He basically did nothing and all is on your own. But TA is great in this class.
The worst prof I have ever seen. He didn't teach (another professor gave lectures) and answered few questions (mostly done by TAs). The only thing he did presumably was quizzes and exams, which were disasters. Questions were inexplicably hard and littered with errors. Grading's also terrible. In short, decent class, nice TA, avoid prof at all costs
I never attended a single class and got a B. The class is 2 tests, midterm and final. Maybe I got lucky idk
Generous curve only because the tests are designed to be stupid hard. He gives practice questions but even if you get all the practice questions right you should only hope for a 70 on the tests. The professor is a good guy. I'm giving 5 stars for him but the class is a good negative 5.
Vespa is a great professor who cares about his students. As stated before, the curve is very generous. I got an 80/100 total in the class and received an A-. Do all of the practice problems and make sure you understand the material and you will definitely pass. Going to lecture helps a lot, but most of the class skipped it. Thanks, Vespa!!
Honestly as a 3rd year Ive seen a lot of harder Professors. Vespa is nice and he might be harsh but he gives out reasonable grades . For gods sake the curve for 100b is so generous. If he graded on a normal scale yall would get Fs. I did study my ass off and only got a B but it could be a lot worse so thank you Vespa I think ur a decent professor
He's pretty bad at explaining, the tests are quite difficult. He's a little hard to understand. I don't recommend taking him, but he maybe the only one teaching that class, so you may be stuck with him. The whole Econ dept has a weird grading policy, but his teaching didn't help.
Omg I dont even know what to say . Im a stats major yet the 100b midterm I just took was the hardest test Ive ever taken: he made it so unnecessarily hard.
Not much homework. Strong accent for me. Sometimes shows an important slide for only a sec (but u can review on gs later) sometimes shows a useless slide for a long time. First quiz and final r easy, but the 2nd and 3rd quiz r a little hard. If u did good in AP microecon, u must be fine even without CLAS tho u may freak out because of the curve.
Vespa seems like a decent guy, but going to lecture is basically useless since you dont actually learn from what hes saying. Get ready to teach yourself Econ
Fairly speaking, it's not a hard class. The grading policy looks pretty intimidating but it will end up almost the same as normal grading system. CLAS is super helpful because the lecture doesn't really prepare you for the test. Reading is not heavy. I did each practice quiz/test at least 3 times before test and it's really helpful.
It was Vespas first time teaching Econ 1 and he was prettt decent considering that. I think its more the way the class is structured and less the professor: its reading and lecture heavy but the exams are all practical application problems that are never gone over in class. CLAS is a must if you want to do well in this class.
For his first time teaching Econ 1, I think he did a relatively decent job. I also personally think hes a pretty level headed person. A slight warning though: you will have to attend CLAS, keep up with the readings, and put in a lot of supplemental work to do well if Microecon isnt really your thing. Homework is important. The practice exams help
Worst professor ever! Makes tests way harder than all the past exams. He doesnt explain anything at all in lecture. And you can read all u want but when U see the practice tests you wont understand how to do the problems at all! I learned everything myself took me 72929 hours
Vespa is such a bad professor. The material for Econ1 isn't hard but he over complicates examples in class and seems clueless about what he's talking about. Constantly contradicts himself and didn't know how to explain simple econ1 concepts. Going to class was mandatory but a huge waste of time.
THIS PROFESSOR DOES NOT CARE ABOUT HIS STUDENTS. He makes the material so much more difficult than it needs to be and refuses to clarify when you seek his help. I do not understand how he is still teaching courses here.
He substituted for the 100b prof one day. Hes horrible, which is accurate for UCSB Econ. He skipped over examples in the lecture, which are usually the one useful thing you can get from lecture. Everything else is useless theory youll never use in life. Thanks for nothing!
Interesting class
How can people hate this man? As a person, he's very nice. Then for your grade, he's not hard. 4 online quizzes. 1 every other week. Difficult but you get 5 hours to take them so there's no reason to not get 100%. Then the final was extremely easy, I only missed 1 question and I started studying for the final at 11pm the night before an 8 am final.
Extremely hard to follow lectures, constantly contradicts himself, very over-complicated explanations, only material you have to study are practice problem sets, which hardly help and by no means reflect the difficulty of the exams, you absolutely need a good TA, the homework problem sets are not required, but you seriously need them, good luck
Although he's very confusing in lectures, this class does require work outside of the class. Go to sections and do the practice reviews he posts online. Class has lot of material but the grading is a lot more beneficial or you can say curved in favor of student.
I don't know why or how, but he makes the material more complicated than it should be. TAs taught me more in 50 mins than Vespa does in a week. Do and understand all the practice problems, since they make up the majority of the exams.
RUN!! Just horrible, contradicts himself in lectures and the tests are nothing like the lectures or even the problem sets, all tricky multiple choice.
Hes unfair, sometimes rude, doesn't explain anything as it applies to tests and overall a horrible teacher. I can't say I learned anything of use for the rest in this class and he was no help to me learning any of what i learned for his tests