ESPONDA I
He is mean and unfair
He's lecture is actually fun. There are two way to count grade, 45% final 35% in-class activity and 20%problem sets or 100% final depends on whatever grant you higher total grade. Problem sets is graded on completion but in-class activity is kinda annoying since group work every time. The final is easy. He avoided 75% of thing that I don't know.
Closest you can get to MIT / Harvard at UCSB. Best Professor I've had in the econ dept. Low stress class with high reward. Highly highly recommend!
Professor Esponda is one of the best professor in the Econ department. You literally play games and learn about strategies in class. About half of the class pts are freebies if you show up and do the homework problems. Accessible and incredibly helpful outside of class. Class has a long waitlist but if you have an opportunity 100% take his class!
Professor Esponda is great, and there's a reason that his courses fill up fast, and have huge waitlists. Cares that you are engaged and interested, grading is fair for how much effort you put in. Final was 100% based upon the assignments and discussions. Got a B because I didn't do an assignment that ended up on the final. 10/10 class.
He made game theory a really easy class with very little computational requirements and simple concepts. The grading system is very lenient where you have the ability to just take the final and your final exam grade will be the grade you get in the final. Though, attending the lectures and solving the problem sets would be more beneficial.
Esponda is one of the best professors in his department, and consistently displays his kindness and eagerness to teach to his students. Do yourself a favor and sign up for his class.
You can't find anyone better than him in the Economics department. When you take classes with him, you are home.
Professor Ignacio Esponda is the best teacher I have ever had. He is an amazing lecturer and the content in this class is so interesting. This class really changed my career and academic trajectory. Esponda is such a caring person and understands that this class can be difficult; he is very accessible and helpful. If you can take this class, DO IT!
My favorite econ professor!!! Super fair and seems to really care about his students. Class is very interactive (you literally play games) so its not boring. No midterms, 4 problem sets, and a final. Final is completely open notes because the problems require applying logic not an exact formula. A pretty easy class if you put in some effort.
Prof. Esponda's Game Theory class is the best Econ class I have ever taken. If you like logic problems, you will love this class. Grading policy is very friendly and clear. His lectures are a ton of fun and you will not have to pick up a textbook once - just go to lecture, play the games and understand the concepts and logic. Highly recommend!