class. Mandatory attendance, only one absence allowed. Horrible, boring, irrelevant lectures. No guidance for the paper. I wanted to like this class but I hated every second of it.

Took this class in Fall '24. Lanny is super nice and wants his class to learn and think about topics. Attendance mandatory. Go to office hours and make an effort. Feel like it was hard to get a solid A, but A- is attainable if you work hard on your essays. Final essay was long but I enjoyed his lectures, he's got a lot of knowledge and good insight

- mandatory attendance at end of class with roll sheet - random quizzes in the beginning of class to ensure you don't just show up for the roll sheet - quiz material published 23 hrs prior to quiz (he believes getting ahead is bad for the student) - lack of grading transparency - rambles and when isn't rambling, repeats readings verbatim. - liar

He wants you to cite lecture, his rambles that don't have pertinent information on anything about economic history. When he is talking about stuff that's useful it's just exactly what the reading was so why even attend lecture ? Because he makes attendance mandatory. Also, he provides no feedback/reasons on grades, so you can get a C without reason

Lectures are difficult to follow and Paper grading is confusing. Make sure you discuss immediately after class if you have any issue, for he might not email back if after a follow-up. This is a philosophy course instead of an economics-related. Kinda disappointed after taking this course after seeing other comments.

He is mostly interested in historical style essays more than analytical. Attendance was 50% of your grade

All his classes follow the same structure There are 4 aspects to grading 1 Attendance 2 Quizzes are random & sometimes announced - they are 4 questions MC and T/F always based on the daily read 3 Write-Ups based on the lecture material 4 Research papers 2500-3000 words 7 sources. Go to class, take notes and read. Amazing Prof and easy A if you try.

Ebensteins classes all follow a very specific and predictable pattern and getting an A in one is as easy as memorizing the following: do the readings and go to class. Doing those 2 things will give you ALL the information you need to do every write up (3 in the whole course) and give you so many paper topic ideas (2 in the course.). Great professor

Professor Ebenstein is a gem in the Econ department! Unique, lecture-based class. If you have an interest in the topics discussed, then the class is fairly engaging and refreshing. You get out what you put in. Decent amount of assigned reading and writing. If you have the opportunity, would recommend taking at least one of his courses!

This guy is the goat.

The professor could do better in making the class interesting: His lectures are somewhat disorganized, and the lack of ppt presentation made it hard to review key material. The worst part of this course is the TA, who grade everything. My TA always procrastinated and lack the skills needed to grade the write-ups properly. Don't take the course.

For the returning Fall2021 quarter he put emphasis on in class pop quizzes as attendance for"push factor"during final grading. So definitely not covid friendly. Took absence of students personally. His TA gives out random B- and B's to keep you in a certain range. Easy A if you skim through the readings and attend. But its -VERY- boring.

super nice and interesting guy! lots of reading and 500 word weekly writing assignments. 2 papers, 2500 words, and a written final. honestly you can skim the readings and do well, no section, lectures can get boring and rambly but he's great about answering questions in OH and is very accommodating. kind of feels like a history class!